Submit Podcast or Channel

Get Invested: From FOMO to flight plan - achieving property success in 2026

January 23, 20260 comments♥ 0
00:00If you've tuned into this, chances are you're wondering, did I already miss the next propertyboom, or is the real danger that I'm about to buy right at the top?Right now, half the headlines are screaming, housing crisis, buy anything, while the otherhalf are yelling, bubble, don't touch a thing.And in between, you've got property gurus on flashy podcasts telling you their latesthotspot, creating a flock of investors competing with each other, like seagulls chasing hotchips.So what is really going to happen with property this year and what do you need to be doing about it?
00:35In this episode, I'm going to cut through all of the hype and the noise to give you what really matters.I won't give you a horoscope, I'll give you a GPS and a flight plan.I'll walk you through what all of the forecasters and all the big name gurus reckon this year will look like.I'll show you the not spots where a smart long-term investor is more likely to get stitched up.And I'll give you a simple property playbook to turn FOMO into calm, clear action to helpyou join the 5% who achieve sustainable success.So if you're ready to stop guessing the market and stop flying a success plan, let's getinvested.
01:13Welcome to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, the leading weekly show forAustralians who want to learn how to unlock their full self, health and wealth potential.I'm your host, Bushy Martin, and each week I go deep with the best investors, experts,leaders and founders to find out what it takes to break free from the grind, discover freedomand to live by design.Subscribe now and join me and get invested in the life that you really want.Let's get started.Hi, Fran Fighters.
01:44Are you feeling like you survived last year, but you're still not sure what actually happenedin property and why across the country?Are you hearing all the predictions for this year from banks, analysts, economists and headlines from high-profile podcast property pipe pipers and wondering who the hell to believe?Are you worried that if you sit still, you'll get let behind?But if you rush in, you'll end up as someone else's exit strategy.If that's you, you're in the right place.Because today, I'm not giving you a horoscope.I'm giving you a flight plan.
02:20Now, you already know that I'm not a big fan of crystal balls.Property forecasts are a bit like predicting Melbourne weather.You know, you're not going to get four seasons in a day,you just don't know in what order it's going to come.And if you spent any time in the garden capital,you know you can fry and freeze in the same afternoon.It's exactly the same with property predictions.Everyone sounds confident until reality rolls through like a late afternoon shower.
02:48Now, on Get Invested, I'm not here to be the loudest voice with the flashiest graphics.You can leave that to the shiny, high-profile podcasts with their studio sets and sound effects.Because I'm here to be your calm co-pilot.Less Hollywood, more hang a-breathing.Less sizzle reel, more substance.Because in a world of fake news, FOMO clickbait and vested interest marketing,I'd rather be your quiet go-to trusted voice of truth in a noisy room.here we have if you haven't already listened to episode 412 on the boom or blot drain the year
03:25that was hit pause at some point and go back to it because it gives you the full flight log of lastyear and once you've understood how last year really worked this year suddenly makes a lotmore sense in short last year looked boring from a distance but up close it was quietly bonkersNational values ended up rising right on the long-term batting average,around the 6% to 7% mark.But that average was the ultimate illusionbecause under the surface we had a classic block drain year.Construction couldn't keep up.
03:58Listings stayed scarce.Migration kept surging.And policy settings shoved everyone into the same $550,000 to $850,000 price aisle.Like a human cattle shoot for Aussie homebuyers.So prices didn't rise because life felt easyThey rose because choice was chokedThat's the frame I want you to carry into this yearNot boom or bust, but pressure points and potholes
04:24Pockets of strength, patches of pain and a whole lot in betweenAnd through all of it, there are three big I's and three big P'sThat will quietly decide where the wins areInfrastructure, industry, incomes, people, property, positionToday, we're going to use those six levers as your in-fight instruments.We'll look at where the economy is actually sitting, what the RBA, the government andthe banks have lined up for us, what the number nerds of SQM, domain, the majors and the highprofile property influencers of the world reckon this year will actually bring.
04:59And then I'll give you my translation and my take.Plus, we'll talk about where I believe the biggest traps are, the not spots where FOMOis high fundamentals are weak and long-term investors are likely to get stitched up so bythe end of their time together today you won't be chasing hotspot horoscopes you'll have your ownclear flight plan for the year ahead all right suit belts on trays up coffee in hand let's startwith what we're actually taking off from because you can't plan your landing if you don't knowyour runway so let's zoom out to the big picture for a minute think of the aussie economy rightnow like a duck on a pond on the shore it looks calm smooth almost graceful gdp headlines don't
05:42look too scary unemployment is still okay enough for the nightly news most people are still gettingto work and paying their bills but under the surface those little duck legs are paddlinglike mad because in real life per capita gdp has been sliding backwards which is a fancy way ofsaying we're working harder for less it's not a crisis it's just a slow managed decline formiddle australia where everything from rent to rego to your coffee costs more each and every yearbut your pay packet hasn't exactly gone on growth spurt now layer on top of that what the rva didlast year we went from emergency break mode to a gentle glide free rate cuts over the year whichtook the cash rate down from the peak. And then the RBA basically said, all right, folks, we've
06:31pulled the lows up. Now we're going to hold steady and see what the two bonds does next.So right now, we're not in free fall, but we're also not in party mode. We're somewhere in between.On a long, bumpy glide path where the wrong move from a government spending or global shockscould easily kick inflation back up again, as it's recently shown signs of doing,and then give us another little jab of rain pain.So that's the macro picture.Now, what does that mean for housing as we start the year?Let's talk values, supply, demand, and affordability.
