Home > Books, Malaysia, Money Matters, Review > WTF? 23 Properties By 30 by Faizul Ridzuan

WTF? 23 Properties By 30 by Faizul Ridzuan

January 7th, 2013


The huge WTF here is not the acronym for the typical online urban word that you and I understand. It is short for What To Find, When To Find and Where to Find.
Of course, i’m not buying into that, but using a huge WTF is an attention grabber for a book although a book titled ’23 properties by 30′ would have caught mine anyway.
Nevertheless, using a smart title like this for book perfectly reflects the personality of the Malaysian author, Faizul Ridzuan himself.

About Author

Faizul Ridzuan, 31, is a regular employee who aspires to be financially free, before the age of 35 via investing in Malaysia properties. He has bought 23 properties in 5 years, starting with only RM2,000 in capital. To date, he has bought properties worth over RM5Mil. He just recently finished writing and publishing his maiden book on property investing, titled โ€œ23 properties by 30โ€, as he aims to share his investment journeys and guide others on how to invest profitably. The book became an instant best-seller in major book-stores like MPH and Kinokuniya barely few weeks after it was launched.

He is also a panelist in a local internet property forum at Property WTF, an internet forum that help guides property investors.

In his spare time, he likes to meeting with other property investors and business owners to expand his horizons. He has been actively speaking in various investors gathering and advising other property investors in various internet property sites. He prefers bikes to cars as he hates driving, explains why he never bothered getting a driverโ€™s license until he was 28 and after he bought his 10th property.

To me, Faizul is an ambitious, smart and down-to-earth Malaysian.
At a young age upon graduation and starting to generate income, it is not easy for a fresh graduate to save much in this country, even more difficult to buy a property.
Getting a single property seems a distant dream for all if not most of them. However, it is not for Faizul, he is ambitious.
It’s one thing to be ambitious, and totally another thing to be able to achieve them.
Faizul had done it, which is why to me, he is smart. He’s not only able to purchase his first property with a mere RM2000 seed and a RM2500 per month salary, but he went to get many more within 5 years to achieve his target of RM3 million net worth.
He knows what he wants, and had many ways to execute his property purchase plans with minimum cash. How could one purchase that many properties without much money in the first place? That seems like a high risk-taker but with diligent and thorough research and analysis, the risks involved can be reduced to a minimum with a possible high return.
It does sounds like something common that you read in all the investment books, but true enough, Faizul made property investments sound easy.
Remember, this is for a young employee at his time and notwithstanding the extreme peer pressure and common culture in the workforce to have a car, vacations and other luxuries before getting their homes.
If one is able to achieve the dream of having over 20 properties by age 30, why would that person share it with others? Well, I could only guess, like most ‘financially free’ people, they only need to do what makes them happy. ๐Ÿ™‚
By learning from Faizul, you will be able to notice that he is a down-to-earth, humble person that shares how he did it just because he like to.
Before you start to think that this guy has some major financial backing, wealthy family and overseas education, it seems like he has none of this traits at all.
Curious now?

The Book
It’s pretty good that this is not a theory type of book on how to get 23 properties by 30. Nothing like what to find, when to find and where to find.
Know you know why I do not buy the acronym used in the title. WTF right?

However, the book is about the author’s personal journey of getting his very first property and then subsequently building his property investment portfolio to 23 properties within 5 years from then on.
He details it so vividly that it would probably inspires a young reader to follow his footsteps the very next day.

The chapters are arranged well, starting with how he first got his first three properties, then on how one should evaluate a good property investment and then moved on to property flipping (buy early and then sell for capital appreciation).

The final chapters are a case study and his future plan of his property investment modus operandi.

Bear in mind that this book is not one written by a typical book author, so I could catch a few typos and mistakes here and there but these are of no significance at all if you’re really interested with his inspiring story.

Given the fact that this is his first book, it was written as good as how he built his kingdom of properties. A recommended read indeed.

Marvin’s Take
I got this book from the nearest bookstore the very next day after I learn about this inspiring story from an online webminar by Faizul himself.
I do have a penchant for local success stories, and definitely for an author who is a self-made millionaire who is still very young in my opinion, defying the common conventions.

This is a very inspiring story, especially for Malaysians, now that the properties are at sky high prices and that those prices had been multiplying rapidly for the last few years.
However, could the same strategy used by Faizal in his book be used now? I am very skeptical, but then again I’m not a person qualified with my views at all or else I would have been another guy with 23 properties by now.

This book is not timeless in my personal opinion, as it is more of a personal journey on achieving a big property investment portfolio, that was possible a few years back but not as easy now, and probably even tougher in the next few years.

It does provide a good guidance and pointers that would help one even if one never thought of being a property investor at all, the possible options and choices one could make in the property market.

All in all, this is a good weekend read, and might just inspire one to be more active in the property market and also be awed on how the author is able to accumulate that many properties and is able to be financially free because he has set his goals and executed them as planned.

The only problem with this book is, it was only written and published in year 2012 where the readers have just seen the ship departed from the port. WTF!

The book is only selling for RM29.90 and you get a 20% discount if purchased online from MPH.

Official website for WTF? 23 Properties By 30.
PropertyWTF.com.my column by Faizul, EXCLUSIVE! A Humble PAI – The Faizul Ridzuan’s Column.
You can also follow Faizul on his property investment adventure on Facebook.

 Follow me on twitter.





Books, Malaysia, Money Matters, Review

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    1. Grammar guy
      January 13th, 2014 at 22:49 | #1

      Typo errors? I also found some errors in your review, e.g. “he like to meeting” should be “he like to meet”. Nevertheless, thank you for this book review. Your English is not bad, though.

    2. February 10th, 2014 at 23:01 | #2

      Thanks for highlighting the mistake. However the ‘About Author’ section is in its entirety lifted off the book’s ‘About Author’. ๐Ÿ™‚

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