Mo money for Momentum

The Rising Stars People’s Choice winner has found success by doing things differently.

Momentum Wealth managing director Damian Collins says the company’s rapid growth is thanks to a simple business strategy – identifying a niche and exploiting it.

In 2006, Mr Collins said, nobody in Perth’s property market was providing advice and acting independently on behalf of buyers.

“There were lots of selling agents, who obviously help sellers sell their product, but there was no-one working exclusively for buyers,” Mr Collins told Business News.

“I thought there was a hole in the market and I’d seen a lot of people get burnt by bad investment decisions, so I thought there was an opportunity to actually help investors make the right decisions, and also a business opportunity as well, to set up in a space where there weren’t a lot of players.”

The property investment consultancy has increased its turnover from around $70,000 in its first full year of operation to $4.9 million in the 2012-13 financial year.

Mr Collins said he expected turnover to surpass $6.8 million in the current financial year, while also forecasting growth to $10.7 million in 2014-15.

During the past eight years, Momentum has arranged more than $500 million in loans for clients, while its property portfolio is valued at more than $350 million.

Mr Collins said each property Momentum selected has to satisfy a 13-point checklist, while also being located in one of the company’s approved investment locations.

“It’s quite a detailed process, we have city-wide analysis to decide which suburb to invest in,” he said.

“Within the suburbs we have approved property types, whether that be houses, apartments or development sites.

“So in some suburbs we don’t buy houses or apartments, and then from that point of view, our agents go out and they go through a checklist as well.”

The company’s staff has grown from six at its inception to more than 50 today, while Mr Collins said he expected to have more than 200 staff by 2020.

“It’s been successful because of the independence,” he said.

“People see us as a truly independent source of property advice and delivery.

“We can get out to the whole market and find the best properties for our clients.”

Perhaps even more significant is the fact that Momentum’s growth has come during what has been a tough period in the sector.

“The investment market and first home buyers market pretty much died about five months after we started,” Mr Collins said.

“In hindsight, we started in one of the worst possible times.

“We really had to demonstrate value regarding how we could negotiate better, how we could find properties that would outperform the market, so it really made us work hard from the beginning to deliver value to people.”