Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Joining the data dots between people and property with Nerida Consibee

Episode Date: December 21, 2019

If you’re researching property, there’s more information available than we can handle. How do we make sense of it all? We tackle this challenge with Nerida Conisbee, Chief Economist with the REA Group who is changing the way the world views property — REA is the parent company of realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au and a host of other digital property businesses globally. Nerida is recognised as one of Australia’s leading property experts. She provides regular market commentary to a wide range of Australian media outlets across digital, print, television and radio. She has more than 20 years of property research experience throughout Asia Pacific and has held senior positions within commercial agencies and major consulting firms over this time. Her expertise covers residential and commercial property from both an investor and occupier’s perspective. Nerida also holds a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours and a Masters of Commerce, majoring in Econometrics. With nearly seven million searches a day and over five million Australians using the realestate.com.au website every month (that’s one in four of us), Nerida has a very fine tuned sense of what’s happening in property nationally. With a wealth of data at her fingertips, Nerida marries the fundamental market drivers of real estate with the way we behave online to extract unparalleled insights. Now you’ve probably all heard the old joke about Why astrology was invented? So economics would seem like an accurate science! For me the quality of economic projections has been about the quality of the data, the quality of the modelling and most importantly the quality of the person interpreting the data – in this regard Nerida has no equal. Nerida doesn’t have a magic crystal ball but she has the next best thing – current buyer and seller behaviour patterns that bridges the gulf between logical and emotional driven decision-making around property. In today’s very interesting discussion, Nerida shares her insights on where property is heading around the country and which locations show good long term growth potential … so listen closely! Nerida's book recommendation: Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Get Invested is the podcast dedicated to time poor professionals who want to work less and live more. Join Bushy Martin, one of Australia’s top 10 property specialists, as he and his influential guests share know-how on the ways investing in property can unlock the life you always dreamed about and secure your financial future. 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.

You do need to be careful who you listen to, but also be mindful where the data is coming from because that can also make a big difference to the outcome of your view. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how on 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 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 bushymartin.com.au forward slash get invested. Thanks for listening, and now let's get invested. Hi Freedom Fighters Who do you turn to when you want to make a big decision?

Do you just make up your own mind? Or do you seek advice from others? And if you seek out others Who do you seek advice from? And why? Over the years I've found that we all seek advice for very different reasons and some of us look for it more than others.

Perhaps we're wired to want safety over adventure or perhaps we've had experiences that make us fearful of losing control or facing failure or rejection. Some of us seek advice when the complexity of the situation baffles our knowledge and when we're doing something for the first time or when the stakes are high and a mistake can be very costly. And while advice can certainly guide us towards a favourable outcome, our ability to discern good advice from bad is the key to making good decisions in our lives.

Now, this can be difficult in a world where there's an overabundance of information and no shortage of advice. Everything we see, hear or read, including this podcast, has something to say about what we need to do differently to be more successful, more fulfilled, wealthy, you name it. And then add on to that the personal advice we're given by well-meaning people around us who take it upon themselves to guide us in just about everything. Over the years, I've found that everyone in Australia

is an expert on investing, particularly in shares and property. It doesn't matter whether you're at the pub or at a barbie on the weekend, at the hairdressers or at work, someone's always happy to share their opinion. And the funniest thing about all of this is that those with the strongest opinions and who talk loudest and strongest about investments generally don't own any, or if they do, not for very long. As a wise person once said, talk is cheap because it's the only thing broke people can afford.

And in this regard, supply certainly exceeds demand. Now, this has led me to the creation of the law of inverse investment that I explain in my book, The Freedom Formula. It goes a little bit like this. The louder and the stronger a person's opinion on investment, the less likely it is that they're qualified to comment. Now, Greek philosopher Plato's words also ring true here when he said, Wise people talk because they have something to say.

fools because they have to say something. Now, unless your family and friends are active investors, don't ask them. Even Jesus' early friends didn't believe he was a Messiah. And the same goes for a lot of mainstream media commentators. You need to seek out proven performers who have access to current quality information, have the expertise to interpret it,

and have no vested interest in the advice that they provide. Let's face it, investments are high cost and potentially high risk process if the myriad of complex and dynamic information is not interpreted correctly to suit your particular circumstance. Now this doesn't mean you need to reinvent the wheel and try and do it all yourself because a half-baked part-time job is likely to end in disaster because you just don't know what you don't know.

So who can you trust to advise you on high-cost investments? And how can you trust them? As outlined in Charles H. Green's groundbreaking book, The Trusted Advisor, trust is built on the integrated combination of four key criteria, credibility, reliability, intimacy and self-interest. Credibility is what someone has done and said. Reliability is about someone repeatedly doing what they say they're going to do. Intimacy relates to feeling comfortable emotionally with someone,

that intuitive gut feel based on openness and honesty. And lastly, self-interest, the degree of impartial independence versus the level of vested interest. This is the most important but often ignored ingredient. So when you find someone whose advice you trust, follow it. It may not be perfect and that's okay. You have enough to begin and your answers will grow, change or expand as you take action. I've found that life is best lived in a lab coat, experimenting with what you know in the moment. If it doesn't work out, you learn. If it does

work out, you still learn. The key thing here is to take action and not get stuck in analysis paralysis, as there's always going to be an excuse why now's not the right time. Doing your research and then doing something is what life is all about. So there's my two cents of advice. Take what appeals to you, leave out the rest, and always be willing to change course. Let's take the example of property research. Over the last 20 years, I've seen a big shift from no information to too much information. We've gone from trying to make property decisions by searching for very few dots and trying

to join them, to being buried in dots and not knowing which dots to join. The property noise has become absolutely deafening and overwhelming. So how can you make sense of it all? You guessed it, by listening to today's high profile guest. Nerida Conisbee is the Chief Economist with the REA Group, who are changing the way the world views property. REA is the parent company of realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au and a host of other digital property businesses globally. And Nerida is recognised as one of Australia's leading property experts. She provides regular market commentary to a wide

range of Australian media outlets across digital, print, television and radio. She's got more than 20 years of property research experience throughout Asia-Pacific and has held senior positions within commercial agencies and major consulting firms over that time. Her expertise covers residential and commercial property from both an investor and an occupier's perspective. And Narada also holds a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours and a Masters of Commerce, majoring in econometrics. With nearly 7 million searches a day and over 5 million Australians using the realestate.com.au website every month, that's one in four of us, Nerida has a very fine-tuned sense of what's happening in property nationally.

