 Good day, fellow investors. This video is about motivation and we'll discuss the real story of how me and my wife turned 15,000 euros into 150,000 over less than four years with real estate. I think it's so important because whenever I discuss real hands-on investments, be it real estate, mortgage, stocks or something like that and when I really believe those are good investments, I get so many comments like, but spend this, but real estate prices are in a bubble, but real estate prices might go down, but copper prices are down and will go lower. There will be a recession, there will be a stock market crash, etc. And I really want to take this video as a motivation to get rid of your butts, to get up from your butt and to start doing things and to start thinking in a progressive way when it comes to investing. And I'll share seven tips, steps, how you can really take advantage of what's going on in the environment, be it stocks, be it real estate and really give you the example. The seven steps are the following. The first one, find undervalued, not recognized investments by the market. Be a contrarian, find limited assets that have limited supply, put things into historical perspective, use good debt, create worst and best case scenarios, find the margin of safety. So let's go to the story. A few years ago this was a house that was sold, it was 294,000 euros and it was a nice house in a little village close to Amsterdam. I was working hard to get a permanent job, to be able to buy a mortgage, we were renting and I saw that okay, if we buy a house like this, the mortgage payment after taxes will be equal to the rent we are paying for a small apartment without a garden and with two rooms less than this house. So we decided okay, let's look for real estate, we looked at a thousand real estates online, we visited about 50 and we picked this house to buy. We first offered 260, that was a little bit low and the seller said let's meet at halfway, so we bought it for 280,000 on credit, on mortgage. We added 5000 of our own money and we got 300,000 mortgage that allowed us to do refurbishment. So we bought a house for 300,000. It was a terrible looking house, it was a healthy house, that's why we bought it, but it was a cheap house, it was a crowded house, it was a dirty house. It was not a well maintained house because the seller was forced to sell because of divorce unfortunately and he was very keen on that house so he didn't want to sell. As you can see it doesn't look at all attractive, but the walls were healthy so we said okay, we are going to buy this and we are going to turn it into something we like. Four years later we really worked hard on that and we sold it for 469,000. I think the selling price was about 442, so we made after some mortgage repayments about 150,000 euros on 15,000 investments. Look at what we did, we simply refurbished the complete house, put new floors, wooden floors, painted the whole house. It looks really differently than it looked before, put it in new kitchen, I'm not even going to show you what the kitchen looked like back then. This is the office, my office where I worked a lot also on these videos and while we were living there, we refurbished the rooms, also wooden flooring, upstairs, in the attic also. I redid the garden, it was some people go to the gym and pay a monthly subscription or you can take your own garden and fix it and trust me it works better than the gym. So let's start on the points, one it was undervalued, why it was undervalued? I paid for a catastrophe data to get all the prices of all the homes sold in the last 5 years in the area and I saw that a house 20 meters from this house, equal house, was just sold when I was buying that one for 440,000 just because it was refurbished. And then I said ok, it looks like there are no prices below what we are paying, so we are paying a bargain bottom price and the upside is very, very high just from refurbishing because in the Netherlands, especially in that area, people don't like refurbishing, they want to get in their slippers into their new house, it has to be perfect. That is worth 50,000, 100,000 euros, so that was one. We were looking at the whole market and buying a bargain, so we made money, I think 50% of what we made came from the refurbishing, 50% because home prices went up over the last 4 years. So that's one. Number two, be a contrarian. So this is the Dutch home price market. You see how home prices in the long run go up, but there are always these booms and busts and these busts can be very terrible. So when we were buying a house there, everybody was saying Sven, don't buy, don't buy, prices might go lower, you might be in trouble, underwater, blah, blah, blah, but we decided not to look or bet on prices going higher or lower and many of you are waiting for lower prices or higher prices. We just looked how the rent for the similar home would be 1800 back then, now probably above 2000. Mortgage cost after tax was 1100, so we had a margin of safety there, we could always rent out the house and simply after 25 years to have a house. Probably home prices in the Netherlands, given what the ECB is doing, will continue to go up, up and up with a fixed mortgage, you know what the deal is there. So win, win situation. Number three, limited supply. This is the area we were buying into. So you see Amsterdam and then you see this green area, which is one of the richest areas of the Netherlands. The soil is not fertile, so you don't have agriculture, but you have trees, you have