Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Bushy Martin on transparency

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

In this episode, Bushy Martin talks about the importance of transparency in property dealings, business and life.  The Business Dictionary defines transparency as a “lack of hidden agendas or conditions, accompanied by the availability of full information required of collaboration, cooperation, and collective decision making.” In other words, as Maggie Campbell explained in an article about transparency, you need to ‘say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you say you’ll do." This sounds simple, but in practice it proves much more difficult. People and organisations often struggle with consistently following through on all three elements of this transparency equation. For me, I would go further to say that transparency is not about providing all of the information, as this would bury people in endless complexity and confusion, but its about providing enough of the right information for another party to make good and fully informed decisions. Hear more about transparency, and how it can transform your world, in this episode ... and stay tuned for the upcoming interview with Scott Aggett. Hello Haus: If you want to get Scott Aggett and his team to assist you in negotiating the best outcome on your next property purchase, reach out to him at www.hellohaus.co Realty Talk: If you like what you hear from Scott in our 2 part special in this week’s and next week’s episodes, then make sure you have a listen to my interviews with Scott on Realty Talk which you can see on https://channels.realty.com.au/realtytalk/, where Scott reveals his tricks to find properties pre and off market at zero cost that allow you to see 40% more of the market. Join the Get Invested community: And if you want to continue investing in your knowledge, join me and many other like minded investors in our Get Invested community right now. I send a free and exclusive monthly email full of practical ‘Self, Health and Wealth’ wisdom that our current Freedom Fighter subscribers can’t wait to get each month. It’s full of investment and lifestyle tips, my personal book recommendations, apps I use to enhance life and so much more. Just visit bushymartin.com.au and sign up at the bottom of the page … because this is just the beginning! Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While I was an estate agent, I thought there's got to be a better way. And the thing that is the issue is transparency. That's the problem that everyone has. All the buyers hate the lack of transparency. The sellers hate the lack of transparency as well. What I had noticed as I sat in that seat servicing property sellers of mine and working with buyers and buyers agents is that when we would list a property, the first people that we would call would be buyers agents and they would literally pay what we told them to pay with a cherry on top so there was just there was no negotiation or very little negotiation and i didn't think there was much duty of care in terms of looking after their client they were really focused on just getting a deal done and they were

only getting paid if they got a deal closed so i thought there was a big issue there with the transparency of buyers agents with their clients so how do i build a model that is completely open everybody can see what you're earning when you're earning it and how you're earning it most importantly to show the value. So deliberately left being a real estate agent of over 20 years both in London and Sydney and focused really on that niche skill of negotiation which I had honed over probably 3,000 plus property deals to bring transparency to a market that I think is really murky both on the buyer's agent side and the real estate agent side. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their

secret know-how and where they invest their time, their skills, and their money, and the benefits that this has created. You see, the truth is that everyone invests every minute of every day. We're investing our time, our skills, our energy, and our money in something. Some of us are investing consciously, some unconsciously, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, sometimes for no impact. Get Invested will help you to start living by design, not by default. I'm going to help you to make it happen, not let it happen. You'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less, and leave a living legacy by investing now.

Listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started, make the most of your investment journey, and ultimately to be living your dream, not someone else's. More episodes can be found on iTunes or at bussymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening and now, let's get invested. Hi Freedom Fighters. How important is transparency to you? Do you look for and expect transparency in your dealings with others?

And how transparent are you in your dealings with others, whether it be professionally or privately? Now I want you to be really honest, open and transparent with yourself on this because it's only me listening to your thoughts. I find a lot of people expect transparency from others but aren't actually totally transparent in their own dealings. In our current world of political correctness there's a tendency to tell people what they want to hear or to not speak at all

even when we disagree with what someone else is saying particularly when we don't know the other parties very well. We all wear masks at times when we are uncertain of where we stand with others. What about you? And how many times have you heard people say that we're totally honest, open, transparent and objective? I hear it all the time. But there's a difference between saying you're transparent

and actually being transparent. There evolves around trust and the level of self-interest. And in the spirit of open transparency, today's episode marks the ongoing evolution of a different format for Get Invested, based on your and other regular listeners' feedback. In our fast-paced, frenetic world, many Get Invested listeners have commented that the episodes are too long. So once my thought-provoking introductions are added to the long-form guest conversations. so to break down this into more digestible bite-sized chunks we're now trialing the release