With a wealth of data at her fingertips, Nerida marries the fundamental market drivers of real estate with the way we behave online to extract unparalleled insights. Now, you've probably all heard that old joke about why astrology was invented. So economics would seem like an accurate science. But for me, the quality of economic projections has been about the quality of the data, the quality of the modelling, and most importantly, the quality of the person interpreting the data. In this regard, Nerida has no equal. Nerida doesn't have a magic crystal ball but she has an expert's thing

current buyer and seller behaviour patterns that bridges the gulf between logical and emotionally driven decision making around property so in today's really interesting discussion Nerida shares her insights on where property is heading around the country and which locations show good long term growth potential

So listen closely as you enjoy Narrow to Connersby. Hey, Freedom Fighters, Bushy Martin back. And as an active long-term investor, I'm always looking for forward-looking, predictive and trustworthy insights from well-informed, quality researchers to help make really good decisions. And in this regard, you can't get better than today's guest. Not only does she have access to more relevant and current information than anyone else in the industry, but she also has the economic smarts to interpret it properly. Now, I was lucky enough to catch up with Nerida at David Kosher's recent property technology

talk, and it reminded me that not only is she savvy, but she's one of the nicest people in the game. So welcome, and let's get invested, Nerida. Thanks for having me. Yeah, awesome. I've been wanting to get you on for quite a while and very appreciative of you spending the time, and you're obviously really well-known with a very high media profile across the industry now, but for those that have been living under a rock, can you just give us

a quick rundown on who you are, what you're doing, and where you're currently heading, please, Nerida? Sure. So, I'm the Chief Economist for REA Group, and I have over 25 years property research experience. My role now is, as you said, primarily a media role. So I provide commentary on the market. I provide a lot of discussion around the data we see with regards, not just historical pricing data, but also a lot of the data that we're seeing around search. I do a lot of public speaking. So I'm frequently traveling around Australia, a little bit in Asia as well. We own

property portals throughout Asia, so I have been spending quite a bit of Hong Kong, quite a bit of time in Hong Kong over the past 12 months as well. And I also do a lot of video and provide a lot of written content for our sites, so the new sites on realestate.com.au and also Real Commercial. Yeah, awesome. Excellent. I'll totally give more information in the intro around REA Group and the fact that you've got coverage across realestate.com.au and the commercial space and a whole bunch of

other bits and bobs across that whole arena. But tell me, for those that want to sort of understand your journey so far, can you sort of take us back to where it all began? And I want you to go back as far back as you'd like to and take us through what you did, why you did it, what you learned from it, and how did that get you to where you are now? Sure. So, all right, so maybe if I take it back to high school.

I was very good at maths and I did, at the time, this is 1990s Melbourne, maths A and B in year 12. I also did chemistry, biology. So I was a very maths science student. I graduated and wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, but I wanted to do something to do with numbers because that was what I really loved working with and ended up getting into Melbourne Uni

and starting a Bachelor of Commerce degree. So I started that, did a lot of math subjects. So I did a lot of math subjects within the science faculty, obviously did standard macro, micro economic subjects as well. And at that stage, I did the first year, they made us all do accounting. I was terrible at accounting. Really?

Why? Yeah, okay. Just boring? I don't know. I love maths. I think so. I don't know. Depreciation schedules and things really didn't interest me, but I did love maths.

So, actually, it was interesting. I started first year of that sort of format. I was going to shift over into a pure science degree and continue on with maths, pure maths, but it started to get quite theoretical at that stage. So, you know, I remember I was doing a subject that was purely on complex numbers and we had to do a proof of 1 plus 1 equals 2. And so there's this massive amount of work that went into this proof

and at the same time I was also doing quite a few stats subjects and decided at that time that I could really relate more to statistics and how that relates to the real world as opposed to theoretical maths, which, you know, is interesting, but, you know, in terms of a career and, you know, where I would go beyond university, it was a little bit more restrictive. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you didn't see yourself as Einstein rediscovering the world.

No. I was going to say, being an academic, I suppose that was, you know, at that time I thought, well, that's probably not my career path. Yeah, yeah. Stats is, I mean, from someone who only touches on it, it is really interesting looking at trends and where it's heading and what it means, and I could see that you would love that. Yeah, look, and it was fascinating.

And so I continued on with my degree, really focused in on econometrics, so the statistical analysis of economies. It was the early 90s. I finished my bachelor degree, early 90s, wasn't many jobs. I did I did get offered a job within the federal government got moving to Canberra I also got offered a job in a bank and and then the other job that was once I finished my bachelor and then the third job I got offered was working for Professor Ian Harper at the Melbourne Business School as a research assistant so I had the three choices I could go to the bank I could

uh go to Canberra I could go work for Ian Harper and so I decided to work for Ian Harper because I thought well he's a he's a fascinating person and you know I could definitely learn a lot from him and so I went to work for him but then at the same time started my master's and and at that stage really got stuck into um numbers even more so and econometrics more so and ended up doing my thesis looking at the household expenditure survey unit record data and doing a real deep dive into gambling behavior in australia so so at that time i mean you can imagine back then trying to do econometric analysis with large data sets it was it was quite difficult and very time consuming oh my goodness i can't even imagine what i must have been like at that stage trying to draw

blood out of a steiner would have thought was it yeah it was a not yeah it was it was it was took a long time to run things so you know like now when i look at you know our data teams and our data scientists and how quickly things can can be manipulated it is uh quite incredible seeing that so um so yes i worked for ian harper for a year fantastic opportunity uh and then i got offered a job so you have to remember this is early 90s there wasn't many jobs around and especially in Melbourne it was very very high in employment but I was I was really lucky I got offered a job for a company at the time called Jeb Holland Damasi they became Urbis eventually but doing forecasting for commercial property owners and primarily shopping centres and also

also retailers so retailers like Woolworths for example so yeah so it was really good like I got to combine maths and then and that was really my I guess my entry into the property industry I didn't really have a strong knowledge of the property industry you know my parents never invested in housing you know we lived in a house that they owned and certainly didn't study it at uni you know it wasn't something that I studied at uni but once I started in property it just really grabbed me and you know I to this day I still get me I still find it so fascinating but really that's when I really started to develop a really strong interest in it. Yeah I can see that what I'm picking up on is that you had an attraction to the the stats component so you're

looking for real world tangibility and there's there's nothing more real and tangible than property so if you're applying that sort of econometrics approach to to property it would have been pretty rare at that time of the game, I would have thought, Nerida. Yeah, look, it was unusual. Like, you know, there wasn't much people could do with regards to data. And so I think people weren't so fascinated with property back then. And, you know, at the time, the main goals for economists were to work for a bank or to work for government or, you know, basically those were the two options.

