Journey from Pizza Driver to Property Developer...
Al Che is a serial property entrepreneur and investor in Australia with strong background in finance, technology and project delivery where he helps other aspiring real estate developers and business owners in the pursuit of their dreams to achieve financial independence.
But life wasn’t as always forgiving for this young man. Starting with a humble beginning as a pizza driver, while studying for his tertiary studies on the Australia border, Al was doing two to three jobs during the week and on weekends to make ends meet.
Life was tough in the beginning to make a living to pay for rent, living expenses and the study fees and that didn’t stop him from striving for his best, eventually paying off slowly when Al realised very quickly that working the hours wasn’t the way to go long term.
Al got introduced to property investing fairly early on his journey and he would go to every available seminars at the time and absorb all the free information available to educate himself, reading all the books and property magazines he could grab from the library.
In 2001, this obsession with property initially turned into his first acquisition. With a bit of savings he could scrap off from an average job and borrowed the maximum he could afford, bought his first property.
While the market started to move north, the equity compounded and Al bought a second property after a few years with the built up equity, bought another one after another couple of years and so on.
But then when he went to the bank for more money, he was stunned when he was told, he couldn’t borrow anymore money as his serviceability was not enough.
Al realised that even though his equity was growing, the bank would not lend him anymore, so he realised his property acquisition strategy was hitting a plateau.
This passion for overcoming previous set back with the banks did not stop him from perseverance and this was important to Al, coming from an immigrant background.
Through serendipity, he was introduced to a family friend who mentored him on restructuring his portfolio, selling the not so productive assets and starting to build an additional dwelling at the back of the property through small subdivision process.
Al’s career surprisingly did not begin in the real estate industry. In 1996, he enrolled at Griffith University where he earned a bachelor degree in Accounting & Finance and Information Systems.
After graduating with his business degree, he joined a number of consulting firms namely PriceWaterCoopers where he learnt different aspect of clients’ business management and later on joined the public sector for a while to instill some of his previous business expertise.
He soon discovered that he wanted to fulfill a different challenge and decided to move on into the real estate industry full time and started his own venture.
Al’s real estate journey next led him into the realms of development of multi units, educator and entrepreneur where he inspires others to use property as an investment vehicle to transform lives.
He also helps other business entrepreneurs to grow and scale their operations to multiply their business valuation for a higher exit multiples.
When he is not working with Nestland Property Group, Al enjoys spending time with his beautiful and loving wife, cheering on his amazing daughter and son at Jiu Jitsu tournaments and helping others.
He soon discovered that he wanted to fulfill a different challenge and decided to move on into the real estate industry full time and started his own venture.
His first rewarding experience was serving as a volunteer at the Indy Carnivals on the Gold Coast and diverse multi cultural social clubs. Al says that the job taught him a lot of valuable skills and give him the desire to help others to achieve their dreams.