woods and you have a lot of villas. And we liked the green area and then we said, okay, let's buy here. Plus, this is the area of what is sold, the map from the Dutch Zillow, let's say, or right move. And you see here, okay, these are all the houses, but if I put less than half a million, there is just a few houses and there is one house next to our then that was just sold. So you see that there wasn't a lot of supply for those with less than half a million. And there isn't still now that wanted to live exactly in that area. So we bought in a luxurious area. There is no new building and there will never will be new buildings in that village because that's how things are. That's limited natural area and you know how that goes. Then again, putting things into historical perspective before it was being contrarian because nobody wants to buy, but long term home prices go up, there might be ups and downs, as I said. And the Central Bank is cutting its deposit rate, lowering interest rates, helping those that are in debt like the Fed and that's it. Number five, use good debt. I made a video about a fixed mortgage. So check that out. Whatever happens, you will do great. There will be inflation somewhere over the next 40 years. That's guaranteed. And after 30 years, you have a great asset because it's a limited asset. Then number six, create worst and best case scenarios. What was my worst case scenario? Worst case scenario was, okay, home prices go down for a few years, but my seeing was, okay, either we will live there or we will rent it out and the rent will cover the mortgage over 30 years. It's very likely home prices will go up because the whole system in Europe, if home prices go down, especially in the Netherlands, blows up because if you get 100% mortgages and home prices go down, it simply blows up. So they need those home prices to go up, up, up and up, and that's what they will continue to do. And then also when it comes to that, you are buying an asset. An asset that is like a business where you will, okay, what's my yield from that asset? If you're happy with the yield at that moment in time, you don't care more about whether the asset price goes up or down. You're an investor, not a speculator. You care only about the yield, the rent value of that home compared to your mortgage. That's what you care and that is something that doesn't move that much. Fixed mortgage, rent can go a little bit up or down, but those are more stable than asset prices. So as an investor, you focus on the business, not on the speculative part. When the speculative part explodes, that's a best case scenario as it happened for us. So when that happens, okay, you take your money and you see to deploy it. Other things, even if I still think it is a great investment, if I would have kept my equity in of 150,000 in 20, 30 years, it will be a million mortgage paid out from renters as I moved to another country. So that would be a nice four-bagger over 30 years. We took the money out because I think we can do better on the next real estate project, which will also be a hands-on project where we take advantage of bargains, etc. Same story as we are doing here. We have something, we are looking at something, but I'll share more when we actually buy something hopefully over the next six months, one year. So don't forget to subscribe. Number seven, margin of safety. For me, it was the rent versus the mortgage, the fixed mortgage protection for inflation, house prices going up, really limited area close to Amsterdam, 20 minutes, 22 minutes by car. So really, really something good. John de Mol, one of the richest Dutch people, was living 800 meters from me. One of the best schools in the whole area of the Netherlands was 200 meters from there and you automatically get your kids into it if you live there. So a lot of positives, but nobody was looking there because you could buy somewhere else less luxury area, something for the same house for 100, 120 lower. So for living, it was still luxury four years ago. It's still now, but it was a bargain in my perspective. And to conclude, if you use such seven steps, you look for win-win-win-win-win-win situations and that's also the message of this channel. We are training our minds by looking at stocks, by looking at real estate, by looking at investment opportunities to take advantage when the opportunity comes. If you take advantage of such opportunities, twice in a decade, over 50 years, you're a multi-multi-millionaire and that's how things are done. Be it stocks, be it real estate, be it other smart investments from businesses, but you have to have a patient mind, a long-term mindset, an investing mindset and take advantage of those things. So thank you for watching. This is real estate. I don't talk much about it because it's hands-on, it's a lot of work and YouTube doesn't like it. It seems that on YouTube people love, okay, give me a stock to buy so that I can make money tomorrow. Okay, that works on YouTube, but I still continue to share my real estate story here and there. It's long-term, it's boring, it's patient, it's waiting, it's looking, it's hard work, but at the end, step by step, it pushes you forward. Check my stock market research platform for the stock market part of what I do, the portfolios, the research, similar to these principles. Always looking for low risk, high upside, even if we don't know when that upside happens. We can say it, high uncertainty like Monish Pabrai likes to say. Subscribe, like, comment and I'll see you in the next video.