So at the time, you know, it was, I guess, a little bit of an unusual choice. But given what's happened to people's interest in property, it's turned out to be a very, very good decision to enter the property industry that early on. Totally. Let's just very quickly talk about that. You've obviously seen a change in the level of interest in property then to now. What do you think's driven that? oh look i think it's look i think the main thing has been how well people have done out of property and um it's interesting you know we used to own a site in italy called casa.com and

in italy they're not so property obsessed and on our site you know people just take photos themselves and throw them up on there and um they just didn't you know we just didn't get the same same level of activity that we see here in Australia I mean we did we've done a survey recently a property seeker survey and 50 percent of people say that they just you know they they like to just browse property for the sake of it you know they're just on there to just just to have a look around whereas um in Italy with cars and we you know we never really found that and I think I think it's partly because you know we've never had a big property or we haven't had a big property downturn for a long time.

We've obviously had the most recent downturn, which – That's a blip. Yeah. Yeah, it was a blip. You know, it was funny. I don't know if we can go back to talking about that. But, you know, it definitely was a blip. But, you know, if you look long-term in Australia,

people that have invested in property or even people that just bought their own home have done very well from doing so. I know we've got property in the States and we were canvassing around that sort of GFC point growth zones around the world and there's just nowhere that beats the sort of growth sustainably that we see in Australia. There's some good yield plays elsewhere but not the sort of growth. What about with your sort of global reach?

Do you see the same thing? Yeah, look, I'd agree. I mean, I think there would be markets that are seeing strong growth but I think the safety of Australia is a key And, you know, we do have a stable government. There's low sovereign risk. You know, we're a growing economy. We're not growing that fast at the moment, but, you know,

we're still a growth economy. You know, we have a look at other Asian markets. I mean, Hong Kong was seen as a very strong growth, very safe market, but with political instability there, it's looking pretty rough. You know, you could invest in Thailand or Malaysia, but, you know, there are issues around sovereign risk and also the instability of those countries. So, you know, I think in terms of safety, I mean,

you really, like, really cannot go past Australia at the moment. Totally, totally. Absolutely. Okay, so it sort of ended up almost by accident in the property space that's obviously led to some pretty interesting things. Talk to us about the rest of the journey that got you towards where you are now and some of the challenges you faced along that journey. Sure.

So I spent about 10 years in consulting and, you know, it was great. I enjoyed that and I, you know, worked overseas in Canada for a year working for a forecasting firm there and that was a lot of fun. Worked on some interesting projects. But then a job came up at James Lang LaSalle. So James Lang LaSalle, Head of Research for Victoria, came up and I thought, oh, well, you know, that sounds like an interesting role, interesting company, and applied for the job, got the job,

and at that stage I realised, like, I really love, I just love that job. So it was a really great, fun job working in research. Yeah, started to do more media, started to do more presenting and had a lot of fun with it. You know, it's a great company. a global, you know, working with global research teams was a lot of fun, you know, so that was really interesting. So I spent about six years there, had two kids during that time,

so, you know, took a bit of time, you know, took a bit of time off during that time and then came back for maternity leave after my son was born and that was GFC, It was just post-GSC, and I think I did time his birth quite well because I basically was out of the market while all the financial crisis. So that wasn't planned. That was just a happenstance. No, I left, yeah, I left, and it was red hot, and I came back.

It was looking really bad, but people, you know, people, it was very, it was quite disconcerting coming back, actually. I mean, I obviously knew what had happened, but there had been a lot of fallout in the property industry over that time, and, you know, particularly commercial property. You know, people were pretty, you know, very, very concerned about the future. And then I got offered a role at Colliers as their national head of research. So I went from JLL, the Victorian role, and then I went across to Colliers as their head of research.

And that was a really, again, a really great role. So they didn't have such a – they've got a global footprint, but the global research team didn't have such an influence over what we did in Australia. So they pretty much let me go in terms of what I did. So we were able to – I had a really good marketing person, Zara Hall, that I was working very closely with then. So we launched some great reports.

And, again, I continue to do a lot of events. So I think that's probably what helped me once I got this role was that I was already doing a lot of public speaking and so the switch to doing media wasn't such a shock as it may have been if I hadn't been doing that. Yeah, it's an interesting mix because the introversion of stats and reviewing numbers and big data versus the sort of very outward public extroverted nature

of a lot of what you do is quite a rare combination narrative narrative where did that come from was was that sort of situational or you've just always been quite out there but but had a a very analytical brain that really wants to delve into why and and what are the numbers telling me uh look i think i've probably changed over time that i was you know probably a lot more uh reserved and kind of heads down as as the younger person but um i think i think you know doing events was something that really pushed me out there and really tested me a lot so i mean one of the things that really did help me was uh the property council started to change who they put up on stage and who they put on panels and there was a really strong focus

on getting a mix of um men and women and you know getting younger people and older people and um and really try they were really working hard to try and mix up their panels and their you know people speaking and um and as a result you know that that really you know i still to this day think that that was one of the things that really changed the way that i communicated because they they gave me an opportunity to push me out there and then it really helped me professionally yeah awesome so colleagues where to from colleagues yeah so colleague i was um approached by rea um to do a spot on sky um in that was probably gosh probably about five years ago now and um they had a um they had a show that they were sponsoring on a saturday called sky real estate

and um they approached me for that and you know at the time i was working for colliers and you know i couldn't really work for colliers and rea you know rea on the weekends and colliers week i mean like my role at colliers was big you know i had a big research team i was managing you know nine people and you know producing a lot of research products I was doing more overseas so you know the role at Collies had grown from you know head of Australian research to doing a lot more I was looking after a head of data person as well so you know there's a lot going on at Collies and so trying to fit in REA was a bit hard so um so it didn't really work out and then I kept in contact they kept in contact with me and then within about five months um REA came

back to me and said, oh, look, we've got a, you know, we think we can make this into a full-time role. And then from there, we just, you know, kept chatting. And then I joined REA, yeah, nearly four years ago. Yeah, okay. Well, it's been a meteoric ride since then. But let's just talk about, because what I'm hearing is, obviously, very passionate about what you do, but you're juggling a very busy career, you're managing people, you've got

a high media profile, you've got two kids that you're juggling with. How have you managed to negotiate all of that and still be as happy and friendly and outward as you do? A lot of people would struggle with those multiple challenges. I guess it's – I mean, I've got a great husband and, you know, he does do a lot of the childcare and a lot of the, you know, household stuff. So, you know, I guess I'm really lucky.

