Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Simon Pressley on how to make smart property investment decisions

Episode Date: May 30, 2020

In the world of property investment, Simon Pressley is like a doctor – he’s one of those rare independent impartial experts. Simon’s a property market analyst, a buyer’s agent and an accredited property advisor. He’s the MD of Propertyology and a three-time Australian Buyer’s Agent of the Year. Like me, Simon’s passionate about helping you build a more sustainable lifestyle by making astute property investment decisions. He’s a strong lateral thinker and like many investment greats, spends hours a day studying property economics across Australia. Simon is an expert in your corner and a contrarian. He doesn’t go with what is common or popular, or what supports preconceived ideas, biases or self interest agendas, he goes on what his deep research analysis is telling him is good for property investors. He focusses on future indicators of growth, not past history – in lead indicators not lag indicators – in other words, he’s learnt to focus on what really matters, and interestingly a lot of this is contrary to popular opinion – and experience has shown that its often the contrarians that are successful long term. Just look at the world’s greatest living investor Warren Buffet as another example of someone who bucks the trends to produce outstanding sustainable results. So in our broad ranging discussion today, Simon answers all of your key questions when it comes to investing in property: - What information should you rely on and what information is misleading? - What really drives property growth? - What is likely to happen with property values in the short, medium term and long term? - Where are the best places to invest? - And why use a buyer's agent to find and negotiate the purchase of the best property to suit you? And in a Get Invested scoop, Simon gives us his first exclusive glimpse of his upcoming property report on where the best property growth zones will be around Australia, state by state – and you may be surprised on his predictions, so make sure you tune in on this. And If you want to get a free copy of this report, just email me at [e-mail] and I’ll forward you a copy, along with some other goodies. If you like what you hear from Simon today, I strongly recommend that you jump on his website at https://www.propertyology.com.au/newsletter-sign-up/ to get his free regular insight reports on all things property investment – I’ve been reading them for years and they’re full of investment gold. Simon's book recommendation: The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer by Paul Barry 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.

It's the pain that gives you the most learnings because no one likes pain, but the key is when you have the pain is to understand what caused it, not the actual pain itself. I love reflecting from a decision point of view. I believe in being accountable, and when something unfolds in life the way you didn't want it, I make the point of in that moment of pain, reflecting back to whenever it was I made the decision and what I relied upon. at that time and then say to myself well clearly you know that maybe I didn't rely on the best information if I now face the situation I don't like. So in that moment I then try to work out well what should I have relied on maybe if I made the decision based on that I wouldn't be feeling this pain so that's really key to investing. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how

and where they invest their time, their skills and their money and the benefits that this has created. You see, the truth is that everyone invests. Every minute of every day, we're investing our time, our skills, our energy and our money in something. Some of us are investing consciously, some unconsciously, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, sometimes for no impact. Get Invested will help you to start living by design, not by default.

I'm going to help you to make it happen, not let it happen. You'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less, and leave a living legacy by investing now. Listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started, make the most of your investment journey, and ultimately to be living your dream, not someone else's. More episodes can be found on iTunes or at bushymartin.com.au

forward slash GetInvested. Thanks for listening, and now, let's get invested. Hi, Freedom Fighters. How much time do you spend reflecting and learning from your past decisions? When you've ended up making the decision that's caused you pain, how much do you reflect on what information you relied on to make that decision? And the key here is what information do you rely on to make decisions? For some of you, it'll be none, and others, too much.

Some just go with their gut or what feels right, while others bury themselves in information and never end up actually making the decision because they're too confused by the conflicting complexity. So what is the right information, and the right amount of information, that you need to make good decisions? Just reflect back to the last time you bought something of great value to you, like your home or an investment property. Did you rely on your head or your heart?

Did you go with what looks or feels good? Or did you undertake extensive research to arrive at a decision that you're confident is going to help you achieve your goals without causing you pain? In the property world, this is really challenging. And why? Because everyone considers themselves to be an expert on property and everyone has different views on what's important and what's not and there's so much standard information

that it's really difficult to separate the wood from the trees to know what is the right information and what's not. So the real challenge in all of this is that you just don't know what you don't know and that's why I always suggest surrounding yourself with independent impartial experts in your area of endeavour. That old adage of surrounding yourself with people who are better and more experienced than you

so you can avoid mistakes and leverage off their experience to make good, fully informed decisions that will stand the test of time. Let's face it, the reason you go to a doctor isn't because you're unable to search on Google for medical information. It's because a professional with years of training is likely to know things that you don't even realise you should be searching for. You just can't possibly know what you don't know.

And if everything was that easy, everyone would be doing it. And like anything that's done well, property is an elite team sport. And I believe it's one of the reasons why only 5% of investors are successful long term and why over 50% of investors bail out within the first five years. They just don't surround themselves with the right independent expertise. And in the world of property investment, I consider today's guest, Simon Presley, to be the equivalent of your doctor. He's one of those rare independent impartial experts.

Simon's a property market analyst, a buyer's agent, and an accredited property advisor. He's the MD of propertyology and three times Australian buyer's agent of the year. Like me, Simon's passionate about helping you build a more sustainable lifestyle by making astute property investment decisions. He's a strong lateral thinker, and like many investment greats, he spends hours a day studying property economics across Australia. Now, for those of you who know me, you know that I'm very selective about who I listen to and where I get my information, and Simon's certainly one of them. He's an expert in your corner. One of the things I like about Simon is that he's often a contrarian. Why? Because

he doesn't go with what is common or popular or what supports preconceived ideas, biases or self-interest agendas. He goes on what his deep research analysis is telling him is good for property investors. He focuses on future indicators of growth, not past history and lead indicators, not lag indicators. In other words, he's learned to focus on what really matters. And interestingly, a lot of this is contrary to popular opinion. And experience has shown me that it's often the contrarians that are successful long term. Just look at the world's greatest living investor Warren Buffett as another example of someone who bucks the trends to produce outstanding sustainable results. So in our broad ranging discussion today, Simon answers all of