07:06On the surface, national dwelling values rosein that 6% to 7% range last calendar year,which is smack bang on the long-term growth average.If you only looked at the headline, you'd shrug and say,meh, pretty normal year.But again, the duck legs tell a very different story.Because that growth didn't come from boom time confidence, it came from chronic scarcity.Let's start with new housing supply.
07:33Over the last five years, Australia has created over a million new households.We've only built around 880,000 new dwellings.So we've effectively invited another major city's worth of people to barbecue and forgotten to buy extra sausages.On top of that, the UDIA is warning we're on track for a shortfall of nearly 400,000 homes by2029 unless we seriously unclog the planning pipes and speed up infrastructure and land release.Construction costs are up roughly 40% from pre-COVID and skilled tradies are thinner onthe ground than shade at the January cricket test match. So when people talk about just build moreto fix housing. It's like telling a cafe owner to just make more coffee when they've already got
08:19one barista on the queue out the door. Even if we wanted to, the system physically can't pump outenough quality homes fast enough in the right places. And that's the point. Not just morehousing, but the right type of housing in the right areas at the right time. Not just stackinghigh-rise shoeboxes in a flood-prone pocket that no one actually wants to live in.now let's talk about demand despite the noise migration is still very strong vacancy rates arestill very tight and a lot of owners who would normally sell an upgrade or downsize have quietlystayed put because they know that if they sell their reduced borrowing capacity means they won'tbe able to buy back in where they actually want to live so the usual for sale stock that would
09:05normally come into the market just didn't. Those things are anywhere between 20 to 40% below thelong-term average. That's the block drain. Too many people netting a roof, not enough qualityroofs on the shelves. Now here's the bit that really matters for your flight plan this year,affordability. On almost every metric, housing affordability is still near its worst levels onrecord. Nationally, we're sitting around eight plus times household income for dwelling values.Yet APRA is about to cap high debt to income lending at six times income for higher LVRborrowers from early this year. Now, that means that the average value is here, but your borrowinglimit sits way down below that. And that gap in the middle is the affordability canyon many are
09:59trying to bridge. Mortgage repayments for new borrowers are chewing up around half of a typicalhousehold's income. And according to CoreLogic, a totality analysis, it now takes roughly 10 to11 years for the average Aussie to save a 20% deposit. Now that's not the great Australiandream, that's the great Australian marathon in thongs. So here's the paradox we're starting theyear with. By the numbers, housing is less affordable than it's been for a very long time.Yet prices are still grinding higher because supply and demand are totally out of whack.I call this the V8 engine problem.We've bolted a V8 property engine onto a Corolla budget.
10:40The car still moves, but you're redlining every time it touches the accelerator.So why am I labouring on all of this before we even talk about this year's hotspots and predictions?Because you can't make calm, confident decisions about buying, holding or sellingif you don't understand the runway you're taking off from.Right now we're starting the year with limited use supply,delayed construction, strong migration, low vacancy,government demand schemes that are still throwing fuel on the fire,and a big affordability handbrake that means most Aussies
11:14are driving their finances right on the edge of the red line.So from here, the big question for you is not,will prices go up or down?The smarter question is, given this starting point,How do I build a plan that still works even if rates nibble up?Appetitans, credit, or the economy stays sluggish?That's what the rest of this episode is all about.Next up, we're going to unpack the big forces actually shaping the year ahead,
11:41what SQM, Domain, the major banks and the property gurus are betting on,where I think they're on the money,and where you need to take their predictions with a very large grain of salt.So stay with me, because this is where we turn FOMO into a proper flight plan.So now you know the runway we're taking off from,let's talk about what's actually going to move the property needle this year.Not the noise, not the headlines, but the real levers.Because in any given year, there are a number of big forces that do the majority of the heavy lifting.
12:11And if you understand those forces, you don't need to memorise 50 different forecasts,you just need a simple flight plan.So this year I'm going to keep a close eye on four big levers.Rates and credit, supply and construction, government policy, people and pay packets.Let's walk through them.Then we'll overlay what SQM, Domain, Hotspotting, Cotality and others are all sayingand I'll translate their forecasts into something you can actually userather than something that just makes you click subscribe.