of two episodes of get invested a week the first episode appearing early in the week will just be my personal musings on subjects of interest and deep dives that are sparked by guest comments or my soliloquies on topical content that i think may well be of interest to you and if you've got any subjects or topics that you'd like me to deep dive on or other improvements that you'd like to see on Get Invested feel free to email me at bushey at knowhowproperty.com.au with your suggestions. Then later in the week we'll be releasing the actual guest conversations

the number of which will be split into two or more parts and spread over a couple of weeks all with the aim of giving you shorter and sharper bush bites that are easier and quicker for you to consume. So have a listen over the next few weeks and let me know what you think in terms of the good, the bad and the ugly. And don't hold back or sugarcoat your comments because constructive feedback is all about total open transparency.

So to whet your appetite for part one of our great conversation with specialist property negotiator Scott Agate of Hello House later this week, as you heard in the opening snippets, Today I'm going to drill down on the importance of transparency. Unfortunately, transparency has become a word that gets thrown around a lot, particularly in business and property circles. But what does it really mean? Well, according to a quick Google search,

transparency in a business setting is the basis for trust between an individual or company and its customers, employees, partners and investors. Being transparent means being honest and open when communicating with stakeholders about matters related to a business transaction or the business or service or product being offered. Now, the business dictionary defines transparency as a lack of hidden agendas or conditions accompanied by the availability of full information required of collaboration, cooperation and collective decision making.

In other words, as Maggie Campbell explained in an article about transparency, you need to say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you say you'll do. Now this sounds simple, but in practice it proves to be far more difficult. People and organisations often struggle with consistently following through on all three elements of this transparency equation. Why? Well, we're socialised from a young age to be agreeable. In school, you were told to raise your hand and wait to be called upon before speaking.

On the sports field, you were told to listen to your coach and follow instructions. Behavioural studies tell us that 82% of people are conflict-averse, and 95% of people struggle to speak up to their colleagues about their concerns. So if we can't address the first part of the equation, saying what we mean, then it's nearly impossible to get the desired outcome. Because in order to mean or do what we say, we have to have said what we mean in the first place. But I'm still not convinced that these definitions of transparency go far enough.

As Simon Sinek has so well captured, there's a great misunderstanding on what transparency means. transparency doesn't mean showing everybody everything and i agree with cynic when he says that transparency means providing enough context for the decisions that we're making which means keeping people in the loop as an example cynic talks in the business setting about providing context which means sharing openly with everyone in an organization here's the situation we're in here's what we have to achieve, here's the reason and here's what we're thinking even though we don't know what the decision is at this stage. So giving people lots of context is what transparency

really is because despite common beliefs to the contrary people can deal with both good news and people can deal with bad news but where people really struggle is uncertainty because if we communicate uncertainty, then our imaginations get involved, and that's when panic sets in. So for me, this means that transparency is not about providing all of the information. All this would just bury people in endless complexity and confusion. But it's about providing enough of the right information for another party to make good and fully informed decisions. And as Sinek also says, transparency is closely linked to the importance of trust and cooperation.

The problem with concepts of trust and cooperation is that they're feelings, they're not instructions. I can't simply say to you, trust me, and you will. It's not how it works. It's a feeling that revolves around how safe we feel in situations, and a lot of our feeling of safety revolves around the level of transparency relating to a transaction or a situation. Now, Andrew Swinand of the Trust Project at Northwestern University in the US furthers this thought when he observed that we live in an interesting time with digital technology

where we basically have full instant transparency to current data and information. And as a result, we now all have a higher expectation to be fully in the know, to be fully included, to basically be part of the whole conversation. Swinnon believes that today more than ever, we need to have transparency to build trust in our transactions and our communications with others. We need to embrace a greater level of transparency in terms of sharing information. because if we believe that information is power, why would we not want to give and share more information with people to help make them as powerful as possible so that they can make better informed decisions

to help everyone succeed where everyone wins? Many years ago, I was lucky enough to spend a couple of years working as a change management consultant for Andrew Banks of Shark Tank fame when he owned and ran his award-winning human resources business, Morgan & Banks. that he and his partner, Jeff, grew from nothing on their kitchen table to then selling it for over $450 million a bit over a decade later. And when I joined the business, which had over 500 employees nationally at the time,