I've got a very supportive husband in that respect. But, you know, REA has just got such a great culture. So not only do I feel supported at home, but I feel supported in the workplace. And I think this is really important that if, you know, if you don't feel like people have got your back and, you know, are supporting you, then it is quite difficult to be able to do your job. So, you know, I guess that's part of it.

And then just the role. I mean, it's just so – I feel so fortunate to have such an amazing job and to do what I do and also to do something that I find so fascinating, you know, working with these amazing data sets and working in the industry as well. You know, the people I meet are just so interesting and, you know, I love hearing, you know, people's involvement and their interests and their theories about what's happening.

It is. And, you know, I think that for me is quite fascinating and, you know, I guess I've never been someone to sort of shove my views down people's throats, But, you know, I know a lot of people in my types of roles can be, but one of the things I do find fascinating is just listening to people's opinions and, you know, and I suppose, you know, they can sometimes even shape mine that you hear it from a different perspective and it does, you know, it does start to sort of form, you know, help me form views as to what's going to happen in the future. Yeah, what I love about what you do, because I find it's still unfortunately the property game can be quite a testosterone-filled boys' club with a bunch of guys who make some pretty big assertions based on gut feel

with no supporting info whatsoever, whereas why I pay pretty special attention when you're talking is that I know that it's backed up with not only good data but quality data and you do have those economic smarts that then can interpret that in a way that's actually meaningful. So have you had any challenges with the Boys Club? And also I guess what I see with a lot of media commentators in Australia, you go on this sort of journey where everyone loves you initially

and then you sort of hit this sort of tipping point where suddenly you're a tall poppy and then people are looking to kick you down. Have you had any fun and games with that on your journey so far? You know, it's interesting. I mean, I have been working in a very male-dominated field my whole career. So, and so I guess I kind of, I mean, you know, I've obviously had people sort of trying to kick me down

and, you know, undermine me, not listen to me. you know all those things so yeah so i think that's you know i i guess i've become quite used to that and also i guess developed ways of dealing with it because i'm kind of like well you know what if you don't want to listen to me you don't have to and um if you don't agree with me you don't have to um i'm saying it how i see it i i don't have a vested interest you know i'm not I'm not a property developer somewhere trying to flog something I'm building. I'm not, you know, I don't have a product. I work for REA Group.

I mean, they've been, it's interesting because, I mean, they have really let me say what I want. You know, I don't get called in to say, you know, can you stop saying that? It might upset a customer or don't say that. The developers aren't happy. You know, so I guess I, you know, on one hand, I'm used to working in a very male-dominated field.

but I'm used to trying to be heard. You know, I suppose that was the other thing too, that it did take me some time to be heard. And then also just, again, you know, working in a role where I'm not directed to say anything in particular, but to talk, you know, how I see it and where I see the future going is, you know, a pretty good position to be in. Well, it's backed up too.

You're not just saying things off the top of your head. You've actually got data to support the comments that you're making, And that's, I think, the big difference between yourself and others in the space. Yeah, I mean, this is it. I mean, we just have so much information and a lot of it is, I mean, you know, the data I get goes towards informing my view. It's, you know, I don't really see the data in itself being the story. And, I mean, a lot of the things too, but, you know, there's so much data out there and a lot of, you know, people often think, you know, the data is the data. But, you know, the reality is there's good quality data

and there's poor quality data. Once you start doing modelling, once you start doing forecasting, I mean, there's a lot that can change and a lot of, you know, models are highly malleable. And, you know, I think people in the general public don't realise that, you know, a forecasting model can be put out quite easily and the more complicated you make that forecasting model, the more changeable it can be made by, you know,

just tweaking a few assumptions. So, you know, I think that's the thing too, that you do need to be careful who you listen to, but also be, you know, be mindful where the data is coming from because that can also make a big difference to the outcome of your view. Absolutely. It's the interpretation of the data that's the key bit for me.

So, you know, there's lots of data out there, but it's how you actually interpret the data. What data do you actually listen to and then how do you interpret that in terms of future moves? There's a lot of rear vision mirror stuff and there's buckets of that around that tells you nothing but what happened in the past, what I'm more interested in and I think sitting on realestate.com with looking at people's actual buying behaviour through what they're searching for is very relevant to what people are doing right here, right now.

and I'll dig into that in a moment but let's talk about big data because we're going through the Googleisation of the world and Google's made it really crystal clear that their single aim really is to cut anyone out of the middle and go direct to source and we're going to see some major ongoing changes with AI and technology

that'll affect property and finance across the board. Can you sort of comment on how you see that affecting you and the REA group and then broader in terms of the impact that that's likely to have on the property industry and markets over the next five to ten years? Yeah, I suppose, I mean, there's so many impacts. I mean, the way, I mean, okay, so I guess starting with players like Google and Facebook and Instagram and all those, you know,

those bigger social media sites. um yeah they are major competitors to us you know we can we can clearly see that you know they decided to make a plane to property that could make a big difference to our business yeah um in terms of in terms of the way that we're looking forward for our business a lot of it's around um keeping people on on the um people keeping people engaged throughout their lives and not just when they're specifically in a situation where they want to rent or buy or sell. So that's where we are really focused upon.

I don't think it's that different to most tech companies. I mean, it's interesting, you know, that David Koch dinner that we were at, that there was one of the guys that had come through, oh, that was there from one of the digital banks. And it was interesting, his comments around, you know, So in the end, we see ourselves as providing a much better service to the community and, you know, I always thought of digital banks, oh, you know, it'll be a disruption play and they'll drive down pricing

and, you know, make it really good, you know, from a price perspective. But, you know, they don't see themselves as that way and, you know, that's great. You know, I think that's pretty consistent with us is that, you know, we're looking at ways that we can keep people engaged is the main one but also help them. So I think, you know, one good example that we have is that we're looking at and actively developing is, you know, if you're someone that we know is a renter on our site, you know, we would be able to say to them, you know, providing they want to give us information, you know, you're paying this much rent. And did you know if you wanted to buy a property, you know,

you could potentially be paying this much in the property in your area. You know, do you want to talk to an agent or would you like to talk to a finance provider? Yeah, so those sorts of things is kind of what we're looking at in the future. And I think that will probably be fairly similar to most online businesses is that it's all about keeping people engaged and keeping them on site. Well, that engagement piece, I guess the delicate balance that I now see

is that, let's face it, the mainstream mass media are under threat in terms of their own livelihood. So what I'm seeing with the mass media is that their only way of maintaining any engagement is to scare the hell out of us. So there's a lot of fear thrown in there and it's always at the extremes is because that's the headline that's the one that's going to grab us. How do you negotiate through that in relation to getting airspace yourself but also making sure that the insights and information you're provided

are actually not just scaremongering but real relevant insights? Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. You know, the most recent downturn was an interesting time for us because there was a lot of scaremongering. I mean, you had commentators on 60 Minutes saying prices were going to fall 45%. You know, you had people who I, you know, I respect coming out and saying prices would drop by 25%.