12:43First cap off the rank is interest rates and borrowing power.sqm sqm's boom and bust report thinks the most likely path this year is pretty simple cash rateon hold for most of the year maybe a small cut or two in the second half assuming inflationbehaves itself and the economy stays sluggish but not sick in that base case they're expectingaverage capital city prices to rise somewhere between six and ten percent across the yearwith perth brisbane adelaide and darwin still the standouts for double growthgrowth, thanks to tight supply and decent momentum.Now, the first thing I want you to notice is that almost every forecaster starts with
13:24the same story.Rates flattish, maybe easing a bit, economy not great, but not falling off a cliff.And from that, they get to prices probably go up again.But my translation on rates is this.Yes, a very flat cash rate with an actual potential kick up if inflation persists upward.But the real damage to borrowing compound has already been done, and APRA is now playing a fresh handbrake on top by capping higher risk borrowers at six times debt to income ratios from early this year.So even if the RBA's rate has a rest, the credit police are still standing on the sideline, whistle in mouth, ready to book you if you try to borrow like it's 2021 again.That's why, for your annual flight plan, I treat current rates as a bonus, not a strategy.
14:14So plan as if rates stay where they are, or even rise a notch, and if the deal still stacks up, you're in good shape.The second big labour is the one we've talked about earlier, supply, or the lack of it.The SQM forecast leans heavily on this point.They're assuming roughly 150,000 new dwellings worth of demand, off the back of about 390,000 extra people.but only around 180,000 new homes actually being finished.In other words, we're still not building enough, and that's not just SQM.The UDIA's State of Land Report shows national greenfield capacity is still under the pump.Replacement rates for new estates are down, estate sizes are smaller,
14:58and a big slab of land is already selling above fair value.But then in my background research, there's a brutal reality check.civil infrastructure alone in parts of south these queensland for example is now about 180 grand perlot before the land before the house just to get roads and pops and power to the block so whenpeople say well we'll just build our way out of the crisis i say great idea now show me the tradeis the money in the time machine mine translation on supply this year is simple nothing structuralis getting fixed fast.Planting red teeth isn't suddenly disappearing.
15:36Infrastructure and taxes on new homesaren't suddenly getting cheaper.And building costs aren't suddenly falling off a cliffwhile energy prices are rising.So the block drain mutual last year is still there.Same pipe, more blockage.And no one's got the plunger that's going to fix it.The third lever is government policy.
15:56And this is where good intentions often clash with basic mass.Schemes like the First Home Guarantee, Help to Buy, Shared Equity, Low Deposit Deals all sound great on the surface.But they mostly do one thing.They shove more buyers into the same narrow price band at the same time.SQM is explicit about this.They note that the First Home Buy deposit scheme, plus last year's rate cuts, will keep funnelling more buyers back into the market through this year.Cotaldi backs this up from a different angle.Their affordability work shows medium dwellings
16:31are now over eight times median incomeand it takes about 11 yearsto save a 20% deposit at the national level.So if you're the governmentand you're not fixing supplybut you're handing out bigger laddersto help people climb the same wallyou don't lower the wall
16:46you just make the race more frantic.So my translation on policies this yearis that governments will keep trying to fix affordabilityby throwing fuel on the demand side firewhile still treating investors like the villains instead of partners.So expect more demand schemes, not fewer.And expect investors to keep wearing more of the blame and more of the tax hits,even though they provide about 90% of the rental stock.
17:12Go figure.The fourth lever is people, jobs, incomes and sentiment.Every forecaster comes back to the same combo.Strong population growth, chronic undersupplyand enough jobs to keep most people paying the rent and the mortgage.But there's nuance here.Cotality points out that in the last five years,regional markets have almost caught up to capital city affordability.
17:38Values in the regions are up over 70%compared with about 48% in the combined capitals.So the old game of just move regional and it'll be cheapisn't as simple as it used to be.At the same time, you've got early AI and tech disruptionsstarting to nibble away at white collar roles. And that is what I'm going to unpack in a longerterm outlook in a future upcoming episode. But for this year, it means one thing. Job securityis more fragile for the middle class than most forecasts are actually admitting. So my translation
18:15on people and pay packets is this. As long as most Aussies can hang out and hang on to a job,they'll do whatever it takes to keep a roof over their head. But you don't want a property planthat only works if your job and your income are bulletproof because over the next few yearsthey probably won't be. All right let's pull all this together. What are the big voices actuallypredicting for this year and what do I hear when I listen between the lines? Starting with SQMresearchers boom and bust report. SQM's base case is for national capital city prices to rise between6 and 10 percent this year. They're especially bullish on Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwinwith forecast gains up to the mid-teens or even higher in some scenarios. They also see holiday
19:02markets like the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and parts of the Whitsundays putting on 7 to 15 percentof the right conditions based primarily on undersupply, strong population inflows and steadyor falling interest rates.By translation, SQM is saying as long as the pipes stay blockedand the RBA doesn't hit the brakes again by raising rates,which I feel is actually optimistic,prices will probably go up again and some markets could get silly.Now, I agree with the direction,
19:33but I'm much more cautious on the numbersbecause if everyone believes that Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwinare locked in double-digit winners,then all the high-profile buyers' agents, podcast gurusand property pipers' FOMO frenzy money all piles into themand the forecast itself helps perpetuate a short-lived artificial burn.And then burns latecomers as they use a lie-picker language long-term.That's what I call market-making, not market-predicting.