your key questions when it comes to investing in property. What information should you rely on and what information is misleading? What really drives property growth? What's likely to happen with property values in the short, medium term and long term? Where are the best places to invest? And why use a buyer's agent to find and negotiate the purchase of the best property to suit you? And in a Get Invested scoop, Simon gives us his first exclusive glimpse of his upcoming property report on where the best property growth zones are going to be around Australia, state by state. And you're going to be surprised by some of his predictions, so make sure that you tune in on this. And if you want to get a free copy

of this report, just email me at bushey at khgroup.com.au and I'll forward you a copy, along with some other goodies. If you like what you hear from Simon today, and I'm sure you will. I strongly recommend that you jump on his website at propertyology.com.au forward slash newsletter to get his free regular insight reports on all things property investment. I've been reading them for years and they're full of investment gold, just like our high energy conversation today. So please enjoy Simon Presley. welcome back freedom fighters now if you're going to be successful in investing in property long term you need to have access to good independent impartial and biased forward-looking insights on

what's likely to happen in property not what's been happening and this transparent telescope rather than the sort of backward looking microscope is very hard to find this is the reason i've been an avid follower of today's guest for many years now. As my humble opinion, as a fellow contrarian, he's one of Australia's leading property market analysts. Simon Presley is to property what Alan Kohler is to equities. So welcome, and let's get invested, Simon. Hello, Bushy. Thank you for very kind words. No, all truth, mate, and very humble to have you on board, mate. I have been an avid follower for many years now. But mate, for those of the audience who don't know you and haven't

come across yet, can you give us a bit of a rundown on who you are, what you do and where you're currently heading, mate? Yeah, so I'm the founder of Propertyology. I guess we are to property investors what a stockbroker is to a share investor. So our typical client is an everyday Aussie, whether they're a first-time investor in their 20s or someone who might already have a sizeable property portfolio, we spend all day every day studying the investment fundamentals of literally every town and city all over Australia. That's our core business and we do that so that when that everyday Aussie reaches out

and wants to invest, we can help them make more informed decisions. So our buyers' agents will firstly, upon being appointed, recommend a specific part of the country that we want to help them invest in, and then they'll get their hands dirty and find and negotiate the purchase of an individual property asset in whichever town or city that's in. So, yeah, that's what propertyology does. Brilliant, mate. And probably more important as a flow-on from that, why do you do what you do, Simon?

That's a great question. I learnt it inadvertently from my parents. There are some of the things, and I'm a parent myself, there are some of the things I guess our parents um deliberately teach us and there are some of the some things that children just just pick up through observing and that was me for investing um very thankful my parents are wonderful honest people that gave me great morals and ethics but what they didn't do was um uh make really good financial decisions and obviously they didn't set out to do that but as i got uh as i entered my teens i started to become aware of that and um and then when i entered

the workforce, I realised it wasn't just mum and dad, it was probably every adult that I knew and when I saw that some of those adults were entering the stage of their life where they either didn't want to work or their health would not let them work, I just thought that's not fair. There's all these really good people who I love and respect but I then started to realise that a pension's not worth much and you can't live much of a lifestyle with that and I just And I thought, this is so unfair. Why is that the case?

And what I realised was financial literacy is not taught anywhere in society, anywhere. Primary school, high school, university even, they don't teach it there. Their parents don't teach it. Their employers don't teach it. So that's why a large portion of people when they reach retirement are handcuffed to the age of pension. So I thought, that's not going to be me. and I guess took it upon myself to do my best to make really good financial decisions that I could reap the rewards from later in life.

Yeah, brilliant, mate. Well, let's kick straight in there because, you know, as someone who's obviously recognised that fairly early in the piece, what did you first invest in and how did that go, mate? First property was a family home at the ripe old age of 21 and did, I guess, it was obviously not an investment property but bought that the same way everyone does. You know, you've got a limited budget

and you start your search based on where you're currently renting and you keep going further out of town until you find something your budget allows you to afford. Some years after that, repeated the exercise, had a bit of equity in the property and upgraded the family home And I thought a few years after the purchase of the second family home, I thought I had Colonel Sanders' secret herbs and spices to discover how property markets work because that property exploded in value probably after the first four years. And I thought this is easy. I'm going to invest in real estate.

So I used the equity in the upgraded family home to buy my first investment property. It was probably about the age of 26, 27, I think, for memory. And it did pretty well. It was a basic apartment in Caloundra in the Sunshine Coast. And it did pretty well the first few years. And I thought I knew it. I do have Colonel Sanders' secret herbs and spices. and then it lost about 30% over about two years

and remained very low for some years after that and that hurt because I hurt my pride as much as financially because I was certain that I had the recipe. But it's actually the best learning that I ever had because like a lot of human beings, Bushy, I've got a bit of a competitive streak in me and I needed to have an answer to the question of why did this property suddenly lose value.

But yet I realised that other parts of Australia were gaining value. And so sometimes the only way to learn is from pain, and that was sort of how I learnt that it wasn't what I thought the beautiful view of the ocean. I thought that was what made my property grow. I realised after that water doesn't make properties grow. it's property economics that makes things grow and that's why my property lost value because the gfc hit and tourism is a discretionary expense isn't it um and when the economies are tight

we uh we don't tend to go on many holidays and when you're buying a high uh highly reliant tourism location such as the sunshine coast um where jobs are um adversely affected more than some other parts. That's why property prices went down. But it was also why other parts of Australia were going strongly. So the best lesson I ever learnt was through some financial pain of my own. Yeah. And when you talk about the financial pain, that's the pain that you just saw the value drop or did you actually sell the property and take the hit? Eventually, I sold it. I didn't sell it straight away, although I did strive to for a while

there. And even then, I couldn't sell it. The market was that depressed there for a while uh i don't own it now um but uh yeah i eventually did did offload it yeah the sort of taking a little bit of a step back there why property in the first place mate why not shares or or other uh investment avenues when you sort of came to that light bulb moment that you you needed to invest in something to avoid starving when you tried to retire um i think like a like most, if not all property investors, I could relate to property whilst not knowing it at the time. I thought I understood it because I could see it and touch it. And that's actually the undoing for property investing. But that's why I chose property, you know, as opposed

to shares or some other asset classes. I thought I could relate to it and that I knew it. But that was a foolish assumption. But you learn that later in life. Absolutely. And we'll come back to some of those principles and lessons as we go. But I'd love you to take us through your journey then and where you invested your time, your energy and money from those early days right through until where you are now with propertyology. Can you sort of take us through that with the highs and the lows