And it was interesting, you know, we were looking, you know, obviously we were looking at what was coming out in the media with regards to where pricing was going. We weren't seeing the same sorts of falls and, you know, this is something that we're continuing to work on, that we, you know, I mean, we're still not seeing, you know, we just don't see such big swings at a capital city level as some other people see.

And, you know, we're trying to work out if we're wrong. I mean, we're spending a lot of time looking closely at our pricing models and, you know, just kind of wondering what the difference is. But as prices were falling, you know, we weren't seeing it. I suppose a difficult part, the difficult situation I was in is that I was kind of, you know, I wasn't kind of saying, I was saying, look, it's not actually that bad And I don't think, you know, I really can't see it falling by 25%. And this is a situation that's come about from, you know,

it's been implemented by government. You know, it's been driven by Royal Commission. It's not an economic crisis leading to this. Yeah. And so, you know, I kept saying, you know, I said it. And, you know, I've got a pretty big, obviously, you know, we've obviously got that great relationship with News Corp. They're a majority shareholder.

So, you know, I kept saying it, but, you know, you're right. It was a time that, you know, to come out and be fairly moderate and say, well, you know, it's not the end of the world was not something that a lot of people wanted to hear and to come out and say the market was going to fall by 45%, you know, that was something that played into people's, I don't know, like, you know, well, it made people very, very nervous, but it also was something that the media was quite keen on publishing.

Yeah, I find it interesting because I guess I've been in the game for a long time now but what I saw happening in Sydney was what I was expecting to see in Sydney and that's with sort of overlay particular areas and the old S-curve exercise is something that we see in locations quite often where we'll see, Let's say a property cycle takes eight to 15 years. What we generally see is a spike in prices over a three to five year period.

Then sometimes it'll do a bit of a correction of up to 10%, then it'll go flat to five to eight years and you'll see a spike again. We've seen that regularly happen in suburbs and locations around the country. So when I saw Sydney come back 10% or so, I was like, well, yeah, that's exactly what I would expect to see in Sydney, yet the media wanted to make it out like the sky was falling in. So when you sort of put some parameters around that and we start to look at the overall trends,

then what we're seeing in those locations, and Melbourne's no different, is exactly what we expect. So all I've been saying to investors is just hold your hats. This is what we expect to see. Sit back. There's nothing exciting in property, and you're only in trouble if you actually have to buy or sell at that particular time.

If you're not, if you're in the long term, just ride the wave, ignore the press and get on with life. How does that fit in with your view of things? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we could see how red-hot Sydney was on the way up. I mean, pricing increased by around 70% between 2011 and 2017. So, you know, and then, you know, the Royal Commission came in and as soon as a discussion about a Royal Commission was, you know,

really was starting to happen, it was September, I think the Royal Commission was formally announced in December, but Sydney pricing started to turn. And, you know, Sydney does tend to overshoot more than any other city. And we saw at this cycle that pricing shot up 70% and then dropped, you know, about 11%, 11% or 12%. It's still pretty good. Yeah, I mean, amazing during that time.

I mean, Melbourne didn't swing up as hard and didn't fall as hard. And then at the same time, you had markets like Hobart and Geelong, which saw some of the best growth that they'd ever seen. So, you know, it was an interesting time. I think, too, I think the discussion is so Sydney-centric that, you know, if you're coming in from another country and people are saying prices are, you know, going to fall 25%, you know, not realising that that's actually, you know, one capital city where people are thinking that's going to happen

would possibly be quite surprising. Yeah, it's quite myopic. What frustrates me in the game actually, Merida, is that because all the decision makers, whether it be through government, whether it be through the banks and whether it be through the media, most of them live in Sydney and therefore they have a very myopic view of life generally. But what tends to happen is that across the board lateral decisions

are made that affect every part of the country. So let's take the lending landscape as an example, where the combination of the Royal Commission and the work that APA and ASIC were already doing to really put the handbrake on that space has become a self-fulfilling prophecy in relation to tightening credit to the point where it's strangled demand, which, surprise, surprise, has flattened prices. And then that's ramped up by the media. you've got this situation where Sydney tends to be driving policy across the nation.

And I think the sooner we move to a more regional approach, the better off property owners in any format are going to be. What's your view around that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I spent a lot of time in Perth, heads over there, sort of three to four times a year. and it was interesting during that time. I remember 2017, you know, we started to see very,

very early signs of recovery in the Perth market and, you know, it was looking really, really good and rental demand in particular was picking up finally. So, you know, Perth has just been tough for so long and so there was finally a little bit of good news and then the Royal Commission happened and completely derailed that recovery. So, you know, I think for people in Perth, all this talk around, you know, the best property conditions ever or the worst property conditions ever, you know, it is, you know, almost always the opposite for them that they, you know, they see quite different circumstances and far less finance led and more resources led. So it is a very, very different market over there,

but very frustrating for them when finance is being restricted at a time when really they could do with an easing up of finance. Yeah, let's talk about the finance piece in particular because I guess I'm a very strong believer that property is a game of finance and access to credit does have a major impact on value drivers. And there's been a lot of talk recently that, yes, the banks are lessening the restrictions, but what we're seeing on a day-to-day basis

is that, yes, they've dropped down their servicing buffer and they've released a couple of other things, but for every release they're making, they're adding additional pressure around living expenses and debt-to-income ratios and a bunch of other exercises where, you know, if we go back five years, RBA dropping rates would have had a major impact on demand, but we've gone from a single lever to a...

Hello? Sorry, cut out. Yeah, we've sort of moved from a single lever exercise with rates to a multiple combination lock now with a whole series of policy measures that aren't showing much signs of lessening other than that the banks' profits are down and that will probably start to put some upward pressure on taking that strain off access to credit more.

What's your view around that and the impact that's going to have on the markets in terms of access to credit over the next short term, one to two years? Yeah, I mean, obviously with the Royal Commission over, we have seen an easing up of finance, but it hasn't got anywhere near to where we saw it back in 2015, for example. I think the banks do get hit over the head a lot.