20:04So my advice?Listen to all the podcasts and the so-called hotspots,then invest somewhere else to avoid the competing crowdsif you're serious about achieving long-term sustainable growth.So be a contrarian, not a momentum investor.Let's now have a look at other podcasters' takes on the SQM numberswhere they appear to turn the volume up to 11.Now, I won't name them, but they all appear to highlight SQM's top-end scenarios
20:35and talk about Perth rising up to 21%, Brisbane and Darwin up to 18%,Sydney and Melbourne up to around 11% and Adelaide as much as 18%.The message is big boom energy, chronic under supply, housing crisis and rent soaring.So buy now before you're priced out forever.My translation, many of these smart operators are also in the businessof getting investors off the fence and instill fear of missing out or FOMOto buy more property. Now, high drama and big numbers are good for clicks, good for courses,and good for their business. But for you, those numbers should be treated as the best
21:16case of the best case, not something you build your personal strategy on. Because if you buya property assuming 15% to 20% growth next year, which is two to three times the long-term average,you don't have a strategy. You've got a gambling problem. All you need to be,and you actually need to be more focused on what an area and a property is going to do over thenext 10 to 20 years not just the next 12 months. Let's now look on the other side. You've gotdomain and some of the banker line forecasts that are a bit more measured. They generally haveSydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra all rising somewhere between three andeight percent across this year with Sydney toward the top and Adelaide and Perth still doing well
21:59but slower than the last couple of years.They also see record high rents sticking around,with house rents pushing harder since Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra,and unit rents still rising fastest in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.Domain and Friends also make the point,but in the big cities, units might actually outperform houses from here,which I personally think is just short-term price point affordability catch-up,not a long-term trend change.
22:25and they think this because houses have simply outrun what incomes can support.By translation, the big institutions are still bullish but politely bullish.They're betting on more of the same but slowerwith a bit of catch-up for units in the most unaffordable cities.Now that feels more realistic but again those numbers are built on a very neat storywhere the economy behaves, rates behave and politics don't do anything too silly.Now, I don't know about you, but that's not how I remember the last decade.Let's now turn to the hotspotting style reports, price predictor indexes, best buy lists and rising market roundups.
23:09These tend to highlight dozens and dozens of locations where sales volumes and prices have been picking up,often in regional corridors, lifestyle towns, outer suburban belts and smaller capitals,especially in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.The story is usually, look at how many rising markets there are.We're in the early stages of a broad-based upswing.Here are 50 places that could do 10% plus.My translation?I actually liked some of this work because it's data-led,
23:39but by the time a location shows up on three different best-buyer lists,you're not early, you're the crowd.If that location doesn't have the sustainable growth driversof the three I's of new infrastructure,new industry diversity and growing incomes,in real depth, if it's not a long-term growth area, it's a sugar hit, waiting for a slowdownor a come down. That's where the not spots list comes in, and we'll come back to those shortly.Finally, let's talk about totalities analysis, or what used to be called CoreLogic or RP data.
24:11They're not really in the prediction business, they're in the reality business.Their housing affordability report shows affordability is at or near record worstlevels on three of the big four measures of price to income, years to save a deposit and share ofincome needed for a new mortgage. With median dwelling value around 8.2 times median income,mortgage repayments for a new buyer around 45% of gross income, around 11 years to save a depositand they make a really important point. You can't rely on short-term market dips to permanently fixaffordability. Every time they use ease, supply stalls, rates get stuck, migration picks up andprices just reset higher again. By translation, cotality is basically saying yes, this year might
24:57bring some moderation but the structural issues are not going away. So unless Australia radicallychanges how it taxes, plans and builds homes, we're likely to see more of the same long-termgrind up with short-term wobbles and a shrinking ladder for new entrants. So where does all thisleave you? Most of the forecasts and predictions are all basically saying prices go up again thisyear. Some places a little, some places a lot. By summary of the big forces is this. Supply is stillconstrained. Government policy is still pouring fuel on demand. Population and jobs are stillstrong enough to keep most people paying. Rates are likely to remain the same with a biggerlikelihood of a rate hike than a cut, depending on consecutive inflation and figure performance
25:42early in the year. But credit rules will keep a lid on how crazy borrowing can get. So yes,on balance, property values are more likely to keep going up this year. But the range of outcomesis much wider than any single forecast suggests, and locational variability will continue just asit always has. So if you build your plan around one magic number plus 10%, you're not investing,It's speculating. The way I use these forecasts is like this. I treat them like a weather bureau.If everyone says there's a good chance of showers, I'm not planning on a beach holiday.I'm packing an umbrella. So for this year and every year, that means build a plan that stillworks if growth is 2%, not 10. If rates stay put or rise, not fall. If your job gets shakier,
26:30not safer. If the best case forecast comes true, fantastic, that's upside. But your whole life isnot hanging on that one rosy scenario. And that is how you turn FOMO into a proper flight plan.Next, I'm going to zoom in on how this variable patchwork quilt is likely to look on the ground,which markers have the right people, property, and position to ride well, and which not spotsa long-term growth investor should be careful about walking into. So stay with me.now we know the big levers that are pushing and pulling this year let's talk about how that playsout on the ground because australia isn't one market it's a giant patchwork quilt of variableproperty conditions some squares are thick and warm some are thin and scratchy some are already
27:18fraying at the edges if you look at the national median averages you miss a bit that matters whichis where you're actually putting your money so now i want to walk you through the types of placesI think are more likely to sizzle, the types of places that might just simmer, and theplaces I call the not-spots, where a long-term growth-focused investor is probably betteroff steering clear of for now, either because the long-term growth fundamentals just don'tstack up, or the extreme weather climate insurance risk is starting to look as slippery as catpoo on lino.But before we dive in, here's a quick promise.
