Buying and holding is a common strategy for property investors with access to capital, and there has never been a more successful exponent of the art than Nikolas Kondos, who arrived in Melbourne from Greece in the 1940s.
With a keen eye for an appreciating asset, over the past decades Nik bought at least one property every year and so developed a portfolio that had few equals. It all started with some advice from a neighbour.
“I had a Jewish bloke next door to my business and he said ‘from now, if you want to get rich, buy properties but don’t sell them’,” Mr Kondos told Fairfax Media this week.
“‘Don’t work for the government, don’t work for the agents. Keep them until the end’, so that’s what I did.”
And the end has finally come. This week Nik’s journey as one of Australia’s most successful self-made property investors is complete.
He sold his last asset – a six-bedroom house in Holden Street, North Fitzroy. Tenanted continuously for 56 years, the property has been earning Nik a handy $50,000 per annum in rent, but the hammer fell at a boardroom auction on Wednesday for just over $1.3m.
Auctioneer Tom Alexiadis said that Nik had adhered to some basic principles to build up his prolific portfolio.
“When you’ve got some money just buy, nothing really fancy, but buy in good areas and for rental income.
“It’s surplus to him now, so what he’s doing is setting up his family and grandkids.”