Andrew flew me to Sydney where I and other new recruits from across the country spent two days with him so he could impart directly his thoughts on culture. and a big part of the huge success of Andrew Banks' business was due to his focus on complete open transparency. I'll never forget him saying, don't keep anything secret, tell the world everything you know and don't worry about the competition

because 98% of them will forget it or are just too lazy and won't do what you're doing and the 2% that try to copy you will stuff it up anyway. And outside of this, everyone will respect you for your honesty, your openness and your transparency. Now this is something that I've never forgotten and is part of the reason why our Know How Property Finance team openly share anything and everything we know about property in a spirit of generosity to help you make better informed decisions. And on the subject of open transparency, Swinland's Trust Project reveals the results

of a child psychology study where they looked at children who were told and made aware of issues and then they had their parents come in and lie to them and basically tell them that everything was okay, that everything's fine and they don't need to worry about anything. Now the research team studied and looked at the children's stress levels during this experiment and ironically when given false reassurance, stress levels spiked. And Swinom believes the reason is that people from an early age are perceptive, and they instinctively know when bad is happening. They see it in your face. They see it in how organisations or individuals communicate. And what the study basically found was that the spike in the children's stress was a lack

of transparency with the resulting erosion of trust. People are intuitively aware of the bad and if you're not communicating or telling the whole story, people are going to make up stories of their own. So his conclusion is that while you might be tempted to create distraction when bad occurs, it's infinitely less than the distraction and damage that naturally occurs in saying nothing or, worse still, glossing over things. Truthful, open, honest transparency in communications creates actions that build trust, that build loyalty, that build longevity

and create better outcomes for all. Now, the Trust Project believes that individuals and organisations that practise transparency, that earn trust, have more leeway to basically learn, evolve and grow and achieve superior outcomes for all. So yes, there are challenges, and there's courage and long-term investment required to build trust and transparency,

but the commitments and resulting loyalty and strength of the relationship that result far outweigh the investment that's required. In a similar vein, the Northwestern University's Trust Project have uncovered the three components of trust in buyer-seller relationships. Their research reinforces that trust is grounded in the belief that someone else is dependable

and will honour their commitments, even though they might take advantage of us if they choose to. But what is the source of trust in a buyer-seller relationship? Well, the Trust Project researchers have found that it consists of three dimensions, competence, honesty and benevolence. So let me share this with you. Their marketing researchers are interested in what makes economic exchange possible An interest in the conditions that facilitate economic exchange And by economic exchange they mean any buyer-seller relationship

So it could be a relationship between a property buyer and a selling agent or vendor It could be a relationship between a property manager and a tenant or a landlord Any buyer-seller relationship like this that Trust Project marketing researchers are interested in. And they're interested in what factors facilitate that exchange, what makes it happen, what makes sure that the buyer and seller are both happy at the end, and also what factors might hinder that exchange.

And this revolves around a study of transparency and trust. And what's interesting about trust is that trust can easily be broken. You can get burned by trust. And for the Trust Project, one of the most interesting things is understanding how we as consumers navigate this minefield of the possibility that trust might be broken. One of the key things that makes it possible for trust to get broken in economic exchanges is a thing called information asymmetry, which is just a fancy word for an imbalance in transparency. information asymmetry refers to the fact that buyers know more about themselves than the sellers do and sellers know more about themselves than the buyers do and buyers and sellers can take

advantage of that information asymmetry and create conditions where they get more out of the exchange than maybe they deserve so let's start by looking at information asymmetry as a problem from the buyer's perspective. The thing is, you know that when you buy a product, be it a property, a car, or even groceries, you're not going to know if it's good value or know it's going to work and fully satisfy your needs until long after you've paid your money and the seller is gone. On the other hand, the seller often knows a lot more about how well a product works and under what conditions it works and under what conditions it doesn't work, because, let's face it, no product is perfect.

And they may take advantage of that. In property terms, this is what selling agents refer to as buyer beware. Many selling agents believe it's totally up to you to do your own due diligence and they have no obligation to share everything they know about the property and the seller to you for fear of prejudicing the outcome. So when you as a buyer are about to make a purchase, you have to have a level of trust in the purchase

and in the person selling it. And the Trust Project's marketing researchers are interested in what brings you to that point of trusting the seller and the product. Now, the really cool thing about the buyer-seller relationships and information asymmetry is in the fact that it goes both ways. So information asymmetry can be a problem

for both sellers as well as buyers. For example, when you rent out your property or you do a property share, you're the seller in that situation. And the buyers are the people coming in to use your property. Now, you're not going to know what they're doing in your property. There's information asymmetry there. They may use it in ways that you don't want them to use it,

