Seven years ago a quietly spoken Jimmy Ho reached out to us. He had just signed up for an APIA membership and heard that we were looking for a volunteer
to run one of our meeting groups. At 22, he had just left uni and entered into a career in traffic engineering. He was also, at the time,
a fresh new investor. The rest, as it has often been said, was history. Over the last seven years Jimmy have invested across Auckland in
markets ranging from the CBD, central suburbs, Waitakere, Manukau and tried his hands at different properties including apartments, townhouses, home-and-income
and minor developments. These days Jimmy is still a mainstay on the APIA scene convening the Queen Street monthly meeting group. It has been
an absolute pleasure for all of us at APIA to watch Jimmy grow into a confident investor. Today we sit down with our favourite man to talk about
his investment journey so far.
APIA: You started investing at only 22. Pardon me for saying this but 22-year-olds are not exactly known for putting financial planning ahead of other priorities. What prompted you to start investing and what is keeping you motivated all these years?
JH: There were a couple of drivers that got me started. The first few months of my engineering career were really tough. One
of my good friends was made redundant a month after I started working. All of a sudden the idea that a regular salaried job is not always as
indefinite as one would think became really real to me. I started investing in shares just before news of the GFC first broke out and my shares
were performing very poorly. I...
