Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Simon Pressley exposes false 'truths' in property investing
Episode Date: December 6, 2024In the age of misinformation, Australian property is plagued by false 'truisms'. Top property expert Simon Pressley joins us to debunk them. Simon is the highly acclaimed Head of Research at Propert...yology, and he believes that Australians have grown up believing many old wive’s tales merely because they seem logical - and if you hear something often enough, you start believing it must be true. Simon says that “these deep-seated beliefs get regurgitated every day by a bunch of people who have been put on a pedestal and referred to as so called ‘experts’, with most of them being self professed. But little does anyone know that the evidence does not support most of the mutterings of the masses,” as we’re about to find out. So in this enlightening episode for property investors and those who want to invest in property, Simon joins Bushy to break down these common false truisms, to give you real clarity about Australian property and where it is heading. Note: This episode contains slides and visuals. You can view this episode on YouTube too https://youtu.be/odEzmQmawaM Thoughts? Drop us a comment and discuss on The Property Hub Collective. Connect with Simon at Propertyology https://www.propertyology.com.au/ Subscribe to Property Hub for free now on your favourite podcast player. Take the next step - connect, engage and get more insights with the Property Hub community at linktr.ee/propertyhubau Book a personal solutions session with Bushy to go deeper on your specific property needs or challenges Continue the discussion with likeminded investors and experts on The Property Hub Collective Facebook group Get a copy of Bushy's book, Get Invested, for FREE, and find out what it takes for you to invest in living more, working less Get all Property Hub info here linktr.ee/propertyhubau About Get Invested, a Property Hub show Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Get Invested is part of the Property Hub podcast channel, your home for property investment insights, inspiration and stories from Australia’s top property experts, investors, leaders and analysts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to get every Get Invested episode each week for free, and also get full access to RealtyTalk, Australia’s top online property show for red hot property investing news and insights direct from property industry leaders and influencers. Property Hub is a collaboration between Bushy Martin from KnowHow Property, Kevin Turner from Realty, show producer Andrew Montesi from Apiro Marketing and Apiro Media, and Australia’s largest independent podcast networkDM Media. For business enquiries, email andrew@apiromarketing.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Property markets are littered with wives' tales,
some things that the consensus believed to be true
but evidence doesn't support.
And I was as guilty as everyone a long time ago now, Bushy,
but when I began to realise that the information I was relying on
to make these really important financial decisions
for my own family's life, I would stumble across some evidence
and then go, geez, that totally contradicts what I believe
and what all the banks are saying and what all the economists
and every expert has said, but it was compelling evidence.
And I guess that's how I learned that no one has ever studied Australian real estate history.
It wasn't until that, like I was horrified when I discovered that.
But I sort of thought, well, property is too important to not understand deeply.
So, yeah, that's my drive.
I've got an innate urge to understand what I call the why of things.
Someone said it's the science brain.
You need to understand why and cause and effect.
And that's what we've done.
and what I want to share with your audience is about 10 or 11 of what I think are the biggest
myths about property markets. Welcome to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel,
the leading weekly show for Australians 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 freedom and to live by design. Subscribe now and join me and get invested
in the life that you really want. Let's get started.
Now, every second person likes to think that they understand property markets reasonably well.
And almost everyone believes that the experts in this space are economists, banks, valuers,
sales agents and buyers agents. But as show favourite Simon Presley is about to demonstrate,
quote, none of that is true. Now, we all live in a property. Across our lifetime, most of us will
live in maybe five, up to a dozen different homes. But it's important not to confuse our personal
association with a home with actually understanding why the capital growth rate varies widely from
year to year, city to city, place to place, right across the country. Now, according to Simon,
as the highly acclaimed head of research at Propertyology, 100% of Australia's population
of 27 million people have grown up believing a heap of wives tales because they seem logical
and if you hear something often enough you start believing it must be true now simon says that
these deep-seated beliefs get regurgitated every day by a bunch of people who've been put on a
pedestal and referred to as so-called experts with most of them being self-professed but little does
anyone know that the evidence doesn't support most of the mutterings of the masses as we're about to
find out. But what does it take to be classified as a property expert? Now let's just think about
this. If we compare it with the deep understanding of the practice of medicine to become a doctor,
you need to complete a seven-year university degree where you learn the cause and effect
of countless ailments associated with the human body from evidence-based studies. The medical
expert then continuously refines their knowledge by combining the theory acquired from textbooks
in the lab, with years of practical experience treating thousands of people. But when it comes
to property, there isn't a single university degree, training course or textbook devoted to
evidence-based explanations of the true cause and effect of property markets. The prospective
Propertyology's most experienced buyers agent has revealed that he's completed a four-year
university degree in property economics, and he found that there wasn't one single piece of useful
information regarding property market performance. So today we're going to put a number of the so-called
experts most widely held property beliefs to the test to see if they actually stand up to
data-driven evidence in order to expose those that don't as merely myths so that you can then make
much better informed property decisions. And to do this as you probably already guessed we're joined
by Australia's number one property analyst and real estate institute hall of famer Simon Presley
from propertyology and he's going to surprise us with his findings and he's the man I often
refer to as the Warren Buffett of Aussie property. So welcome back to the show Simon.