27:56you won't hear me say go buy this exact suburb because I reckon it's going to go up 14.3% nextyear because that's not a forecast that's a fairy tale and it's a fairy tale that a lot of highprofile property pipers on popular podcasts are happily selling you because once they've got thecrowd stampeding their jobs done and their businesses just keep growing often at yourexpense so instead I'm going to talk about patterns principles and profiles what I callthe growth driver three I's of infrastructure, industry and incomes supported by the three P'sof people, property and position. If a location does well this year but fails those tests it'snot a boom it's a short-term sugar hit. On the flip side if a location does okay this year but
28:42nails those tests that's the sort of place I quietly love long time. So where is the windbehind your back? Well let's start with the good news. The kind of places where the wind is morelikely behind your back this year are, number one, mid-priced capitals with real jobs and realprojects. Think cities that aren't eye-wateringly expensive, that still have strong job bases,big infrastructure pipelines and good old-fashioned population growth. At least for the next couple ofyears, that looked a lot like, or for the last couple of years, that looked like Perth, Brisbane,Adelaide and Darwin, which all outpaced Sydney and Melbourne on growth, off the back of tightersupply and stronger momentum. But remember that a 48% annual growth rate in a smaller town
29:27still produces the same actual growth in dollar value as a centre where double the medium housevalue only produces 7% annual growth. So you need to bear this in mind when you're only comparinggrowth rates against medium prices. Now the number nerds and strategics all think thatthe theme rolls on this year with those middle kids still doing a lot of the heavy liftingnow that doesn't mean every part of perth or brissy is a winner far from it but as a groupmid-priced capitals with balanced economies and big transport and health projects going inhave the wind at their back number two lifestyle regionals with real economies now i'm a bigbeliever in the long-term regional exodus to lifestyle as we age and as better internet means
30:15we can pretty much work and live from just about anywhere.But not every regional is equal.The ones that tend to do best have at least two of three things.Genuine affordability, genuine employment driversand genuine lifestyle appeal.Not just a pretty beach or a nice bakery.Cotaldi's housing index work shows plenty of regional pocketsstill clocking double-digit annual growth last year
30:43because they're combining industry and lifestyle, not just one or the other.So this year, I still like job-rich service hubs, university and hospital centres,and diverse regional centres where the local economy isn't hanging on one mine,one mill, or one tourist attraction.Then there's what I call the Simmer Zone.These are locations that have had a very good run and now quite expensive,but still have strong long-term pull.Think big global cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
31:13They may not sizzle this year,thanks to affordability and APRA's debt-to-income caps,acting like a bit of a speed limiter,but they're unlikely to implode either.They just grind along on a jog, not a sprint.For a long-term patient investor, that's fine.Boring, but fine.And boring is generally where the real money is made long-term.
31:34Alright, now for the policy and spicy bit.The not-spots.Places where a long-term growth-focused investor,they use sleep at night factor, might want to be very careful. Again, I'm not saying these areaswon't go up this year. Some of them may still have a great year, but I see them as eitherovercooked hotspots or risk rising locations where you're not being paid enough for the risk thatyou're actually taking. So let's break it into those two buckets. The first bucket is what Icall the Pied Piper hotspots. These are the places where national buyers agents and high-profile
32:10podcasters have been banging the drum for the last couple of years, and their big audienceshave all piled in like a flock of interstate locusts and compete with each other to overpayfor anything that isn't nailed down, often, and generally, sight unseen, and most timeswithout checking properly the future-focused three I's and three P's, if at all.A few examples to make this real, Darwin.SQM admits that Darwin massively outperformed their expectations last yearwith prices shooting the lights out thanks to comparative affordability,low listings and a rush of interstate investors chasing yields and gas project headlines.
32:51But Darwin is still a very small and very concentrated economy,heavily reliant on a narrow industry base.It doesn't yet have the critical mass of the diversified three eyes that you needfor safe long-term compounding hold.So for me, Darwin goes firmly in the not spot for long-term growth bucket.Next, the Gold Coast.Even SQM, who are forecasting another 7-11% growth for the coast this year, has been crystal clear.They think it's overvalued and that the risk of underperformance or an outright downturn goes up as more supply finally hits the skyline.
33:29Their own words are basically, it's gone further than we expected.we don't know exactly when but there will be a time when this one turns so again if you're lateto that party you're not surfing you're towel holding on the sand then we've got the late cycleregional affordability plays as part of the continuing national cheap and affordable racearound the country as the property pipe pipers play their flutes and megaphones and entice theFOMO frenzy to compete with each other in a crazy game of musical chairs on an ever-shrinking dancefloor. Places like Greater Geelong, Ballarat, Mildura, the Hunter Valley, the northern suburbsof Adelaide around Playford, Perth Fringe Corridors, Toowoomba, Rockhampton and similar pockets.