and the learnings on that trip, please, mate? Yeah. So I have a banking and finance background and more so in commercial finance. And I guess looking back, Bushy, the attraction to commercial finance was I liked to understand business more than the profit loss. I wanted to understand the industries. And when I saw the change from banking and finance, I wanted to pursue something that I was passionate about, the investing in property. By this stage, I'd realised that economics was a key driver for property market performance,

which is not something that I think a lot of investors really understand, but it was my attraction to it. So I pursued that, and we're going back, geez, before the GFC now, so that's quite some time ago. We've helped people invest, I think it's something like 16 individual towns and cities across five states over the last, whatever it's been, mate, 14 years or something like that, I think we've been doing it for. So during that period of time, we've had first-hand experience to investing, you know,

during the pre-GFC boom and then investing, you know, as the GFC was unfolding. We've been through booms and downturns. we've been through markets that have performed well and not so well for different reasons. Oversupply, we've seen that firsthand. We've seen limited supply and the positive impact that has on property markets. We've seen property markets perform well because the local economy improves significantly,

and we've seen property markets perform poorly because the local economy is tanked. So what all that means, I suppose, is lots of scar tissue, and it's the pain that gives you the most learnings because no one likes pain. But the key is when you have the pain is to understand what caused it, not the actual pain itself. I love reflecting from a decision point of view.

I believe in being accountable and when something unfolds in life the way you didn't want it, I make the point of in that moment of pain, reflecting back to whenever it was I made the decision and what I relied upon at that time and then say to myself, well, clearly, you know, that maybe I didn't rely on the best information if I now face the situation I don't like. So in that moment, I then try to work out,

well, what should I have relied on? Maybe if I made the decision based on that, I wouldn't be feeling this pain. So that's really key to investing because no one has a crystal ball, but every investor wants to find it and you cannot beat experience, first-hand experience. Yeah, that's exactly right.

You can read every book under the sun, go to every seminar, but when the rubber hits the road and when you're physically having to put your hand in the pocket, that's when it becomes real. And I think the reflection thing, you know, I can't emphasize it enough how important it is, Bushy. Like when you physically sit yourself down and force yourself to reflect back on that initial decision

and are honest with yourself and say, You know, I relied on these things, but, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, I now realize these things are more important. What that does is it sharpens your focus for decisions in the future. You see a set of circumstances in front of you, and because you've taken the time beforehand to reflect, you're able to look at it and go, well, if I head down this path based on past reflections, that's probably going to be an outcome that I'm going to be happy with. Or conversely, you see a set of circumstances in front of you and go, no, no, I know what that horizon looks like. I've been there before and I'm not going there again. Yeah, I love that, mate. And it's the continuous learning circle that you're talking about there.

Mate, you've both in your personal life and your professional life had very active involvement in assisting investors along the journey. what I'd love to get you to share with us initially is the importance of research and given that you know in my own opinion the research that you do is second to none and compare that with I guess the lack of research that I see a lot of particularly first-time investors you know they'll buy something in their backyard that looks like the place they live in and that's about the the depth of the research that they do can you sort of talk us through how that compares with the the process that you do and and you take people through so they've got a better appreciation of what you know really identifying the right approach is yes um did research especially for

property is um such a such a massive topic one day we'll write a book on it um uh look where Where do we start? I guess the things that we focus on now as a business in terms of, you know, property ologies research, it's fair to say, are a lot different to the things we used to think were important. For example, I used to think, like everybody else, that population growth was the most important thing for probably market performance. Until you make a decision, you know, placing all this emphasis on things

like population growth or infrastructure projects or the common myths that a lot of people think are true because that's what everyone else says, and then you make decisions based on that and it doesn't unfold the way you want. But I did that population growth thing, I did that infrastructure thing. But that's where data is so valuable. For those who care to use it, you have an opportunity to study evidence to see whether the myths that broader society believes in, including a lot of so-called experts, preach.

um i've had a a lot of success out of i guess studying myths and seeing if there's any proof in them um the the thing that we focus the probably put more value on bushing in terms of research than anything else is uh the future direction of an economy of an individual town or city it is um it is no coincidence that more often than not the trajectory that a town or city's economy follows is usually the precursor for how its property market performs that is something that no one teaches um no one you won't you won't find through you know google um researching or anything like that um it comes from literally studying australian property market history as a profession um and seeing what's happened in individual towns and cities in the

past and i mean every individual town and city for as far back as official data can take us and then more importantly once you know that you know town x had a good period in those years or a bad period in those years then digging deeper and understanding what happened in those years um when we've done that um we've learned that uh spend most of our time put most of our resources into understanding decisions that have been made today that are going to have an impact on a local economy tomorrow now that that rolls off the tongue when i say it like that but you know that is hours and hours and hours every single day year after year after year to be able to physically do that well and you've had considerable success in that with with hobart and you predicted the

the drop-offs in prices in sydney and melbourne a couple of years before it occurred so you know the proof's in the pie there and i 100 agree with you mate it's if you've got a limited supply and you've got strong demand the thing that's going to drive prices is you know following the jobs if you've got good and growing incomes and and in an area that people want to be in then they're going to continue to pay more and more for the property so it's you know i i understate the exercise when i say that but uh following the jobs is is definitely one of the key things that that uh like yourself uh we'd sort of keep an eye on and and you're right very few people really focus on an economic driver.

They focus on everything else. It's often a lag indicator, not a lead indicator. That's right. Are there other lead indicators that you focus on that the average rear-view mirror viewer misses that has helped you in terms of identifying areas that have outperformed? Yeah, well, this will surprise your listeners, Bushy,

but what we don't focus on is the population growth. That's what we used to do, and it's to lead you up a garden path. It is a big bunch of decisions. So this isn't expressed in numbers. Whilst my desk is multiple computer screens with hundreds and hundreds of spreadsheets, and there's lots of numbers in front of me all the time, the most valuable information is actually not in numbers. It's in all sorts of written reports that one way or another will give a leading some insights into whether jobs are to be created or to be lost.