G'day Bushy, good to talk to you again. Thanks for having us back mate.
No, really looking forward to this one. I know when you do things you don't do it in halves and
you really go to great depths to uncover the facts versus the fiction. But I guess to kick
things off, why did you decide to evidence test many of our age old widely held property beliefs?
Well, the property markets are littered with wives' tales,
some things that the consensus believed to be true,
but evidence doesn't support.
And I was as guilty as everyone a long time ago now, Bushy.
But when I began to realise that the information I was relying on
to make these really important financial decisions
for my own family's life,
I would stumble across some evidence and then go,
geez, that totally contradicts what I believe
and what all the banks are saying
and what all the economists and every expert has said.
but it was compelling evidence and that i guess that's how i learned that no one has ever studied
australian real estate history it wasn't all that like i was horrified when i discovered that but
i thought well property is too important to not understand deeply uh not my fault that i don't
have a university degree that teaches the cause effect of property markets but the information's
there um it's just not passed up in a textbook so um yeah that's that's my drive i've got an innate
urged to understand what i call the why of things someone said it's the science the science brain
you need you need to understand why and cause and effect and and that's what we've done and what i
want to share with that with your audience is um about 10 or 11 um of what i think are the biggest
myths about property markets yeah well pretty rare and very refreshing mate so uh let's now start to
unpack them one by one with what you very aptly described as the uh 11 pieces of nonsense that
many people believe about property markets. And let's start with a notion that Sydney and Melbourne
are generally the best performing markets, but what's the data demonstrating on that?
Well, so certainly Sydney and Melbourne, there's no question they get commented on the most,
but they get commented on the most because there are two bigger cities and most of the property
media live in Sydney or Melbourne. So they're talking about their own hometown, but property
always has a strong confirmation bias everyone always talks more about their hometown than
anyone else so um that that is true sydney where we get commented on the most they are the two
biggest that is true um and they are among the most expensive but in terms of the property market
performance none of that's relevant it never has been never will be what we do know is australia
has more than 400 individual townships of course there's the eight capital cities because we got
eight states and territories, but there are more than 400 townships. Sydney and Melbourne are just
two of those. Over the last 20 years, the evidence says that the annual average change in Sydney and
Melbourne's median house price is very much middle of the pack. So Sydney has seen 5.6%
average annual capital growth over the last 20 years, Melbourne 5.8. That's good. What that means
is a typical home in Sydney and Melbourne has tripled over the last 20 years yeah but there's
about 50 percent of Australian townships that have done better than that and if we look at
their performance of apartments in Sydney and Melbourne it's deplorable really they're in the
bottom 30 percent of the 400 townships in Australia over the last 20 years so that's
the evidence about Sydney and Melbourne yeah I love that now I generally accept the property
belief is that warm climates are better than cool climates so what's the actual evidence indicating
about that one oh look property so many decisions get made about property based on things that
people like they just don't realize that likability is influencing the decision and warm weather
um whilst every human's different um warm weather influences some people perceptions about things
but again what does the evidence tell us when we look at the last 20 years and many of the best
performed property markets across this enormous country the fifth largest country in the world
many of the best performed markets have been in the state of Tasmania which is our coolest state
of the eight but then we look at our smallest capital city Darwin in the far north of Australia
that same 20-year period when we break it up into two separate decades for the first decade Darwin
was the best performed property market for the second of the two decades it was the worst performed
of the capital cities but it was bloody hot in both decades so so warm weather has nothing to do
with property markets um to i guess help the audience open up their mind a little bit let's
talk about an off-broadway location the regional new south wales location of orange orange is
Australia's 58th largest township population of about 44,000 people the temperature in Orange
very rarely ever gets above 25 degrees at any stage of the year it snows every winter the
population growth rate is always well below the national average but over the last 30 years
Orange's median house price has only declined once and its performance over the decades is
superior to sydney and melbourne so it's got nothing to do with the climate love it uh so
ignore the temperature uh now the next one's a big one as most property players hang on to the
belief that housing demand and capital growth are all about population growth particularly with some
of the recent media debate on all this but uh what's the data demonstrating look it makes sense
doesn't it that if uh if the population grows we need more houses because what's what's housing
people people live in it but but the evidence doesn't support it at all and this this was
when we started this conversation you know what drove simon to spend a lifetime studying real
estate history it was that i used to be as guilty as everybody else thinking the population growth
is what i need to chase now i don't give a rat's what any um uh town or city's population uh growth
population growth does because the evidence says it's not important but the best case study i can
give to anyone who wants to understand how little influence population growth has on property
markets. Let's talk about our fourth largest city out of more than 400, the city of Perth.