or they may break something without you knowing. You might not find out until a lot later. So marketing researchers who study transparency and trust are interested in how buyers and sellers can think about these questions, can navigate all these problems to minimise these concerns about information asymmetry. And transparency and trust are ways that they can do that. And research that's been done by marketing researchers on trust

comes in two types. The first type is psychological in orientation. This research looks at how people think or feel or their attitudes towards trust and how these attitudes towards trust influence their likelihood of exchange or keep them from wanting to make the exchange. The second type is where researchers make more of an economic perspective. And here, the focus is on the kinds of contracts or agreements

or norms or expectations that buyers and sellers can bring to the exchange that keep people from taking advantage of information in the symmetries and encourage them or incentivise them to live up to the expectations of the exchange. So in this transparency context, what is trust? Well, in their research, the Trust Project defines trust as a willingness to depend on someone else to do something under conditions where they may not actually do the thing that you want them to do. And the Trust Project researchers understand that willingness in terms of these three dimensions

or three factors that influence people's willingness to depend on someone else to do something that they don't necessarily have to do or they're not required to do. Now the first dimension or the first influence is competence, which is perceived confidence, a belief that your exchange partner is competent to deliver the kinds of things that they've promised to do as part of the agreement. The second dimension is honesty. It's a belief that your exchange partner is going to tell the truth and keep their promises. The more you believe they're honest, the more you trust them and the more the economic exchange is enhanced. The last dimension of trust is benevolence. It's a belief that your exchange partner will think about you at critical

times in the exchange when they can use information asymmetry or lack of transparency for their own benefit and they're willing to go beyond this to think about your needs and wants. And they're maybe even willing to make sacrifices because they know that making you happy in the exchange is part of making a successful exchange. Take, for example, a real estate selling agent. While they're working for the property seller or vendor to sell a property at the highest possible price and favourable terms, they don't want to screw a buyer witless

as today's buyers become tomorrow's sellers and bad reviews and testimonials may cost the selling agent future sale opportunities. Now, Susan Scott, the best-selling author and leadership development architect, adds weight to this in her thoughts on what she calls radical transparency. Susan suggests that we do not under any circumstances tell a lie of either commission or omission.

Don't stretch the truth, exaggerate or make things up to get out of trouble or to make yourself look good. Not only because that will be wrong on many levels but also because it will come back to bite you in the butt at the worst possible moment when you least expect it with the highest price tag on it and you possibly might appear on an embarrassing viral YouTube video. She recommends that we don't attempt to project different images

depending on who we're with. People can spot inauthenticity from 50 paces. So show up consistently as yourself. bs's who demonstrate this kind of lack of transparency remind scott of all those drug commercials for the latest coolest drug where you see somebody who's taking this new wonder pill dancing effortlessly through fields of daisies at the same time the voiceover or unreadable fine print at the bottom of the screen was whispering that the side effects can include internal bleeding, loss of libido, thoughts of suicide, uncontrolled barking and sudden death.

And Scott also suggests that we bear in mind that while no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career or a company or a relationship or even a life, any single conversation can. So take it one conversation at a time and make them fierce. scott also relates her reading of hemingway's the sun also rises and which a character is asked how did you go bankrupt and he's in a bar where everybody's drinking and he responds gradually and then suddenly and scott's epiphany from this is that our careers and our companies and our relationships and indeed our very lives succeed or fail gradually then suddenly One conversation at a time.

Certainly what gets talked about and how it gets talked about and who is invited to be part of the conversation determines what's going to happen and what's not going to happen in every transaction in our lives. Scott's second epiphany revolves around the reason why so many conversations and transactions fall short of what we would all like them to be or some just flat out fail. And this is because so many of us suffer from some degree of what she calls

a lethophobia, which is an intense, illogical or abnormal fear of the truth. And while this phobia may sound like a serious psychiatric disorder, she's convinced that at this moment in time, there are millions of people on this planet who are withholding what they really think and feel from someone they're dealing with, whether it be at home or at work, and they're paying the price. Take, for example, the lead-up to the Global Financial Crisis, or GFC, that was triggered in the fall of 2008. It took nothing less than the failure of investment companies and banks like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac,