That's the most important stuff. But on the supply side, the leading indicator there is building approval volumes. So it's understanding that what puts pressure on property prices is rising demand, and that rising demand is not population growth. The rising demand is rising consumer confidence caused by an improving local economy. But when you've got rising demand and you don't have a lot of supply coming on board, that's when you get pressure on property prices. So the leading indicator for the supply side of things is understanding what happens in the construction industry because they are the ones who control supply.

They're the ones who buy the land and then put applications up to council to build a new housing estate or a new block of apartments or whatever's going going on it um so from a data sense it's the building approval volumes for each of the 550 city councils across our eight states and territories that is property ology's gold yeah yeah and that is gold because no one spends any energy on on focusing on those that those future indicators the the you know human behavior and the perception-driven stuff because, you know, we now live in an instant iPhone everything world and we've just come through a pandemic where that sort

of rapid viral growth of information has shut the world down. How much do you believe, you know, the human perception rather than reality has influenced the property market? Yes, sentiment is a real thing. Unfortunately, it's not something that we can measure though. I wish we could because it is powerful. If we think about it, there's arguably nothing more expensive than any of us can buy than a property asset for most people. There's the Richard Branson's of the world that might buy an airline or something like that.

But for the average punter, there'd be few things more expensive that we would purchase in our lives than property assets. But before we buy the asset, we buy the debt. And I think that's understated by a lot of property investors. So one needs to be in a particular positive mood to want to purchase debt. And so whilst you or I might be in a positive mood today, our mood is not going to influence our own local property market. But if we've got lots of people within a particular community that collectively have that positive mood, then it doesn't mean they're all going to jump out and buy property. But it means that emotionally, psychologically, they're at least in the headspace to be able to transact in property if, for whatever reason, they wanted to do that at that stage in their life. So that's sentiment.

Now, what has the biggest influence on sentiment, more than anything else, is local economic conditions. if we've all got confidence in our in the security of our job and security of our income you know that that affects the the dining room table discussion the lunchroom discussion the barbecue discussion you know more things are positive and it doesn't mean that everyone's going to transact in property um all in that moment um but yeah it will create the the sentiment to put people who can afford to and who need to um in a position to do that and that's really what puts the pressure on property prices. Yeah, I love that. How do you counter the situation that we now find ourselves in where the mainstream media, they're struggling

for their own survival. So the best way to get our eyeballs and our earbuds is to scare the living shit out of us 24-7, whether it be bushfires, pandemics, or you name it. What do you suggest to listeners? Where do they need to look to get a more realistic position on the exercise? Because if we drown ourselves in that, you know, fear factory stuff, we'll never do anything. What's your suggestion to listeners in a way to get the real juice so that they can be making proper decisions? Yeah, I share your frustration, my friend, and it's frustrating. I don't know that it's anything that will ever change, but I guess the key is, you know,

over a period of time, learn who you can trust. um and when i when i say trust it doesn't mean that i call them the lemon suckers um those who can only ever um see the negative and uh yeah there's a lot of them but i don't know what is it they seem it's it's like they're celebrating an afl grand final every time you know there's a chance of some doom on the horizon they they seem to get their rocks off by um but by talking up the you know the world's going to fall apart next month yeah um that they will always do that But unfortunately for them, I think that's their personality that's doing that. They're not necessarily saying something that they don't believe to be true.

It just seems to be they are incapable of seeing the positive in things. So, you know, when there is the onset of the global financial crisis or, you know, we're looking like heading into a recession or there's a health pandemic, It's like they have this big bloody party and want to talk up all the doom and gloom before it's even happened. And we've seen that, haven't we? They're talking about, you know, unemployment rates are going to reach 10% before we've even got there. It's like they're wishing it would hurry up and get there so they've got something to celebrate it. So what can the public do, I guess, is to learn to identify who those people are. And I'm not saying totally ignore them when there's a report of doom and gloom from these people,

but understand that that's their default behavior. They seem to be incapable of reporting positive things. And similarly, spend some time looking for people who have a reputation who more often than not are accurate. I'm not afraid of talking down a market if I think it doesn't have a healthy future. I don't want it to fall that way, but if I don't think there's a particular town or city that has a positive property market outlook, I'll say that. I'm conscious that when I say that in the public forum,

that there's a record of that, you know. So the general public can then over a period of time collect a bigger body of evidence to work out, I guess, the accuracy of all these commentators, of which you and I are among them. Yeah, absolutely right. I guess the unfortunate thing is that good news doesn't get much coverage, bad news seems to travel fast and people go looking for it.

But I guess talking about the times that we're now coming through, mate, because let's face it, while we've both seen over the history of the time we've been involved in the industry, the gloom and doom is through every downturn or recession that I've lived through, property has actually been extremely resilient. And in fact, the only time that property values have been affected

is when the squeeze goes on credit. You know, it's the old story. if you can't get the money, you can't buy property. And we definitely saw that with ASIC and the Royal Commission squeezing people's access to money. But given, you know, there's the roll-on fear that we're just sort of starting to come out of now in the current time, what's your view on how property generally is going to perform

and where are the winners and the losers going to be in all of that? Yeah, I think there'll be some casualties, but largely short term, and the casualties, it won't be blood in the streets like the lemon suckers like to make it out to be. Why I feel very confident about that, and that's not saying that the world's a really happy place, I'm a very realistic person, but residential property is an essential commodity called shelter. It is nothing like the stock exchange that can have these wild fluctuations, because

the stock exchange does respond heavily to sentiment. Property doesn't do that. It doesn't – in terms of prices, they don't respond to sentiment, you know, in a day or a month because a property doesn't change hands very often. The average property is held for sort of 7 to 12 years. You know, it's a long, long period of time. Things could have been really ugly for Australian real estate during this pandemic if the pandemic hit two years ago. So, you know, two years ago we had APRA where really they already had the screws on big time, didn't they, with credit?

