New Zealander Jonathan Brownlee recently purchased his 51st investment property. His portfolio is now worth more than $20 million and he’s only 26.

He reminded B.Invested founder Nathan Birch of himself at the same age, so Nathan decided to pick his brain and see what made him tick.

Nathan asked Jonathan what the main factors were when it came to being able to get 51 properties.

Financial awakening

Jonathan says the number one factor that helped him was learning how finance works.

Once he began his journey he had a natural interest in figuring out the way that banks viewed him as a potential borrower. He needed to figure out how to get them to keep lending to him so he could finance his growing portfolio and those lessons were very valuable.

Sometimes it involved talking to mortgage brokers on the phone, or other financial professionals and learning insights from the knowledge and experience that they already had.

This ongoing learning process backs up one of Nathan’s favourite mantras, which is that you’ve got to surround yourself with the right people and get yourself educated.

The thrill of the chase

Another key to Jonathan’s success has been a passion for finding the best property deals. Once he tasted success, it made him even keener for the next great deal.

Again, this is something Nathan could relate to, having always been obsessed with property and researching listings portals until all hours of the night, plus familiarising himself with different markets and making contact with the best agents in those markets.

I can see clearly

Nathan has always been a fan of having clarity when it comes to goals. It’s about a clear vision of where you want to get to with your investments, plus looking at the process like a business, rather than something emotional.

He says it’s important to workshop multiple scenarios and base your figures on what would be the worst case scenario. That way you’re more in tune with risk, the right moves to make and the steps needed to make that happen along the way. And then, it’s all about taking action to get it done, rather than sitting on the sidelines.

Communication is key

Finally, Jonathan found that one skill of his to vastly improve while building his portfolio was communication. He spent a lot of time on the phone and the more that he did, the more he realised he needed to be able to communicate clearly to build the relationships that would enable him to make the deals he needed to get ahead.

It’s still possible

People might look at stories like Jonathan’s and think the ship has sailed, but that’s also what people thought when Nathan was Jonathan’s age with a similar number of properties. It is still possible to build multimillion-dollar portfolios in this day and age if you get your strategy right and stick to your goals.