34:14Now these places have already enjoyed massive growth since COVID, often 70% plus off a very lowbase. Cotalities numbers show Toowoomba and bits of regional Queensland still clocking mid-teensgrowth into late last year, with Geelong and Ballarat experiencing late buyer's agent hotspotart ticks. Not early stage S-curve growth stories, but end-of-cycle affordability chases.Do some of these areas have real industry? Absolutely. But are you early if you buy therenow after the Pipers have marched the FOMO crowd in? Probably not. As I like to say, what we learnfrom history is we don't learn from history. So my rule of thumb here, if a location has just gonethrough two to three years of double-digit gains, driven more by an affordability chase and out of
35:05towners than by deep local sustainable growth fundamentals, I'm not saying never, I'm just sayingnot spot for new money this year. The second bucket of not spots isn't about price todayit's about insurance tomorrow. We're already seeing insurers, lit premiums or quietly stepaway altogether from some of the flood prone, fire prone and cyclone exposed parts of the countryas extreme weather events increase in frequency and impact. Especially mid to far north Queenslandwith places like Townsville, Lockhampton, Mackay, Gladstone, parts of Cairns and the Whitsundayshaving had a cracking few years with values up strongly off the back of mining activity,infrastructure projects and affordable lifestyle migration all being part of a regional Queensland
35:53comeback tour that's made a lot of investors very happy in the short term where the hopped up herdhas bought anything and everything regardless of its extreme weather and insurability risks.that's the tension on one hand you have industry-backed demand and structural undersupplyon the other you've got cyclones floods storm tides and rising insurance excessesif you're investing for quick cash flow and you're comfortable with the high risk profilethat might still be your thing but if you're building a boring long-term sleep at nightportfolio you need to ask yourself a very simple question can this place still be insured at asame price or insure it at all over the next 10 to 20 years. If the honest answer is not sure or
36:39probably not then for me it sits in the future climate not spot bucket. So how do you use thisnot spots list? Let me be clear I'm not saying you can't make money in Darwin or the Gold Coast orGeelong or Rockhampton or Townsville. Plenty of people already have. What I'm saying is that ifyou're starting a new purchase this year, as a long-term growth-focused investor, there arebetter ways and better places to make a quid than walking into an area that's already beenbuyer's agent-pied-pipered to win a minch of its life. Or into a postcode where the climate modelsand the insurers are both quietly blinking red. Now, the whole purpose of this exercise is notto scare you. It's to simplify things when you're looking at locations. I want you to ask three
37:27questions. Does this place have real committed infrastructure, industry diversity and growingincomes with depth, not hype? Does the property itself suit the people who actually live and workthere now and into the future? And is the position physically safe from obvious climate risksand economically safe from a one industry shock? If the answer is yes, yes, yes, you're probablylooking at a patchwork sizzle if the answer is kind of sort of not sure or but a popularpodcaster said then for me it starts to drift into not spot territory and i'd rather you avoida very expensive long-term lesson in hindsight so by now you've probably got a pretty clear pictureof both the patchwork quilt and the knot spots the question then becomes all right bushy what
38:17the hell do i actually do with all this how do i turn all the noise all the forecasts all thephone though into a simple flight plan that I could actually follow this year? Well, let me giveyou what I'll call your investor playbook. Five simple moves that help you stay calm while everyoneelse sprints between hotspot headlines like a seagull chasing hot chips. The first move is toremember property doesn't start with property. It starts with you, your lifestyle, your numbers,your risk profile. So before you look at a single suburb or a property online,I want you to pull out three things.Your freedom numbers, your bare facts, and your strategy.
38:58Your freedom numbers are the income and lossthat you actually want long-term without having to work for it.Not the glamorous social media version, the real one.This is documenting what you want and need to doas part of your GPS navigational systemthat everything else revolves around.Your bare facts are where you're at right now.What's your capability and your capacity?
39:21What can you do?Where B-E-A-R for bear breaks down into your B,which is about how much you can borrow,based on your income and your liabilities, like bills and basic living.Your E is about equity,the savings and available equity in your home or other propertythat you're able to contribute to investment deposits and rainy day reserves.Your A in bear is about affordability.