others like top US automakers and the subsequent devastation on Wall Street, for executives and political leaders to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. and yet if you're like me you were wondering at the time how long had those fires of no transparency been smouldering what were they pretending not to know and how did they literally go bankrupt and scott believes that they went bankrupt one failed and one missing conversation at a time non-transparent missing conversations with one another with their customers with the unknown future emerging around them. But let's get personal and have a look at ourselves, because it's not fair to put it all on the leaders. In our politically correct, dominated world,

how many times have you told someone, whether it be your boss, a colleague or a customer, or even a family member, what you thought they wanted to hear, rather than what you were really thinking? Or you've painted a false rosy picture of reality, glossing over problems or pretending they don't exist? Or you've sat in a meeting and watched somebody else toss out a ceremonial lie while you remain silent? Or how many times have you tossed out that hollow party line yourself? If you're like most people, you'll agree that we all have been guilty of this plenty of times. Now, Scott challenges us to imagine what the world would be like if every time any of us told a lie, even a tiny white one, our pants

would ignite in the spirit of lie, lie, pants and fire. It would either resolve the absence of transparency problem overnight, or we'd all need to carry personal fire extinguishers. Now, to cut us some slack, it would be easy to argue that our fear of the truth is not illogical. Telling it like it is and speaking our truth, versus parroting the party line which we know to be bollocks, is no one's idea of exalting ourselves. But the fact is that in many situations being totally transparent and honest feels so alarming and risky that we're sometimes willing to put a for sale sign in our integrity in order to afford it. After all we've all witnessed and or suffered from the impacts of brutal honesty in our work careers. Speaking up

and telling the raw truth could cost you a lost raise, a lost promotion, a lost seat at the table which is visited on those who have the courage to speak from their hearts and their minds. Yet if a problem exists, it exists whether we speak about it or not. In fact, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once said that what we do not make conscious emerges later as our fate. Gradually, gradually, gradually, then suddenly. So Scott wants to bust one of the worst so-called best practices of business. And the one that she thinks single-handedly created the global financial crisis

and one that she's yet convinced that we've gotten rid of because she's still fearful that we may start to repeat the same kind of stupid things that we've been doing for years and years. And the practice she wants to bust is what she calls legislated optimism. She believes that this is the purview of the one-way communicator, where communication is primarily one-way and the reverse is not valued and it's not welcomed. and the one-way message is often upbeat and runs along the lines of

don't worry, things are all okay, we've got it all covered, we have a plan and this opaque line of platitudes is often insisted on literally the day before a company goes bankrupt. In an environment of legislated optimism, conclusions are reached at the point where everyone stops thinking which is usually short of brilliant and we stopped thinking because clearly our leaders have done the thinking for us and called it good.

Many governments' performance during the pandemic is a good example of this. And to stand up and tell them what we're actually dealing with would probably not be a career-enhancing move on our part. We all know the difference between the weak leader, who's always looking for compliance and agreement, and the strong leader, the fierce leader, who wants the raw truth. So Scott's alternative to legislative optimism is what she calls radical transparency. But there are some commonly held and misguided beliefs that are squarely in the way of the

benefits of radical transparency. And the most commonly held belief is that what most people can't handle the truth, so only tell people what they need to hear. You remember the scene from one of my favourite movies, A Few Good Men, with Tom Cruise as a military defence lawyer and Jack Nicholson as the colonel, where Tom demands from Jack while he's sitting in the witness stand, I want the truth. And Jack responds, you can't handle the truth. He looks Tom Cruise fair in the eye and almost spitting the words out, he says, son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by

men with guns. Who's going to do it? You? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the death of one of our own and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That San Diego's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth. Because deep down in places that you don't talk about at parties. You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honour, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a

man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather that you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think that you're entitled to. You can't handle the truth. Now, I agree with Scott in that I think we're bigger than this. In fact, my experience of most people is quite the opposite of

we can't handle the truth. there's something within us that responds to those who level with us, who don't suggest our compromises for us. In fact, those careful conversations that we're so proud of and so fond of are failed conversations because they merely postpone the conversations that we want and need to take place. We can handle the truth, so lay it on us. In this sense, transparency is not a noun, it's a verb,

a doing word and a behavior and anyone can exhibit it so when people say i can't behave this way i can't speak my mind because in our culture it wouldn't be welcomed i wish i lived in a culture of radical transparency scott always challenges this because when she's looking at culture when she's looking at you you are the culture every time you and i walk into a room and open our mouths or pick up the phones or send an email. We're either reinforcing a healthy culture or a sick one. We're either modeling courage or cowardice. We're shaping the culture every time we show up and every time we fail to show up. Every time we shrink our subatomic particles and try to disappear off the radar screen. So she leaves us with the thoughts of a poem by

