A Selfless Man

For the first few months at college in 1992, I used to go straight to my room after lunch for a ‘power kip’ (sleep).

I was still recovering from a nasty bout of septicemia thanks to a heap of leech bites while fencing for a bloke during the Christmas holidays.

I’d never experienced tiredness like it.

Anyway, one day I decided to watch some TV instead of kipping and was struck by an eccentric looking fellow with a slight speech impediment.

It was Dr James Wright.

I was immediately drawn to his down-to-earth style and the way he made medicine so easy to understand, especially for a simple soul like me.

In particular, I loved watching the methodical way he sifted and sorted his questions to diagnose someones condition at rapid speed.

He was brilliant and I was hooked.

I kept watching him each week until the good life finished about a year later.

And then about ten years ago I heard him being interviewed while in the car, so I cranked the volume up.

Up until this point I only knew of Dr Wright the doctor. I had no idea about Dr Wright the investor.

Turns out he began his career in the UK and was a very good saver of money.

And by the time he returned home to Oz, he had a small stack of cash saved up so he bought a red brick home in Epping and invested the rest in residential property.

And as the income from his properties rolled in, he kept buying more houses.

And some units.

And then more and more units.

Until about ten years ago when he hit an inflection point.

His properties were generating so much income he was able to buy one new property every TWO WEEKS, with cash.

By this stage he was 84 years of age and fully retired.

But wait, it gets better.

His reason for buying wasn’t to build a property portfolio for his own benefit.

It was to provide accommodation for those people less fortunate who couldn’t afford a house of their own, namely elderly people who needed aged care.

His offer was simple too. He charged his tenants one third of their pension in rent which meant they still had a good quality of life and somewhere nice to live.

Most of the properties he bought were on the Gold Coast.

You see, he could have made a lot more money seeking higher paying tenants but that was never his motive.

He just wanted to help people far less fortunate than him. The same way he did in practice and on TV.

And in return, his tenants gratitude ensured they looked after his properties as if their own.

Dr Wright had been ill for a few years due to bowel and throat cancer. He passed away this Tuesday at age 94, just a few weeks shy of his 95th birthday.

He and his wife continued living in their modest Epping home for decades while he grew a property portfolio just by reinvesting the rental income. His estate is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

It would also be easy to assume that Dr Wright was incredibly generous because he had the money.

But remember, he started with nothing.

I reckon the money found him because he was such a compassionate, selfless man.

Kip in peace Dr Wright.

Have a great weekend!

Adam

Back paddock – just when the caterpillar thought the world was coming to the end, it turned into a butterfly. Anon

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