And large parts of Australia had an oversupply of housing. So two years ago was when, you know, randomly at the time that Sydney and Melbourne, they might have been, say, six months into what turned out to be a really big downturn caused by oversupply and then accentuated by an inability for people to get credit. But if there is such a thing as being fortunate when to have have a health pandemic um it's at a time when credited you know in the months leading up to

this bloody germ hitting australia's shores credit had started to become uh you know more sensible again um good quality borrowers could could get credit as they should um you know we had four interest rate cuts uh in nine months or something like that we had quite a bit of momentum in property markets when the germ hit our shores, and large parts of Australia actually had an undersupply of housing. And this is why, before we even went into isolation, Propertyology published a written report and a video, which probably contradicts everything that everyone else forecasted,

and said, we actually think there's going to be a strong rebound out of this. Not that the germ's good, but largely because key to property markets is the cost of credit it's never been lower than any australian's lifetime than now and the number of properties listed for sale available for rent and under construction um in the pipeline uh is really really low so whilst we um and again it's still the report's still on our website we said that we expect a big reduction in the volume of properties purchased but the key is there'll be enough buyer activity to put pressure on prices because the volume of properties on the supply side of things is really low.

So our view on that hasn't changed. We're now two months into this isolation period, and we really haven't seen prices come off at all. Now, that doesn't mean they won't, but it's more likely to be in isolated pockets. Inner-city apartments, I think, are the most vulnerable. in Australia's biggest cities, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. That's probably the most vulnerable area, I'd think.

And similarly, precincts in and around universities because international students have been hit hard by this or some one-industry tourism towns, some tiny little beach areas might struggle. But then there could be a domestic tourism boom as well or the luxury home. because what is the coronavirus from an economic sense? It's an attack on incomes.

That's what isolation does. It's an attack on income. So pockets around Australia where there's lots and lots of luxury homes, some of those people which otherwise might be wealthy, their personal incomes, if they're attacked enough for long enough, it could be some distressed sales in those luxury markets. But by and large, what I call the meat and potato properties in large parts of Australia will be cushioned through this period quite nicely, I feel.

And as we progressively come out of isolation, we all get out of our cocoon and release this pent-up demand, that really cheap credit is still there, we could see a really strong recovery, you know, late this year and early in 2021. Yeah, I 100% agree. There's a few punters that are sort of suggesting that given that, you know, there's a massive safety net sitting underneath us at the moment that the federal government has been smart enough and quick enough to respond to, to soften the blow, that once that runs out sort of late in the year, there may be a slight dip in that situation because at that point

the people have been holding back from selling may be forced to pop it on the market. Do you think in certain locations, from a timing perspective, and none of us can ever time of the market, particularly if we're investing for 10, 15, 20 years or so. But what's your feeling on, as it pans out now in the very short term, if people are sitting on the sidelines and they're looking at when to pull the trigger, what advice are you giving them? That's certainly a possibility, but what we have already seen is a lot of well-meaning economists automatically jump to conclusions that one piece of information means an Armageddon,

And what we do know is property markets, I describe an individual town or city's property market as like a big jigsaw puzzle. And it's the sum of all the pieces that designs the picture. It's not what people have been jumping to is that, you know, six months from the time the coronavirus started, that's when some of these support packages stop. The bank's putting a hold on a mortgage payment, for example, or the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments. It all sort of comes to a conclusion around September, and the lemon suckers of the world have sort of gone, oh, well, okay, property prices haven't declined like I forecast, but not all in September. Well, you can't just jump to those conclusions. What we do know, something I said earlier, we've had four or five interest rate cuts in the last 12 months. I've lost count.

It's a lot. The average mortgage before this germ arrived of, let's call it, $450,000 mortgage, just because of those interest rate cuts, the household budget – I worked it the other day. It's about $2,000 less money in the – more money in the wallet because of the interest rate cuts. Now, most people, when those interest rate cuts have been implemented, didn't rush out and automatically reduce their mortgage payment. They kept paying what they were paying. So with the exception of those who have become first-time mortgage buyers over the last year or so, lots of Australians are well in advance of the minimum mortgage payment that they have to make.

So that is an extra layer of cushion that's got nothing to do with policy but a very important cushion that for those who it takes longer it back into the workforce or have to gradually get back into it, I think a lot of people have enough money in redraws, offset accounts, access to equity to get through this. I really don't see en masse, and that's what it will take for property prices to tank. I just don't see that happening. Yeah, I 100% agree. And let's face it, unlike shares and other things you can offload quickly, the home that

you live in, which is putting roof and shelter over your head, people will live on dog food and baked beans to keep their house rather than do anything else. So I think there's an inbuilt insulation there because of the importance of that tangible asset to how we live, mate. Yeah, and Australia's credit policy shouldn't be underestimated. Whilst I probably had the loudest, during that two-year period, those who did get a loan, jeez, they would have had the best credit you'd ever get. So what that means is right here and right now, people who have a mortgage, they definitely weren't given that as marginal credit.

Now, they really did bloody earn that. So, you know, having really good quality household balance sheets, which by and large, you know, Australia has. That's what got Australia through the GFC all those years ago, isn't it? Australia was put up on a pedestal by the rest of the world of having the most prudent credit policy in the world, and so many other countries copied us. So I think that's going to prove to be very important as we come out the economic side of this crisis. Yeah, I 100% agree, mate. And let's face it, the good news here also is that not only are we in good shape at a government level and a personal level, but with those rates being historically low, and I don't think we'll ever see them again,

but they're likely to be there, given the Reserve Bank governor's statements that we won't be doing anything with rates until employment's back within the target range and inflation's back in the target range. Well, we've got a very low environment for at least three years and probably beyond. So, I mean, from a purchase perspective,

you just couldn't ask for anything better in that regard. So, mate, if an investor came to you and says, Simon, I've got half a million dollars that I've been approved to go and spend. I'm looking for capital growth. I'm investing for the next 15 years and beyond as a long-term hold exercise to help secure my future down the track. What would you be telling them to do, where and why? firstly i'd say 500 grand is a fantastic budget um of all the years that propertyology been helping

everyday aussies invest we've never spent a dollar more than 500 car investment property that's done very very deliberately um we have plenty of people who can you know who can afford a lot more than that but when they when they have a bigger budget um we'll do some uh some modeling with them and um and see if that you know um instead of buying that one big property it can be two or sometimes three more affordable properties in multiple parts of the country. So it's a great budget. And it's timely question, Bushy, because in the next couple of days,