If we were on the clock back, Bushy, to the year 2006, and you and I lived in Perth and we bought
a standard house, we would have paid $480,000 in the year 2006 for a house in Perth. Add 14 years
to that, over the following 14 years from 2006 to the year 2020, Perth had the highest population
growth rate out of all of the eight capital cities. Spectacular population growth. But your
house and my house that we paid $480,000 for in 2006 was worth the same, $480,000 14 years later
with the highest population growth rate. That's a long period of time, 14 years. Every single year,
There are lots of locations across Australia that have very mild population growth, but their property market might perform spectacularly well.
The township of Bega, most people never heard of that.
It's a regional New South Wales location.
Over the same 14-year period of time where Perth's house prices went sideways, Bega's median house price increased by 80%, 8-0, and its population growth rate was only one-third of the national average.
COVID is not that long ago, the international border closed, no population growth in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne's population actually declined for two consecutive years, but property markets boomed.
And finally, on population growth, let's talk about Broken Hill.
There was a period of time where Broken Hill was one of Australia's biggest cities.
It's not now, but over the last 20 years, Broken Hill's population growth has been no growth.
Its population now is lower than what it was 20 years ago.
But over that same 20-year period of time, house prices have tripled in value.
It's not an anomaly.
Population growth has little to do with capital growth.
Yeah, I love it.
Extremely well said, and the graphic that we're looking at certainly demonstrates that.
The one that I really liked, Simon, was Ballarat in Victoria, 107% house value growth over
that 16 years, but only 29% increase in population.
So time and time again, the data is telling the story.
It's the capital growth isn't about population.
There's a whole mix of other factors in there.
So I love that.
But look, really enjoying this, Solomon.
Let's stay with us because after a very short break,
we're going to be back with more Property Mythbusters.
At Know How Property, we're more than just the best residential
and commercial loan arranger.
We craft a plan for your lifestyle and future with our three-stage strategy.
We start with your lifestyle strategy.
Whether it's fighting your dream home in the perfect location
or adding to your residential or commercial portfolio,
we listen to what you want and need to do.
Next, we create a financial strategy.
We dive deep to uncover what you can do,
ensuring your finances are set up for success.
Finally, we implement our validation strategy.
We become your John West of property
because it's the property we reject
that makes sure you get the best.
Know How Property, smart, tailored strategies
for your life and investments.
Now, continuing our great chat with Simon Presley from Propertyology on exposing the
nonsense that many believe about property markets, a widely held opinion is that the
best locations to invest in are locations that everyone wants to live in, which sounds
logical on the face of it, but what does your data research reveal about this, Simon?
Yeah, well, as we were talking about earlier, Bushy, look, it's so emotive, property, and
it's important when we're making big decisions about property that we all recognise that.
I've got emotions just as much as you do, but emotions don't drive property market performance.
So, I mean, every human likes different things, don't we, Bushy?
Some like steak, some like seafood, some like lamb, pork, some people are vegetarian.
We like what we like.
It's a very subjective thing.
So it's impossible for anyone to make a really intelligent property investment decision based on where people like to live.
You actually can't measure that.
If you think of some idyllic locations throughout Australia, Batemans Bay, the Barossa, Byron, Noosa, lots of people would say, geez, I'd love to live there.
And actually not many people do.
Five and a half million people live in Sydney more than any other location in Australia.
22 million Australians don't live there.
And lots of them, excuse the French, would describe Sydney as a shithole.
So you can't measure likability.