I mean, the Royal Commission obviously need to be done. There was a lot of stuff going on that really shouldn't have been going on. But on one hand, being told don't lend, you're causing a lot of problems to within a couple of months being told to lend and to get the economy moving again. It can be quite difficult in a big organisation like a bank where they're not easily, you know, they can't easily move that quickly. So, you know, I think things around expenses,

look, I don't think it will change. I think there will continue to be a focus around responsible lending and the more that information and data is shared, the more that that will be the case. So, you know, the fact that banks can more easily find out people's financial situation will be a factor. um i do i do look i think it will continue to ease up and we are starting to see an increase in finance commitments through abs data um we're finding on our site that investors investor

activity well one of the i mean look there's lots of measures we look at but one measure that we can actually track the difference between how um first-time buyers are versus owner occupiers versus investors is looking through our email inquiry data. So, you know, if you email an agent, there's an option to tick what sort of buyer you are. And so we're looking a bit more closely at that data to see what's happening around the different buyer groups. And what we can see is that since May,

we've seen quite a general shift upwards of first-home buyer activity. We've seen a big uptick in owner-occupiers. So basically from October, we've just seen this surge of interest from owner-occupiers, but investors still remain pretty flat. So I think it comes a lot back to the fact that what you were saying around getting finance, that that's still really, really tough for a lot of them. I think too a lot of them, a lot of investors would have got a little bit,

not a little bit, I mean some would have had a big impact from some of the quality issues that have emerged out of new developments as well. And particularly Sydney, I mean, you know, the number of... I mean, there's a lot of them, but again, you know, coming back to the media, it was, you know, it was a pretty terrible time for people, you know, with the Opal Tower cracking and the flammable cladding issue

in Melbourne, you know, there was a lot of fear, I think, from that. So I think, you know, that would have been an issue. Then falling values made people nervous, you know, I mean, people that have invested for a long time are fully aware that markets don't always go up, but, you know, I think for people that may have started investing between 2011 and 2017, you know, it would have felt like a very good time to be buying, and, you know, when prices started to fall

and all that negative media came out, then, you know, suddenly it wasn't such a good idea. So I think it will take a little bit of time before investors come back for a multitude of reasons. Yes. But obviously finance is really key. If they can't get money, then that makes it very difficult for them. Yeah, that's what we're seeing.

We're seeing an appetite, but the capacity is not there because of those ongoing finance restraints. And as I say, what I'm seeing, Nerida, is that we're seeing the RBA and the government starting to put pressure on now to say, well, we need to get people back in. The bank's profits are suffering. For the first time ever, we've seen some pretty major drops in profitability and the loan book represents a big portion of their income.

So my view of that is that economic forces are going to drive a relaxation in lending criteria within the realms of safety. So hang on to your hats, given that scenario, if you are in a position to buy, now's a bloody good time to be doing it. Yeah, I mean, and the other thing too is, I suppose one other aspect that will help things is open banking and digital banks coming in.

And I think this, too, is one of the things that – there's a few things frustrating for the RBA. I mean, the first one is that they're cutting rates, but then they're not getting passed on in full. So that's a frustration. It sort of gruntens the impact of a rate cut. But also that people – you know, there are a lot of lenders out there, and people do seem to be very loyal to the big four.

But, you know, you don't need to be. You know, there are definitely a lot of different home loan providers out there that, you know, you can speak to. And, you know, I mean, we obviously own a mortgage-broking business, so, you know, I'm not completely independent here, but, you know, we know what a good service mortgage brokers are in terms of being able to get unearthed some of the better deals. Well, we're the same.

A big portion of our business is in the finance-broking space. and there's a 55% variation across the lenders in terms of what you can borrow based on exactly the same finance profile and there's 40 plus lenders offering over 2,000 different loan solutions out there. So I'm like you, I never cease to be amazed by the loyalty that's shown the big four banks

with the big four banks showing no customer loyalty other than raping that loyalty in terms of often not passing on the full amount to existing customers where they'll bend over backwards to get a new customer. It's quite interesting. But I take an aside. So I would love to go around the grounds now if I can, Narada, and what I'd like to focus on if we could,

because the people that we tend to help most are those that are looking for often new-build properties because if they're set up and structured well, Then from a cash flow affordability perspective, in an area that's got long-term sustainable growth, so we're looking for that sustainability over at least a 10 and more likely a 15-plus year period. If we go around the place based on the search activity that you're seeing and any other predictive indicators

that you're using to look at where particular locations might be going, if we go state to state, Can you sort of give us a run through your thinking around where things are heading? Yeah, okay. All right, so starting with Sydney, I mean, we can see from a search perspective and an imbalance between search and listings that Sydney is really leading the charge at the moment. Flying through to pricing, you know, we can see, again, northern beaches is one of the top areas in Australia at the moment in terms of price growth.

Eastern suburbs doing well. Western Sydney still lagging, but, you know, that's a pretty consistent early cycle that we do see, you know, the best, not the best, you know, the premium locations start to pick up first and then we see that flow on effect to other markets. Sydney, we're still seeing, oh, another good sign in Sydney is we're seeing a big pickup in inquiry for house and land. So, you know, that hasn't happened for a long time,

but the last few months has been. Is that a first-time buyer driven? Well, probably. I mean, that's one that we can't tell. That's through our developer site. But, you know, we know that they're obviously big buyers of house and land. So that's probably a driver there. Yeah, just jumping in there quickly, most of the listeners, when they invest,

if they're looking to either buy or build, they're generally in the price bracket between sort of $500 to $650-ish. and that price pointing becomes the entry level that we then go and search for. What's the highest growth location at that price point around the country? Yeah. With that sort of filter in play, can we sort of then look state by state and area by area

with your view on where those opportunities might be? So 500 to 650? Yeah. Okay. All right. So I guess Sydney kind of knocks out a lot of people. I mean, you could probably get an apartment. I mean, you know, we're seeing a bit of growth in, I mean,

places like, where do we say, Central Coast. You know, Central Coast is a market that we continue to see a lot of activity. I think it's an affordability driver that, you know, younger people are moving up there to get access to a nice lifestyle. I mean, the other area in New South Wales that's really strong from a search perspective, and particularly rental search, which is interesting, is basically moving up north from Byron Bay to Southern Gold Coast.

So basically, so Tugan down to Byron, that whole spine is very strong at the moment. So again, I think it's still, you know, again, that Sydney affordability aspect is sort of pushing people to places like Central Coast. Yeah, and pushing them up north. um newcastle we're seeing quite a bit of demand you know probably mining land i mean this is another big trend nationally that we're seeing is is a lot of mining towns uh have been seeing

quite good rental growth for some time going through the pricing um they are areas you obviously need to be super careful you need to get in no i think a lot of people i mean you want to get in and out pretty quickly so it's um you know somewhere like dysart which is not a very nice place to live but has close access to mines is you know it's doing very well but yeah these are yeah you do they do swing quite a lot yeah um let's jump into let's move into uh Queensland uh yeah and around those price points for a long-term growth play yeah what's your thinking around uh okay so long term I think for houses the best price growth will be Gold Coast and primarily because Gold Coast is restricted for land.