Propertyology will be releasing a new report. So I'll give you an exclusive on the contents of it. We have ranked our eight capital cities from best potential to worst potential over the next 12 months. So we rate Canberra as having the best potential of our capital cities over the next 12 months. We've actually put Sydney at eighth, Melbourne at seventh. Perth may well prove to be Australia's best-performed capital city

over the foreseeable future, but it's not a market that propertyology is confident in because of its heavy reliance on China. More than 50% of Western Australia's exports are purchased by that one customer. So not just now, but forever and today, um perth will always be a property market that could be at any point in time be a you know without notice um property market downturn so it's more it's uh it's it's higher risk um that

we won't touch it but i think so since canberra has the best outlook um for the sort of the next 12 months or so you can probably we're splitting hairs between brisbane adelaide and hobart whilst Hobart's had a strong run for the last five years. Its fundamentals to us are still strong. But without nominating exactly where, remove the blinkers and look beyond the eight capital cities. With the exception of Hobart, Australia's regions have been the best-performed property markets in all of Australia

for the last five years, and we think it's going to remain that way for several years. They won't be the same regions, but what I'm saying is they will not be capital cities um so we focus on the non-capitals that are well established uh got some substance about them in terms of you know their economy is very diverse there are many parts of regional australia actually have a greater diversity within their local economy than many of our capital cities to be frank um they don't have a big segment of their workforce working in the construction space so therefore they're less vulnerable to the the big downturns

that most of our capital cities have seen at some stage over the last decade. They've got tight vacancy rates in a week, and that's included in this period of isolation. So that's saying something about the strength in some of these regions. Give us a couple of examples. I'm not going to hold you to it, obviously, mate, but just so that the audience gets a flavour for the sorts of regions

you're talking about. So maybe I'll whet the audience's appetite and name a couple in various states across the country. Victoria, it's places like Ballarat, Bendigo, Warrnambool, Shepparton. They're well-established communities, affordable housing, no oversupply risk. You buy a good quality rock-solid standard house for less than $450,000.

In some cases, you'll have a three in the purchase price. In New South Wales, probably places like Wagga, Albury, Armadale Orange has been strong for a few years And we think still has a very good outlook Queensland, really all of Queensland has done nothing for a decade And I'm a Queenslander So if anyone's got anything to gain by talking about Queensland It's me

I don't have a big city interest in anything But I think Queensland might be over the next decade one of the better-performing states. So in that particular order, it's Harvey Bay, it's Mackay, it's Townsville, it's Cairns. Sunshine Coast has got some potential. Gold Coast might be vulnerable to the international student impact and the international tourism impact of the coronavirus.

But I think they have better potential than Brisbane, those Queensland regions. In Western Australia, Albany, Esperance, Busselton, Bunbury, so that's more south of Perth, but Geraldton north of Perth is worth consideration. South Australia really is Adelaide, but there is worth having a look at Mount Gambier and Wyala. Regional Tasmania has been Australia's star performer

over the last three years. Still a lot of potential in places like Launceston and Burnie, both of which have new university campuses that have just started construction, and that'll be really good for their local economies, jobs during construction and then even more jobs once it's completed. So how's that? Yeah, that's awesome, mate. Got the scoop.

Yeah, love it. No, that's great work, and thanks for sharing that with us, mate. Just starts to put some colour around what you're doing because, you know, a lot of people poo-poo the regions for the wrong reasons, and what I like about what you've said there is we're not talking mining towns, we're not talking one horse race towns, we're talking about areas that have got a diverse economy

and as you say, they're actually less vulnerable to the construction side of the equation because of that with very low vacancy rates attached to them, mate. So yeah, I love your thinking around that and let's face it, with where technology is taking us, we can now operate and live from anywhere So I think that regionalisation is actually, from a lifestyle perspective, something that's actually going to increase demand as we move forward rather than the concentration in the cities.

And, in fact, if I was a commercial property owner and a CBD, I'd be very nervous right now. I agree. Yeah. So, no, that's awesome, mate. Well, let's get a little bit nitty-gritty, if we can, for a minute because, you know, the buyer's agency side of your business is very strong. and there's still a lot of Australians who might have heard of buyer's agents but don't know a lot about them. I'd love you to talk through why would you use a buyer's agent

and what's a buyer's agent's approach to the exercise as opposed to the average punter who's out there finding and negotiating a property on their own? Yeah, it's a great question and you're right. Unfortunately, a lot of Australians have never heard of the term, let alone be able to accurately articulate what they do. It's really the reverse of a real estate agent. A real estate agent obviously works for the vendor or the owner of a property.

So they have what's called a fiduciary obligation to do the best thing by their client, which really means create some competition for the property that they're trying to sell and then amongst that competition try to get the highest price for their client. If that property was owned by you or I, that would be exactly what we'd expect our real estate sales agent to do. The buyer's agent works as the term suggests. They work for the buyer. They are contracted by the buyer. They have a fiduciary legal obligation to always act in the buyer's best interest.

So from a negotiation point of view, when it gets to that stage, the transaction, the buyer's agent's job is to get the lowest price. And given that they're buying properties all day, every day, they're very, very experienced negotiators. They're trained real estate professionals, but they have no vested interest in any property asset. So they don't have the photos on the shop front wall with these properties for sale. That's what the sales agent does. The buyer's agent's role is firstly to work with their client and get a clear understanding about what their client's objectives are. So it could be the buyer's agent helping someone buy the family home or it could be someone helping someone invest. If the objective is to help someone invest, that's the space that propertyology specialise in.

We actually don't take on appointments for the family home. But separate to buyer's agency, which is obviously the transaction part of property, is the research piece. Now, whilst buyer's agents will do research, it's more at the local individual town or city level. Where propertyology is different is all of Australia is our market. So our research is at a macro level, you know, where is the next Hobart? Where is the next Launceston or Orange or Ballarat or wherever? You know, that's the most important thing for a property investor is getting the individual town or city right. The bricks and mortar doesn't do the growing.

It's the local economy that will do the heavy lifting for your hard-earned money. So getting that individual town or city right in the first place is critical. And then the buyer's agent getting their hands dirty and finding the individual property asset there. We're very street-specific with that. Suburbs don't grow in value either. We sort of hand-pick individual streets within the chosen town or city. Yeah, I love that because what I'm hearing here is a top-down approach. So we're starting the global and we're narrowing it down right down to the precinct level?