And it's important when making proper investment decisions that you're aware of that.
specific to sydney over the last decade a net 250 000 people have relocated away from sydney
to different parts of australia so it's actually nowhere near as popular as what people would think
it would be we do live in a very diverse country and we're driven to different corners for different
reasons yeah very well said uh you know there's a common perception that capital growth is higher
in coastal locations than inland but your research demonstrates otherwise so walk us through that
yeah again likability so the person who likes surfing or fishing the best place where you're
going to get the most capital growth according to them is coastal well about 85 percent of
australia's population live in a coastal city or a coastal township but the evidence says there's
actually zero correlation between capital growth and whether a location is coastal or inland now
it should not surprise anybody if they really think about that the water is always there the
coastline is always there so if if it was this magic gold dust that made things grow more
there'd be booms right throughout all these locations every single year but that but there's
not um when we uh i did a study on comparing australia's most highest profile coastal location
bondi beach in one of the most highest profile coastal locations in the world and what did the
evidence tell us about Bondi's property market performance compared to some inland locations.
It's a study we did a few years ago. So if we ran the clock back again 20 years, Bushy,
we would have bought a standard property in Bondi for $450,000. 20 years later,
it had tripled in value to worth about $1.5 million. Spectacular. But what else could
someone have done 20 years ago if they had $450,000? And let's deliberately focus on
inland to see if there is any truth to coastal versus inland. So for the same $450,000 20 years
ago, you or I could have bought not one, but four houses in four different inland cities,
specifically Dubbo in New South Wales, Launceston in Tasmania, Gympie in Queensland and Bendio in
Victoria. All inland, four different states, the combined median house price, $450,000 20 years
ago. If we did that with our $450,000, we would have made 600 grand more than putting $450,000
into a property in Bondi. Love it. The numbers speak for themselves there, Simon. Absolutely
glaring for anyone who wants to take note of it. Now, just about everyone in property believes that
land appreciates, buildings depreciate, and the newer the better. But does this actually hold
true under the weight of your evidence on? Well, look, when we're looking at tax return,
it will always say that buildings depreciate. But when you buy a property, you're not buying
a tax return. You're buying some terra firma with whatever dwelling that's on top of it. So
no it's actually rubbish um i'll give you an example of my own within my own portfolio my
oldest property is now 115 years old it's a very basic three-bedroom house on a modest block of
dirt of only 345 square meters but over the last 10 years it's produced 140 capital growth i haven't
renovated it that 140 percent has is more than double melbourne's 60 percent over the same 10
years perth's 30 percent sydney had 90 percent and brisbane adelaide both at 85 percent so again
a basic three-bedroom house 115 years old only a 345 square meter block yeah and just further
evidence of uh never assuming what you hear uh now this next one a lot of property players believe
that big is better but does this actually pass your data-driven snip test then simon no again
surprise surprise so if we look at um the current median house price of australia's biggest cities
and this graphic here we've got um the the 20 most expensive median house prices um and only
four of them four of the 20 are capital cities so the 20 most expensive median house prices in
australia only four are capital cities uh we've got uh 12 of those 20 have a population of less
than 80 000 people most expensive locations in australia 12 out of 20 less than 80 000 people
kingscliff is one of those kingscliff is um you know ninth most expensive township in all of
australia got a population of about 10 000 people median house price give or take a million dollars
so big is better um everyone wants to live there coastal inland warm weather cool weather it's all
nonsense yeah and i'd like you know the areas like the yass valley and lake macquarie and even
coffs harbour uh appearing in that context as well so we're hand off hand off in the adelaide hills
Yeah, exactly. A great spot. I love that part of the world. Look, clearly more great evidence of
myths being destroyed by data. So let's take another quick break before exposing popular
perceptions about major economic shocks, train stations, migration and mining. So stay with us
for more. Now, we're enjoying a very revealing data dive that's dispelling popular property
myths with Simon Presley from propertyology. So Simon, given the sensationalist gloom and doom
outlooks of the fear-fueled mainstream media, there's a common belief that property prices
can't grow during moments of major adversity, such as wars, the GFC, recessions and pandemics,
et cetera, because the sky's about to fall in and the world's about to end. But what does your
research on history show us about all of this? Well, it sort of seems like every five to 10
years, there's a major moment of adversity with, of course, different causes. We go right back
more than a century, Bushy. And the absolute property market crash that we feel like we're
reading about every single month. Australia's really only ever had two. That was in the Great
Depression, so the 1930s and the 1890s. We've only had two and the last one of those is nearly
a century ago. But some other, I guess, really prominent moments of adversity. We had a 17-year
period not that long ago. You and I were born when we had three national recessions
over a 17-year period ending 1991. Most living Australians today haven't seen a recession.