William Stafford called a ritual to read to each other. And it goes like this. If you don't know the kind of person I am, and I don't know the kind of person you are, a pattern others made may prevail in the world. And following the wrong God home, we may miss our star. Now, none of us wants to miss our star. And yet, we may very well miss our star unless we begin to engage in her radical transparency. Having the courage to have those wonderfully fierce conversations in which we come out from behind ourselves into our true conversations and make them real. Fierce transparency is not for those who want to be shadows in the crowd. It's for those of us who are willing to tackle our toughest challenges, who are willing to set aside the old

ways and to execute with a much higher level of integrity both personally and professionally. So, returning now to the property context, what is real estate transparency and why does it matter? Well, according to aph.com.au, property remains one of the few markets where true transparency doesn't really exist. But drawing on examples from Jones Lang LaSalle's or the JLL Global Real Estate Transparency index that quantifies transparency based on 139 different variables relating to property transaction processes, regulatory and legal frameworks, corporate governance, performance

management and data availability, property transparency is a measure of how easy it is to access reliable real estate information in a location, whether it be a city or country. And having access to the right timely transparent property information gives you confidence when making decisions about buying, building, leasing and managing properties. So what does property transparency look like? Well, it starts with the fundamentals of recording, sourcing, publishing and most importantly, being able to easily access the right required information about the supply, demand and cost of real estate

and allowing people to compare and analyse this information to make better, fully formed decisions. It's about having a clear and consistent property transaction process with standard rules laid out to ensure that real estate and allied companies operate in a responsible and ethical way. And then, of course, there's all the legal contractual stuff, planning regulations and building codes for property ownership and land use, along with the proper easy-to-read

and understand contracts and any resulting tax implications. And according to JLL in an article in yourpropertyinvestmentmag.com.au, the availability of current, past and historic and future forecasting trends in market data is a cornerstone of real estate transparency in this country. Now in recent years there's been mounting pressure on the largely unregulated real estate industry to act responsibly. The industry is being held to account to invest and do business in a transparent and sustainable manner. and add to the mix the massive disruption and uncertainty created by the recent global pandemic

the issue of transparency and trust has been brought into even sharper focus during times of such continued and ongoing uncertainty the need for an open transparent processes and access to accurate timely data has become more important than ever so as you can hear there's a hell of a lot of information you need to access and know in order to make good property decisions. But very few people have the time, money or resources to be able to consider them all. Interestingly, in the property space, we've quickly morphed over the last few years from having almost no current relevant information to now being buried in endless streams of complex and often contradicting and confusing data that's very difficult for the average

Joe or Joanne property buyer to make sense of in a timely, meaningful fashion. So what ends up happening? You either go with your gut and hit and hope, which most people do, and this generally results in below power outcomes, or a few smart property buyers engage specialist property professionals to assist in accessing relevant information to help you make better property decisions. The issue with property transactions is that they have high emotional engagement and they're our highest cost transactions, as our lifestyle and our family's future often rely on them. All this in an environment where it's difficult and expensive for an occasional buyer to equip themselves with the current data required to make fully informed decisions. Buyers are often flying blind and left making big financial decisions based on very limited

information, so they are left going with how they feel about a property, and they often just go with their gut and make uninformed decisions, compared to seller's agents who have all the information about the market and the specific property at their disposable. A clear case of the information asymmetry that I talked about earlier. so in this high stakes high cost environment the level of transparency and resulting trust becomes critical to the perceived outcome of the property purchase transaction buyers are left questioning is this really good property and am i actually paying the right price for it now i know i've said this many times before but it's worth repeating when it comes to the

importance of real transparency just about everyone you meet in the property sphere has a vested interest in selling you something because they don't get paid unless you either sell or buy a property. And as soon as someone relies on a result before they get paid, they're subconsciously going to have a bias towards getting the result, which will cloud their objectivity, whether they're aware of it or not. Remember that nothing comes free and if it sounds too good to be true, than it normally is and it's for these reasons that our know-how property team operates on a fee-for-service basis because you know exactly what you're paying and you know exactly what we're getting paid so any savings that result from the property process go into your pocket