Correct, yeah. Think of a property market as – well, think of a decision as a property investor as one big search engine. Australia, round figures here, 25 million people. We've got 10.3 million residential dwellings across this big country of ours. Our search engine is then broken up into eight states and territories. So we'll go through a process of elimination and sometimes just won't have any interest in some of those states. Then within each state and territory, we're drilling down to obviously there'll be a capital city and a big bunch of individual regions there. Right across Australia, for the property investor, the equivalent of your stock exchange, you have 188 individual towns and cities that have a population of 10,000 people or more.

They've got a lot of choices. So this is your search engine that we're progressively going through, eliminating more and more until we get a small cluster of locations that are left, and then drilling right again into the nitty-gritties of the economy and the supply side of things with that smaller cluster of locations, recommending one of those individual locations, and then getting very street-specific and property-specific to find an individual property. So it's a forensic, as you said, top-down approach. Yeah, so just again for the perhaps a first or second time investor, given that's obviously a part of your market, a lot of the first time is what I call backyard. And what do you say to them in terms of lifting their sights to look way beyond their area, perhaps even their state, to another region that sort of satisfies those criteria that we spoke about earlier? How do you get them to do that, mate? I guess we invest a lot in our clients' education before we ask them to sign anything or pay any money. And at the end of the day, during that process, what we're trying to do is establish confidence and trust.

If we do that effectively, we're educating them along the way and then they'll become more capable of making what is a financial decision at the end of the day. um most property investors including some so-called seasoned investors really do get caught up in in their own neighborhood and you know where they live and what a property looks like the bricks and mortar does not make things grow how it looks does not make things grow um so anyone you know whether you're starting out in your investment journey or you've bought several properties before. Accept that, that appearances don't make things grow. And see all of Australia as the equivalent of the companies on the stock exchange. It is, at the end of the day, for a property investor, you're not investing in bricks and mortar. The key to making good

property investment decisions is to see property as a financial instrument. You're investing in shelter. You're not investing in something that you're going to live in. As soon as the mind starts looking at pretty pictures on realestate.com or going to open homes, you are drawn into the emotion of property. And that is the last thing you want to do as an investor is to be making emotionally driven decisions when you want a financial outcome. Totally agree, mate. And I I often say to our clients, Simon, that if kebabs were giving me higher growth and better return than property, then I'd be investing in those. The house is just a money box in the shape of a house. And the good news here is that because generally investors are only sort of 30% odd of the overall housing stock,

the real benefit of property is that we can slipstream on the emotion of those owner-occupiers who are buying with their heart rather than their head. as opposed to the stock market where everyone's got access to the same information and they're making much more impartial, instant decisions. If we stick in our head and make the numbers work and then slipstream on others' emotion, then a great way to really benefit from the property growth situation. What's your thoughts on that?

100%. Yeah, 100%. 100%. It's a financial instrument. Make note of that term. As a property investor, you need to see property as a financial instrument. The sooner one can develop a mindset very similar to a share investor, the more capable one will be of making good financial decisions. Could you imagine that really astute share investor saying, I'm going to buy some Qantas shares because I fly a lot in my job and Qantas are a great airline?

Or could you imagine that employee of ANZ Bank going, I love working here, so I'm going to buy some more ANZ shares. I love the fit out that they've just done of the head office of ANZ. That's got nothing to do with how those stocks will perform, but that's exactly what most property investors do. Yeah, that's incredible. They make the emotional connection to a town or city and then an individual property and think that that's research,

but it's really not. Yeah, it's a great analogy, mate. I love the way you put that. Mate, again, getting a bit more granular because one of the other great advantages of what you do and the buyer's agents do is the art of negotiation. And, you know, I think the average purchaser doesn't do it very often. They do allow emotion to get in the way of the exercise

and get attached to a property, which, you know, a good seller's agent will smell and utilise to their benefit. But what advice would you give to the listeners in relation to what are the key aspects of a successful negotiation? And on top of that, how is a buyer's agent better placed to negotiate a better position for a purchase as a result of that? So your really skilled buyer's agents will be exceptional with their negotiating skills. But there is no one way. I think there are some property investors that their own occupation might involve negotiating. There might be a salesperson, for example, and a part of effective selling is being a good negotiator.

But I think key to being a really good negotiator is to know your product. So if it was Simon Presley's role to sell widgets, yes, I need to have some good general selling skills, but the most important thing is to really know the ins and outs of widgets. And so the DIY property buying, I think it's important to not underestimate the value as a good negotiator of really knowing your stuff about the property market that this asset is in and then the individual property that you're trying to negotiate the purchase of. The person who buys property for a living, the buyer's agent, will always know a heck of a lot more. about that product than the individual DIY investor. So knowledge is key to a negotiation because when the person

on the other side of negotiation, when you share some information with them that they didn't know, they realise, whether they admit it or not, they realise that you have some power over them, you have knowledge, and that's a very, very powerful position to be in in the middle of a negotiation when you know you've got knowledge, especially when you're able to share some of that knowledge with the sales agent.

There is no one way. In addition to knowledge, it's also, I guess, the ability to sum up a situation. The person that you're negotiating with, they more often than not need to feel like they've had a win as well because two parties need to sign a contract at the end of the day And very few parties, unless there's that rare forced sale situation, which doesn't happen very often, very few parties are going to sign that contract at the end of the day unless they both feel happy. So key to negotiating is, I guess, not just thinking hardball as the way to do things.