Imagine having three in just 17 years, but the combined capital city median house price
over that 17-year period time increased fivefold. Heck of a lot of money. So do recessions cause
property market crashes? No. We had the international border closed for a bit more
than two years. Property markets boomed. We had COVID lockdowns. We all had to stay at home
during that boom. We've had lots of natural disasters in pretty much every capital city
and region in different years. Natural disasters don't cause property markets to crash. And if we
think just recently, the RBA with the cash rate from May 2022 to November 2023, one of the sharpest
rises ever in the history of the RBA cash rate,
but yet property markets, not saying in every location in Australia,
but a lot of them, prices are more today than what they were
at the start of that interest rate cycle.
So, yeah, always beware of the fear mongers in property markets.
Yes, as I often refer to you, mate, as the lemon suckers,
as you like to refer to them as, the thing that never amazes me
is that the mainstream media, you know, just what we learn
from history there is that they just don't learn from history because it doesn't suit the narrative,
sadly. But look, let's turn now to the popular focus on transport infrastructure,
because many in property are led to believe that properties closer to the train station produce the
most capital growth. But does this stand up against your evidence?
No, it doesn't. I remember doing this study several years ago now, again, wanting to understand the
cause and effect of things and thinking back then a lot like how most people still think,
You know, what do I like and where do I want to live?
And train stations might appear on some people's lists when they're thinking of buying your home.
You know, how do I get to work?
I catch a train, so I've got to buy a house near the train station.
There's no evidence at all that marries up a correlation between property market performance and train stations.
In fact, of those more than 400 townships, there are only seven of them, Bushy, where you can catch a train to work in the first place.
The city where most people catch a train to work is our biggest city in Sydney.
But according to the census data, 90% of people who have a job in Sydney actually don't catch a train to work.
And when we look at the change in median house prices, suburbs closer to the train line compared to, you know, getting further away from the train line, it's a dog's breakfast.
There's no trend.
There's no pattern there whatsoever.
Yeah, I love that.
Now, given that property values have gone up in many areas at the same time that Australia
has opened the floodgates to new migrants post-COVID, there's been much media debate
suggesting that overseas migration is a major driver of property prices.
But does this hold true when you apply your evidence?
Oh, surprise, surprise, Bushy.
No, it doesn't.
Look, we can circle back to the very first point we're talking about, about population
growth.
overseas migration um you know is one of only three components that that can add population
to a location every time uh throughout australia's history when overseas migration has been high
if property prices have gone up there's been all sorts of moaning and groaning about
the migrants are the ones to blame for forcing property prices up when we actually look at the
evidence the official federal government evidence um over any five-year period um the number of
overseas migrants who have arrived in Australia in that five-year period of time only three out
of ten actually buy a home they can't influence the value of anything if they don't buy it
including properties most overseas migrants rent and they rent for many many years um a lot of them
still haven't bought a home after being here for 10 years so they're driving demand for um rental
accommodation which puts pressure on the prices of rent not on the prices of property prices if
you think of some specific locations, I like giving evidence to the audience. So places like
Noosa, Kiama, Boweral, the Surf Coast, they were some of our more expensive locations we were
talking about earlier. They get very little, if any, overseas migration each year. It's very
expensive. If we look at the location or the city in Australia that has the most overseas migrants,
Sydney, I've got two separate five-year periods of time here where we've dug the evidence out.
the five years ending 2002 sydney's median house price increased by 98 percent in just that five
year period of time overseas migration in sydney in that five years was 222 000 quite a bit let's
look at another five-year period ending 2009 overseas migration was a heck of a lot more
342 000 people in that five-year period of time zero capital growth in that five years
there you go it's uh really uh never hesitates to uh amaze me mate how the media in particular
likes to have their metric of the moment uh i think you've got a better expression than that
even but they they try and draw two things together and make them the cause and effect
exercise as we know properties like the weather there's so many dynamics you're not going to be
able to guess what happens tomorrow you'd alone know what happened yesterday so i love that uh
Now, the other area that I just want to touch on, which is a really interesting one, is that, you know, long before the big fall in property prices and many isolated mining towns following the sharp declining resources in the early 2010s, there's been a very widely held belief that mining towns have to be avoided when it comes to property.
But does this actually hold true?
Well, depends.
What we do know is what has the single biggest influence on property markets, not population growth, it's economic growth.
Now, mining is one of 23 industries that make up an economy.
