Rick Otton – Property

Rick Otton was born in Melbourne, Australia, but his family moved to Sydney from a young age where he grew up. From his young days he always had an inquisitive mind that has been the hallmark of his innate entrepreneurial nature.

Rick worked as an insurance broker in his 20s for a man by the name of Allan Pease, who would later achieve worldwide recognition as Mr Body Language. In Allan, Rick had a mentor who sharpened his business and communication sense that would serve him well when venturing out on his own a few years later.

That would be when Rick was later living on his wits and very little money in the USA. This during the Savings and Loans Crisis that had rocked the banking system in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “It was illegal to borrow money to buy property, so values had dropped 95%! Property was a dirty word, but I could see the opportunity and was forced to look at things differently to benefit from it.”

When most others saw adversity, Rick saw opportunity, and that was the humble beginnings of his We Buy Houses business that has been spreading across the world ever since.

What Rick did was to formulate systems that bypassed the traditional banking system to profit from the situation. “When I had no money I was more interested in the financial benefit of property, not the aggravations of owning it and being a landlord.”

Because he didn’t come from a real estate background he just took the viewpoint, as he says, “What I saw were sellers wanting to sell and buyers wanting to buy, but the bank situation prevented this. All I did was to devise ways to bypass this road block and then oversee the transaction for them both.” Quite often the people moved, but the mortgage stayed put. The banks still got paid, and everyone was happy!

Sellers could sell and move on, buyers could buy, and Rick was rewarded for providing that service. The traditional mindset back then dictated that ownership and the underlying mortgage had to change. “That just wasn’t practical back then, and the banks were desperate just to be paid, irrespective of whose pocket it came from.”

When you look at today’s banking crisis you will quickly realise that we are in the same economic circumstances now, but now on a global scale!

Rick brought his We Buy Houses business back to Australia where the initial reactions were “Why would anybody want to do that?” What Rick has done ever since has been to pioneer changes in the whole way that property can now be transacted Down Under.

Within the space of a few short years the national census had even recognised purchase arrangements like rent to own as an alternative to either renting or owning property.

Since then Rick has successfully expanded his US and Australian operations into United Kingdom and New Zealand. Rick’s mission is to transform how people buy and sell property, to empower others with the knowledge that there is another way, as the traditional real estate system continues to fail us.

“With every country I’ve ventured into there has always been the same reaction that such systems just won’t work there.” Rick believes, “Things don’t change, people change things.” He relishes the challenge of looking at standard practice and asking, “Why is it this way and is it working?”

For the sake of the record, since 1991 Rick has been buying, selling and trading property, using little or none of his own money and structuring transactions to create positive cash flow.

 
With the public attention that he gained in Australia, since 2001 Rick has now taught worldwide 26,597 students to buy, sell and trade residential property using his strategies.

He is creating an international community of investors who unite making money with the higher purpose of solving other people’s problems. Rick uses the philosophy that goes back to working with Allan Pease many years earlier, “Give people what they want and you will get what you want by default.”

Rick teaches how the default system that typically revolves around price alone is not always the best measuring stick. “The real benefit, both personal and financial, comes in the terms of the agreement and the time period over which the property gets sold.”

Rick’s following and ever-growing community can now be witnessed from Scotland to Tasmania and Christchurch to Dallas. With his distinctive style of the “man-in-the-street” marketing signboards and newspaper advertisements, they are visible proof of his impact across the planet!

When people use the expression “How to Buy a House for a Pound, dollar, euro or a peso”, it was first coined by Rick long before others used his systems to teach it as their own.

His philosophy has been highlighted in various Australian TV shows. He has appeared in: 2004 ABC documentary Reality Bites. He has also appeared in Today Tonight, Insight on SBS and A Current Affair. In October 2007 Rick gave a way a house on national TV during 2 episodes of Channel 9’s Hot Property.

He has also been featured in Australian Property Investor and Lifestyle Trader Magazines and in the following Australian books: The Secrets of Property Millionaires Exposed!, Ideas: Original Perspectives On Life and Business From Leading Thinkers, Think and Grow Rich in Property, and Insider Property Secrets, as well as the American book Walking With The Wise.