we all and we're all there as your expert eyes ears arms and legs to both assemble the best available independent property specialists to deliver on your strategy and then keep them honest, to ensure that what's being put forward is actually genuinely in your interest. In simple terms, we help you write your life symphony and then act as your life conductor to assemble your life orchestra with the best instruments and the best musicians, perform and then deliver your life symphony. In this context, our know-how team likes to refer to ourselves as the John West of property. Remember that old John West advert where it's the fish that John West rejects that makes

him the best? Well, our know-how team is exactly the same when it comes to your property. It's the properties that we reject on your behalf that get you the best result. After we've helped you to craft your dream lifestyle strategy in conjunction with your finance capability strategy and your structure, these then inform the exact type of property strategy that you actually need to adopt. And when it comes to your property delivery strategy, if we wouldn't personally invest in a property option, then we're not going to suggest that you do.

Now unfortunately for property investors and buyers, this level of total independence and transparency is very rare and almost unique. Why do I say this? Because selling agents, buyers agents and a lot of mortgage brokers and other allied property professionals only get paid when you actually buy a property. And this is where the murkiness and lack of transparency creeps in and subtly affects the level of objective independence that they are giving you in a property transaction and the amount that they're prepared to negotiate on your behalf to truly get the best result. Unfortunately, I've seen this time and time again, especially with buyers agents. A number of them, and I stress not all, are good at property

data and research to find a property that satisfies your strategy, but very few of them are what I class as good negotiators. And consequently, they often pressure a buyer to accept whatever price or conditions the selling agent imposes. Now, until recently, I believe that our know-how independent fee-for-service model where we act objectively and transparently in assessing the merits of a property opportunity was unique in the industry until I met this week's special guest, Scott Agate from Hello House. The pointy end of a good property transaction is how good you are or your team are at negotiating the best possible win-win-win outcome.

remember the old adage that it's what you pay for a property not what you sell it for that has the biggest impact on your long-term results so negotiation skill is a key differentiator and something as critically important and as subtly complex as property negotiation is not something that you want to leave to an occasional amateur and if you're like most property buyers or investors that only purchase a property every two to five years then that's exactly what you're likely to be, an occasional amateur property negotiator who's up against a selling agent that's a professional property negotiator who's negotiating multiple deals every week so the playing field is well and truly slanted against you. It's a bit like

David versus Goliath. And for the reasons that I've already mentioned, many buyers agents aren't great negotiators either. Why? Because often the price you pay for a property determines how much they get paid. When a buyer's agent charges you 2% of the purchase price, they have an unconscious bias not to negotiate too hard, as the more you pay, the more they get paid. And even when they offer you a fixed fee to research, find and secure a property that satisfies your strategy, the longer it takes to secure a property, the worse their cash flow, so there's always underlying invisible pressure to get a deal done. Now I need to stress here that I'm a big advocate for good buyers agents.

As a good one, it can add enormous value in terms of researching and finding the best property around the country to suit your needs. So if you're looking to engage a true independent and transparent specialist property negotiator, where do you turn? Well up until recently, no one. But this is where this week's guest, Scott Agate from Hello House comes to your rescue. Scott and his Hello House team are professional property negotiators who have successfully negotiated over 3,000 property purchases and they charge you a comparatively very low fee to do all of the negotiating on a property that you want to purchase

and he's achieved great results for property buyers in fact while I've got a lot of experience in negotiating property purchases I'm currently engaging Scott personally to negotiate on our behalf to buy a property because the devil's in the detail and the subtleties when it comes to property negotiation and by engaging Scott to do the deal on a property once I've found the property I want to buy it removes my emotion from the transaction which can often cloud our judgment and get in the way of the best outcome because good selling agents can intuitively smell when you're emotionally engage with a property and will use this against you without you even knowing it.

And if you like what you hear from Scott in our two-part special on this week and next week's episodes, then make sure you have a listen to my interviews with Scott on Realty Talk, which you can see on channels.realty.com.au forward slash Realty Talk, where Scott reveals his tricks to find properties pre and off market at zero cost that allow you to see 40% more of the market, as well as his blind copy BCC email trick that will keep you top of mind with selling agents. In the meantime, if you seek transparency and trust in your dealings, I challenge you to lead by example and be the change you seek by surrounding yourself with people who model

accountability, ferocious integrity, personal authenticity, the capacity to connect with others at a deep level, and the commitment to champion the common good over narrow self-interest. That's more food for thought, and I'll speak to you again next week. To get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes, just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au. That's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au. Or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the Get Invested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.

Thank you.