39:48How much per week can an investment afford to cost youwithout hamstringing your lifestyle once every cost in buying and holding a property minus taxbenefits is all taken into account. And your R is about risk or your sleep and knife factorso that your investments are structured properly to maximise returns while minimising the risks.And combined, the bare facts tell you what your achievable and affordable purchase price power arefrom a property before you actually start. Together, your freedom number, forecast indicatedGPS and your bare facts answer what you want and need to do with what you can do to then determineyour resulting property strategy in terms of what type of property at what price point in what
40:31ownership entity where. It's what I call your strategy rather than your strategy because ifyou start here your property strategy then shifts to the sustainably successful top-down scarcitymodel where you start with purchase price for three to four bender and growth home and then gofrom state to suburb to street to property to secure the best available property to suit youand your future needs, rather than the normal bottom-up approach of chasing the nexthotspot and buying whatever type of property you can get your hands on.So your strategy incorporates what you need to do with property over the next 10 to 20 years,so that the current property fits into your big picture of achieving and funding your ideal
41:12lifestyle and securing your family's future. It's about starting with the end in mind,but most people skip this critical step altogether. They go straight to where should I buy?That's like asking what plane should I fly? Before you know where you're actually going,how long you're flying and how much jewel you've got. So your first move is to get brutally honeston your numbers once you know what you're really trying to achieve and what you can safely afford.Then and only then does it make sense to talk about where. And if you need help with this,grab a copy of my book, The Freedom Formula, or book in with me for a lifestyle strategypersonal solution session by clicking the link in the show notes where you and I will go and do
41:56this together live. The next move is about planning for the worst and managing for the best.This is about your mindset. I want you to build your plan on three conservative assumptions.Assume rates don't fall further and could even rise a notch. Assume APRA and the banks keeptightening lending policy so your buying capacity doesn't grow and may actually shrink. And assumeyour job or your income is not bulletproof, that there could be a bump, a restructure or a dry patch.If your property numbers still work under these assumptions, you're probably fine. If your numbersonly work if rates drop, if your pay jumps and if prices shoot 10%, you don't have a plan, you'vegot a prayer. As I like to say, you're better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. If you plan
42:46for the worst and manage carefully for the best, you give yourself the best chance of enjoying anyupside without losing sleep if it doesn't show up. Your third move is all about money muscles,buffers and boundaries. In a block drain market of high prices and tight credit, cash is not justking, it's the airbag in your financial SUV. I like to see at least six to 12 months of totalliving costs and loan repayments across your offsets and all your savings. If you're nearretirement or more nervous, 12 months plus is even better. On the borrowing side, I suggest you setyour own red line well inside the bank's maximum borrowings. If a lender says you can borrow amillion, I want you asking, could we still breathe if we only borrowed $700,000 or $800,000?
43:35Remember, Abra's new debt-to-income rules are there to cap the crazy. You don't need to dragyourself right up to the cliff edge just because the bank computer says yes. That's like flooringyour car just because the speedo goes to 220. It doesn't mean you ever need to take it to the limit.Your fourth move is how you actually choose where and what to buy. This is where the threeeyes and three Ps through the heavy lifting. Infrastructure, industry, incomes, people,property, position. I want you to treat these like a pre-flight checklist. Before you signanything, you should be able to answer yes to questions like, is there real current andcommitted infrastructure going into this area over the next five years? Not just one road or
44:18one train line, but a genuine networking. Are there multiple sustainable industriesemploying people long-term, or is this area hanging on one mine, one mill, or one militarybase? Are local incomes strong enough and diverse enough to keep supporting today and tomorrow'sprices and rising rents? Then on the three Ps, are the people you're planning to rent to oreventually sell to actually living, working and playing in that patch already? Or are you justhoping they might show up one day? Is the property itself a type that locals want and can afford andkeep affording family homes and family areas where that's how people live in that area not a weirdmismatch like tiny studios in a family suburb or giant mansions and a transient student belt
45:04and what about position street level and block level are you on the right side of the streetaway from flood zones power lines and nightclub noise or are you that one unlucky duck rightunderneath the flight path both literal and financial and what do locals feel about thisparticular area as sentiment is generational and just because it looks good online doesn't meanthat the locals love it because eventually you want to be selling to a local homeownerwho's buying on emotion. Now all of this forward-looking information is available freeon the net if you know where to look it just takes time to find it. This is the reason whymost buyers agents and DIY property buyers don't take the time but rely instead on historic data
45:46that only tells you about the past but tells you nothing about the future so it doesn't measurewhat really matters. The bottom line, if a property or a location can't answer those six letters ofIII and PPP with a confident yes, it doesn't matter what any forecast says. It's a no from me.And if you need assistance with detailed due diligence to get an independent objectiveassessment of whether an area or a property that is being suggested to you is the best propertyto help achieve your goals feel free to book in with me for a due diligence review via a personalsolution session by clicking the link in the show notes and you and I will do a full macro micromicro assessment scorecard to give you confidence either way without the spin or the pressure to say
46:33yes because I only say yes when I can't say no any longer. Your next fifth move is probably themost important it's about how you behave in a noisy market because most of the people whowill get hurt this year won't be hurt by interest rates or even price falls they'll be hurt by theirown behavior by buying in at the tail end of a pied piper hot spot under pressure to say yesquickly to a buyer's agent without time to think about it because they tell you you're going tomiss out or because someone with a microphone and a spreadsheet told you it's the next best thingby stretching every last dollar of your borrowings.Or to chase a dream suburb when a more modest smart choice
47:16would have done by trying to flip an retirement trade property like a meme stockinstead of trading it like the slow, reliable, boring wealth buy stock machine that it really is.So here's my simple rule for your behaviour this year.If a deal only makes sense because you think you're about to make a quick gainor you're being pressured by a buyer's agent to act quickly,you're probably walking into a not spot.If an opportunity makes sense because the numbers work,the buffers are healthy, the jobs are real,
47:48the air is resilient,and you'd be comfortable owning it for 10 years or moreeven if it did nothing in the first three to five,you're probably on the right track.In other words, stop trying to be the herowho buys the next Gold Coast before it booms.Start trying to be the boring old pilotwho lands safely every single time because the pilot who lands the plane is always richer than
48:11the one who tries to buzz the tower. When you take these five moves, starting with you, planning forthe worst, building buffers, filtering with the three I's and three P's and cleaning up yourbehaviour, you suddenly realise you don't actually need to know whether this year does 3%, 6% or 10across the country. What you need is a simple repeatable decision process that keeps you outof the night spots and quietly compounding in the dull dependable squares of the quiltthat hardly ever make the headlines but so often make millionaires. And that is how you move fromFOMO to a flight plan this year. One good decision at a time. So if you boil all this down to itsessence, what I really want you to take into this year is actually pretty simple. Three big things.