So it is an area that, you know, you're just not going to be able to build much over the long term. It will become more dense, but, you know, if you own a house on the Gold Coast, I think you probably will do quite well over the long term. Brisbane, yeah, Brisbane I'm not as bullish on primarily because I can build more easily. So it's not the same land restrictions.

And Sunshine Coast is cheaper than the Gold Coast, obviously not Noosa, but moving to some of those suburban areas, it's pretty good too. But I think, you know, South East Queensland in general is looking fairly positive long term. But, you know, for me,

I think it's really Gold Coast that's going to be driving it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, excellent. If we slip into my home state of South Oz, it's always been the sort of Bradley of the property market and just keeps chugging along where others come and go. But what's your feeling around the opportunities that you're seeing in search activity in good old SA?

Yeah, SA's interesting. I mean, it did just continue to grow during the downturn. It's been an interesting market. It obviously didn't get hit that hard. So, I mean, what we find, an interesting mix between buy versus rent search in Adelaide. We see very, very strong buy search in the inner suburbs of Adelaide, Adelaide Hills.

We see a lot of activity from buyers. Interesting interstate search. We see a lot of interstate search looking at beachside, you know, so Glenelg and that area. We see a lot of interstate search. So, you know, from that perspective, that's quite interesting. But rent is quite different. So very, very high rental demand in far cheaper suburbs.

So moving, you know, north and south of those high-demand buy areas, we see very strong rental demand. So I think it's probably related to jobs. You know, I think there has been some pretty decent jobs growth in Adelaide. But I think also that investors, because investors concentrate in Adelaide Hills, there's probably fairly good rental supply in those areas and not so good in some of the cheaper locations. So if you're wanting a tenant, you know, that's probably something to look for.

Interestingly, too, if you have a look at rental yield, the highest rental yields for a capital city are actually in Adelaide and in places like Elizabeth and Elizabeth North. So, again, you know, not suburbs that a lot of people would want to invest in, but in terms of rental yield, they are looking pretty attractive. Yeah, well, we often talk about investors going on the growth, the cash flow curve. So I start with growth and then end in cash flow. As cash flow yielders, at the end of the investment journey, those locations work pretty well.

Yes. Awesome. Okay, well, let's jump to WA for a minute because I've got to say that we've been looking pretty closely at WA and you've made a couple of comments. We're a bit contrarian in relation to identifying if we get in early enough before that growth spike occurs, you can sort of give yourself a leg up in terms of equity growth. We're seeing sort of rental yields coming back quite a bit in recent times. What's your view of Perth and the sorts of areas that might, within those price parameters I'm talking about,

represent some opportunities moving forward? Yeah, I mean, Perth is, I mean, it's been really tough. But at the moment, premium Perth is doing really well in terms of buy demand. We're seeing some fairly decent price growth in some of the best western suburbs of Perth. Very different, though, in terms of search in inner Perth compared to middle and outer ring suburbs. And outer ring in particular, I think you do need to be very wary of that, you know, Some of those house and land suburbs have seen a lot of building taking place.

You know, a lot of people paid very high prices during the boom in those locations. And there does seem to be quite a bit of – when you have a look at some of – when the banks release some of their – you know, some of the data sets around distress, we often see Perth come up and it is primarily those parts of Perth where there's distress. But inner Perth, amazing. Rental demand is really picking up.

So I think the market's turning, and I think you do have to be mindful it's not going to get to boom time conditions anytime soon. It's going to be a kind of steady. Long-term play, yeah. Yeah, a long-term play, definitely. Yeah, I mean, most of our investors are 15-year-plus, so if we're talking a 15- to 20-year sort of timeline, I think that there are some opportunities there,

recognising that you're not going to see anything flash over the next five to ten. Yeah, I think you need to be careful. So I do think there's definitely opportunities, but, yeah, you just need to be a little bit more careful where you pick. Okay. Let's talk about Victoria then. You've spoken about Melbourne and Geelong and Ballarat,

and I guess Geelong and Ballarat in particular, Geelong's had a pretty good run as a result of some government incentives and some decentralisation, and it's obviously going to do very well as a result of the first-home buyer incentives that have now been promoted by the federal government so there'll be ongoing growth there's been talk about Ballarat with the rail extension and the first home buyer exercise will give that a shift I have some nervousness around the critical mass and the diversity of employment to support that in in Ballarat but that's just a personal what's what's your read of of Victoria

and the current play? Look, I think Geelong, I mean, Geelong's going to be an outperformer, I think, over the next decade. And a lot of it comes back to government investment. And in particular, if that fast rail gets up and running, there's been, I think, $2 billion allocated in this year's budget, federal budget, for the fast rail from Geelong to Melbourne. And, yeah, that would be a game changer.

I mean, taking a half an hour commute to half an hour would, you know, significantly change people's ability to get in and out of Geelong. So I think that will be a good one. Yeah, Melbourne, I mean, Melbourne's doing well, again, at the moment. You know, we can see that there's some good prices starting to come through and some decent search coming through as well. Like Sydney, it does seem to be a little bit premium-led at the moment. And, you know, a good example is really Turack.

It was, you know, three years ago, Chirac was really down in terms of years per listing, but now it's in the top ten. So, you know, given that it's Melbourne's most expensive suburb, that was quite interesting. The areas in Melbourne, I mean, there's a lot of areas I find interesting in Melbourne. I guess the western suburbs is one, and that gentrification of Footscray out to Sunshine is quite interesting to see that, you know,

there's a lot of young people moving to that area and starting to really improve the housing stock and that's happened. I mean, I've been in Sydney now nearly five years and how that sunshine, for example, has changed over five years, I can't believe because when I left, Sunshine Plaza was seen as quite dangerous but now a lot of young people are moving there so it is rapidly changing. So I think Western Melbourne is interesting.

The other area that's interesting is the outer northeast in the Outer East and, yeah, places like Briar Hill, Montmorency, Seville, you know, those areas are places that offer lifestyle, big homes, big blocks, reasonably easy to get into the city and, you know, I think those areas will continue to see pretty decent conditions over the long term. What about down on the Morning Peninsula? What's your rate of what's likely to happen on that neck of the woods?