And I would argue in Australia more than any other country at 195,000 on this planet, mining is critically important.
So anyone who wants to make the best financial decisions in the asset class known as property,
if you want to totally disregard mining, you're harming yourself.
What I personally would never do would be invest any amount of capital in a one industry
town, whether that was one industry mining, one industry tourism, one industry agriculture,
whatever.
Don't invest in a one industry town because each industry will have a downturn, not just
mining.
And when the jobs are lost, if there's not a lot of other industry sectors to get employment in, people will obviously leave town and find employment somewhere else.
But just, I guess, a mining-specific story, most people would be surprised to learn that in 2008, not that long ago, the northwest regional city in WA, Port Hedland, was Australia's most expensive city for housing.
port headland population then of about 11 000 people bushy had a median house price of 550
000 which was wait for it 18 more than sydney 2008 is not that long ago what to take away from
this is not to just bag mining and discount mining is focus on how mining created that
in Port Hedland it's job creation and job loss that's what property markets is about
not mining or population growth it's job creation and job loss love it follow the money follow the
jobs you're off to a pretty good start look thanks Simon this is all certainly shattering a host of
the old widely believed property tourism so stay with us because after another very short break
We'll be back to summarize the takeaways along with what you really need to be focusing on when
making property decisions. So see you on the flip side. Now, welcome back to our very informative
insightful chat with Simon Presley from Propertyology, where he's convincingly smashed
to smithereens a host of long-held widely believed property myths. So thanks for taking the considerable
time and effort to do that, Simon, and to research and use solid evidence to expose all of these very
common misleading property beliefs. But to sum things up, what are the key takeaways for property
players from everything we've talked about today? Well, hopefully what people now realise is
property markets are incredibly complicated. The more I've learned about property markets,
the more I've realised that perhaps other than developing a cure for cancer, there's nothing
more complicated on the planet than understanding property markets. There's always going to be,
on any given day, there's going to be more commentary about real estate and property
markets. It's our most popular asset class to invest in. We all live in one. So you're always
going to hear a lot of commentary. Most people say what they believe to be true. But as we've
seen from 11 different myths, what people believe to be true is the opposite of what is true.
So have your wits about you every single day. As much as 90% of the material that's published in
the mainstream media each day about property markets is factually false um what you can do
if you've listened uh to this interview with with bushy and i is remind yourself of those 11 myths
and when you see or hear someone making a statement in the media disregard their own name or title
and think hang on they've said something that is supported by the evidence or contradicted by the
evidence if they're constantly saying things that are contradicted by the evidence they're not an
expert so you should have your wits about you with everything else that they say if they can't get
the basics right. Yeah, extremely well said. It just reinforces to me that you don't assume
anything and don't accept motherhood statements and be very careful about where you get your
property information and beware of so-called experts with vested interests that are pushing
your barrow that suits their purpose, not yours. So, extremely well said. Now, in the light of all
of this, what proven principles and approaches do property buyers, sellers and investors need
to apply when actually assessing property decisions then, Tom? Well, I think if you're
buying your family home, the number one thing you need to satisfy is what's going to make you happy.
But if you're investing in real estate, happiness, the ultimate test for happiness is 10, 15,
20 years, whenever it is you're going to retire, what's going to contribute to your happiness then
is the quality of the information that you rely upon to make a financial decision,
which has got nothing to do with your home, whether you would like to live in that city
or whether you'd like to live in that property. That's not the objective at all. If you're
an investor, you need to see property as not bricks and mortar or not a home. You need to
see property as a financial instrument. So strange as it may sound, you need to, I guess,
look through the lens of more like what a share investor would do on the stock market,
where there is no bricks and mortar or nothing tangible. But when a share investor looks under
the hood of a company they're mostly considering decisions that have been made and economic
considerations that are going to influence the value of that company as a property investor
you need to think more like that than all the emotional stuff that we we get attached to with
homes as always uh extremely insightful and very well said i really want to thank you again for
all these very revealing uh insights simon which just reinforces the need to never assume or accept
anything when it comes to property, but let the data and the evidence driven insights from proven
performers do the talking like yourself and the property ology team. So I really want to thank
you again for opening our eyes and ears and blowing our hair back a bit to a much bigger
and brighter world in terms of property opportunities. So let's keep the conversation
going, Simon. Always a pleasure. Thanks for tuning in to Get Invested on the Property 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 investing inspiration along with every episode
of realty talk australia's top online property show for red hot property investing news
and insights direct from industry leaders and influencers and finally i'll see you next time