49:01Number one, you don't need to outsmart the market. You just need to stop letting the market outsmartyou. Number two, you don't need perfect predictions. You need good protections, buffers, boundaries andboring, repeatable behaviours. Number three, you don't need a magic postcode. You need the rightstrategy for your life, stitch to the right principles for picking places. If you focuson that, the postcode piece almost takes care of itself, because your filters will do theheavy lifting instead of some guru on YouTube. Now, I know at this time of the year it'svery tempting to sit at the barbecue or the beach and compare yourself to everyone else'shighlight reel. Your mate announces he's bought two in Perth. Your cousin says she's
49:46flit while on the Gold Coast. Your work colleague is banging on about some next best thing in a townthat you've never heard of up near Rockhampton. And if you're not careful, you start feeling likeyou've missed out and you're behind or you're somehow failing. Can I just gently remind you,most people tell you about their wins, not their worries. They show you the Instagram story,not the credit card statement and you never ever hear the full story about the risks they tookthe sleepless nights or the fees that quietly ate away the gains. So instead of asking am I doing aswell as everyone else try asking am I making calm considered decisions that my future self willactually thank me for. If the answer is yes you're doing just fine and if the answer is no then today
50:37is actually a great day to start changing that. Because whether property this year does 3%, 6%or 20, it won't matter nearly as much as whether you use this year to set up the next decade ofyour life. I want you to imagine yourself 10 years from now, sitting wherever your versionof a happy place is. Maybe it's a beach shack down the coast. Maybe it's a cosy place in aregional hub. Maybe it's a family home paid off with a couple of well-chosen rentals ticking awayin the background and you look back on this year as the year you stopped chasing FOMO or playingbigger stickers and started flying to a plan that's the whole point of this conversationnot to hype you up but to help you dial things down so you can make moves from a stronger place
51:21and if all you do off the back of this is three things you're already ahead get crystal clear onyour freedom numbers and update your bare facts so you know exactly where you stand and write downon a single page in dot points what your one to five property strategy actually is in the contextof the next 10 to 20 years. What you buy, roughly where, roughly when, how you hold it, and how youprotect your backside if something wobbles. Those three simple steps will do more for your long-termwealth than any number in any forecast from any guru ever will. And because you and I enjoythinking ahead, here's a little teaser for what I'll be diving into in an upcoming episode.today we've talked about the next 12 months in an upcoming solo we're going to zoom out to the next
52:09five to ten years we'll look at how ai and the future of work might hollow out parts of themiddle class and what that could do to jobs wages and property patents and how you can make sureyou're in the camp that owns the robots and the real estate not the camp that gets replaced bythe robots and priced out of property we'll tackle a bigger question of whether australia is quietlydrifting from a country of comfortable owners to a country of permanent renters. And how you andyour family can sit on the right side of that line without turning into a stressed out propertytragic who spends all day doom scrolling on realestate.com instead of actually living theirlife. For now, I just want to say thanks again for hanging out with me. I don't take your ears
52:53and your eyes all your time for granted. Today's chat has helped you feel a little calmer, a littleclearer and a bit more confident about your next steps then my job here is done if you want to keepthese sorts of smarter smiling chats going make sure you're subscribed to get invested and theproperty hub channel so you don't miss what we've got planned for the rest of the year but moreimportantly take a moment after this episode to sit quietly maybe with a cuppa or a cheeky somethingand actually write down one simple action that you'll take in the next week to move from FOMOto flight plan it doesn't have to be big it just has to be real because as i often saysmall smart steps done consistently beat big brave leaps done occasionally every single time
53:40all right friend and fighters that's it from me for now so here's to a great year ahead where youfly by design not by default and where your property decisions leave you smarter calmerand smiling. Thanks and I look forward to hanging out with you again very soon. So in the meantime,always get invested in you and your future. Thanks for tuning in to Get Invested on theProperty Hub podcast channel, your home for property investment insights and inspiration.Make sure you subscribe to Property Hub for free. Get your weekly dose of Get Invested inspirationalong with every episode of Realty Talk, Australia's top online property show forRed Hot Property Investing news and insights direct from industry leaders and influencers.
54:23And finally, I'll see you next time.