Yeah, I mean, that area's changed a lot and, I mean, a lot of it's to do with the fact there's better transport links into melbourne so i mean what we have seen long term is is that it has become more of a um a residential location as opposed to purely a holiday location i'm actually writing a article for the australians the next year looking at the most popular um premium beachside locations and and flinders is actually coming up as as number one so i just had a look at the data this morning so i have to have a bit of a closer look but it is looking like flinders is one that's You know, in terms of a, you know, very, very top expensive location

seems to be the pick at the moment. But, I mean, not to be sure, it's quite diverse. I mean, you've got places like, you know, Rosebud's a lot cheaper, obviously, than, say, Portsea, but they're not actually that far from each other. Yeah, and then on the flip side, you've got Hastings, which is sort of quite low, but then some high areas coming inland into the Bowen Owrings

and those sort of locations. Yeah, Red Hill and those locations. Yeah, there's quite a diversity there but I think some pretty good opportunity given the fact that, as you well mentioned, the infrastructure links are now much improved and the commute has been cut substantially. So it's moving from that sort of holiday zone into a commuter zone with some pretty good opportunity down there.

Yes, yeah. Interesting. Okay, we won't talk about Tassie because I'm mindful of your time and I think because of the lack of critical mass, It's not an area that we appoint investors in any way, and it's had a bit of a bull run of recent times with Hobart and the flow-on to the lawn system. My big question around Tassie is its sustainability

from an investor's perspective. I think it's got some challenges there. The owner-occupier, it's a beautiful place to live, no question. But as a long-term investor, there's probably better growth, more sustainable growth locations on the mainland. yeah I mean I yeah the Tasmanian economy has changed so you know we can see that that was what was really the driver I can see Hobart one system I'm not as confident it will maintain the growth but the other thing I guess for Tassie is that the building industry is pretty

slow so I think that's that's probably been one of the biggest drivers of Wi-Fi scope has continued to surge okay well it's been awesome uh Nerida I just want to close on the quick five questions that the listeners always want our guests views on and the first of those is what is your favorite quote and why oh god i probably should have um read my notes gosh i don't know i'm going to come back to that one yeah okay yeah yeah let me come back to one this one's a bit easier what's the top book that you'd recommend people read and why um okay so i i really love um the freakonomics books yeah i find them very very fascinating and um i'm i'm not a theoretical macroeconomist i love the i love looking at smaller markets and

i love looking at the um the dynamics between people and things and how changes to things in terms of the policy, for example, can lead to quite big social changes. And I love what they do. They just look at things so differently and put an economic lens on things that are quite social-related. Yeah, I love the way they blend. Yeah, I really enjoy them. They sort of bring together the head and the heart.

A lot of economics is very head-based, whereas biobehaviour is often emotionally driven. Yes. the way they can combine that to really then have a better handle on predicting what change impacts will occur is probably much more balanced, I think. Yes. Is that a fair read?

Yes. Yeah. This one's a bit left field, but it's a question that just about every listener wants to get people's thoughts on. What's the top legal thing that you've done to minimise the tax that you pay? What's the top? Legal thing that you've done to minimise the tax

that you pay um well i have very a very easy tax situation so i i i'm not a complicated investor or anything so um what's the top legal thing probably i don't know maybe the the working from home allowance yeah it's probably one that i've used in the past yeah easy yep and the back on the investment subject, what's the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received? The best has been to buy a home to live in is the best. You know, I just think we bought when we were quite young. So buying in – I mean, we didn't buy a great house

and we spent too much renovating it. But, you know, despite that, it ended up being, you know, quite a different position. The worst investment advice, I mean, I do hear, you know, I suppose the worst I hear is for people to get a portfolio of properties very, very quickly and not be mindful of market trends and not be mindful of the fact that, you know, you can't – there's a lot of expenses related to investing in property.

And, you know, I suppose the one that really stood out was that case, I think there was a couple that was suing Westpac around lending to them for a lot of properties they bought in mining towns around Australia. I think I've got the story right. But, you know, that one I just thought, you know, you could see at the time people getting caught up in the excitement of buying in mining terms and seeing the growth, but, you know, that rapid turnaround in conditions was, you know, it was quite, you know, I think it took a lot of people

by surprise and if you were highly leveraged in that market, it would have been devastating and, you know, I think you do need to be careful to spread risk and you do need to be careful to keep in mind that markets don't always go up, they do go down and holding property can be expensive if you don't have a tenant. Absolutely. Diversifying your asset base and being borderless but also engaging a team of proven professionals

that's giving you good quality advice around that's pretty key as well. I find it difficult for someone to blame the bank when there are a lot of good operators out there that are independent and professional that can sort of direct you without allowing yourself to dig a hole like some of those people have. What's your view on that? Yeah, yeah, I think that's right, that you do need to, you know,

keep that in mind. Final question, a personal habit that contributes to your success so far, Noreena? I'm very disciplined. So I get up very, very early and I exercise every morning. I go to bed pretty early, which is kind of boring. But, yeah, I guess it's that, you know, getting exercise in in the morning is something that has helped me.

You know, I think dealing with stress, it's helpful to do pretty hard exercise. Totally. So, yeah, that's something. I'm very disciplined in how I do that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and if you start there, that discipline then folds into everything else you do as well. So, yeah, it's an underappreciated value that I see very consistently

around anyone who achieves sustainable success. All right, very last question. If I gave you a microphone that spoke to everyone in the world, and that's all 7.7 billion of us, and I gave you one minute to talk, what would you say? Oh, God, that's a hard one. One minute to talk. um oh my goodness a microphone on um uh you know i'd probably talk about the importance of

buying your first home and getting into the market early because i think that's something that uh i i don't think you know i know prices don't always go up and i don't think that is the reason to buy a home to live in. But I do know that people that buy young, pay off a home, are just in such a dramatically different situation once they retire. And in terms of financial advice, besides paying off a credit, you know, not putting yourself into credit card debt, you know, I think that really is the most critical for people long-term,

for long-term financial security. Yeah, it's for saving. Yes. Yeah, 100%. And I'll circle back to that favourite quote. Have you thought of one? Yeah, I was thinking through that. And I think the main one for me is be yourself.

Everyone's always taken. And, you know, that for me, that in the end, if you're not authentic, then people see through it. So, and also to do a job, you know, anyone's job properly, If you can't be yourself, then it is a very difficult thing to do. Well, that's a great piece of advice to end on. You are a very authentic narrator that comes across in everything you do and it's, I guess, the reason why I have a lot of respect

for the insights that you bring to the table. I wish you the best moving forward in all of your work you're doing with REA and would love to get you back on sort of periodically. we sort of want to revisit what's happening in the market and what trends are telling us and where it's going. There's no better person than you to do that. So we're very appreciative of your time today, Nerida. Thanks for having me. Been awesome. Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? 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. Thanks for watching!