Often it's the worst way to do things. It's to try to understand what's motivating the other party. Why are they selling? What are their circumstances? Now, in a legal sense, the real estate agent representing the property seller should not share any of that information with anyone in the public. It's private. It's actually illegal to share any of that knowledge unless the seller says you can tell a prospective buyer these things. But I can tell you, as somebody who buys property for a living, real estate agents do it all the time.

but they're more likely to do it with someone who's a licensed real estate professional that they've dealt with before and it's a more trusted um uh you know environment um which is the dynamic between a sales agent and a buyer's agent yeah yeah no it's a good way to sum that up what are some of the mistakes that you see diy's make in the negotiation process in your experience uh probably the biggest mistake whether the diy is honest with themselves or not with this is allowing their own emotion getting the way there so whether that's you know the emotion of oh geez i better accept this i really you know this is the one i don't want to miss out on it um so they agree they agree to the terms um or they agree to the price um there's no way in the world that a

skilled buyer's agent will allow that to happen um unless that's a really good outcome and the best outcome you know that one could get so that's probably the most most common thing um the other is just as i said earlier just just a lack of knowledge it's impossible for anyone to know what they don't know otherwise the world would be full of experts yeah um you know so uh there are some boys who uh i guess have a false sense of sense of confidence um and you know younger version of simon presley that that was me you know you you think of of being thorough and you know i've done my due diligence and i know everything there is to know um but you don't know what you don't know and if you're not if if you're transacting in something as important as and expensive as

property and you're prepared to roll the dice there just ask yourself before you um sign off on that deal how would you feel if two years after you've signed that contract you discover another bit of information but it's too late then how would you feel then um the person who's more likely to pick that information up when you've still got time to do something about it is the person who transacts in property for a living. Yeah, absolutely. They're doing it all the time. They're used to having the conversation.

You're signaling to the seller's agent that you've got someone professional who's acting on your behalf, so they're more likely to be treating the negotiation in a different way. So I think there's a multitude of benefits there. You know, there's a lot of buyers, and I've heard them say it in the past, I just, you know, I can't quantify paying X because they're seeing it as on top of rather than getting a better result. But what do you say to those buyers who are trying to quantify on their head

the value of paying the buyer's agent's fee? I can't picture the scenario. Can you ask that question another way, of course? Yeah, sorry, mate, I probably didn't say it very well. Putting it fairly simple, I've heard buyers say, oh, shit, I'm not paying $15,000 for someone to buy the property for me. Oh, okay, right, got you. You can say that.

I mean, most things in life, there's the option of being the DIY and not paying a fee, just doing it ourselves, or paying a professional. You know, we could try to be our own doctor and Google all sorts of stuff. you know there's all sorts of stuff about medicine and health conditions on the internet but you know is that real are we really saving ourselves something there by self-diagnosing and we want to take that risk of you know confusing indigestion with um some kind of abdominal cancer um you know like i personally wouldn't do that um with anything important in my life i don't want to I think the most important decision that I can make as a citizen is to find the person who I believe has the best skill, you know, backed up by experience.

And if I get that one decision right, all the recommendations and decisions that hang off that, you know, initial appointment, it doesn't give me a guarantee. But I'll tell you what, it certainly gives me a much better chance than me being a DIY. So we can be a DIY medical practitioner. We can be a DIY accountant. You know, we can jump on e-tax and lodge your own tax return. But I know my accountant's going to put in a lot different numbers on the computer screen than what I would put in myself for my own tax return. So my accountant's worth every cent I pay them.

We could buy a will kit and do our own will as a DIY. But I've been down that path before, And I know that those lawyers who specialise in estate planning, they've taught me a lot of things that I won't find in a will kit. So we can go on and on and on about professional services, can't we? Yeah, we can. But it's surprising I still come across it occasionally. And like you, I spend a lot of time educating people on the benefits.

But just interested in your thoughts around that, mate. Mate, sort of switching into the ambush round, which is the quick five questions that the audience always want to glean your words of wisdom on. Let me kick off by asking, what's your favourite quote and why? My favourite quote is, if it's meant to be, it's up to me. A big believer in accountability and action over procrastination, have a crack. Yeah, yeah, doesn't get much easier than that. and it's all about the action that you take and we can talk about it forever

but if you don't do anything, it's not going to go very far. That's awesome, mate. What about, I mean, you obviously, given the research you do, I'm guessing you spend hours, you're a bit like Warren Buffett in Property, mate. You spend hours contemplating, reflecting and reading information which probably doesn't leave you much time to read books but if you're going to recommend a top book for the audience to grab off the shelf, what would it be and why?

You know me very well. I do do a heck of a lot of reading in my profession, so therefore my way of relaxation is not reading. It's actually sport-related or cafes and restaurants and that sort of stuff. But when I read, it's usually a biography of sorts. And Kerry Packer's book is something I got a lot out of, as well as being a very interesting man with an interesting life. um i just admire the attitude of um you know um of people who just who just have a go um more often than not the if not always the really the truly successful people in life have often had lots of failures and that's what makes them successful as um uh they were prepared to have a go in the

first place they didn't obviously mean to fail but the fact that they did have a go and then had that attitude of uh of learning from the experience so that's why i mentioned reflection at the start of this interview um yeah so the kerry packer book is um it's quite a thick one um it's a long time ago that i read it but a bit of must read yeah it was a classic mate uh i i never forget that uh interview where he tore apart the ato and and and the heads of government uh i just love the way he cuts to the quick and and calls that it isn't his ability just to have a crack poor house some great quotes. He calls it spade a spade. Doesn't he? Yeah, I love it.

Mate, this one's a little bit left field, but a lot of Aussies still believe they pay too much tax. What's the top legal thing that you've done to minimise the tax that you pay, Simon? I look at yes, no one wants to pay tax, but

certainly if there's any legal way to minimise it, do so. I'm a big believer, don't make financial decisions with tax minimization as your primary driver. I'll never do that. But I think the best general advice would be you pay the most tax when you sell an asset. So the more ways you've got within your strategy to defer selling, the less tax you'll pay. That doesn't mean that you should never sell an asset because there is such a thing as a dud asset. But that's the best general advice I'd give to people.

Let's jump in there. What's a dud asset to you, mate? I guess it's something that we already own and, you know, we get from time to time new clients who already own some investments that they bought, you know, before meeting us and ask us, you know, what's the outlook? Should I hang on to this? And that's a combination of, you know, well, which town or city is that property in and what is the broader outlook for that location? But also exactly what have you bought? Is it, I don't know, a dud, what I call Lego building apartment that's probably poor workmanship, hasn't grown for the last 10 years and probably won't grow for the next 10 years, and it's also sucking $20,000 a year out of your cash flow. That's probably an extreme situation, but they do exist. and I think people appreciate

real honesty from time to time to hear that, to make a more informed decision about maybe I am better off just copping that on the chin and moving on. Sometimes that's the best decision to do. Well, there's an opportunity cost there.

If you're overlaid, how's that going to perform and then you actually look at the break costs effectively and then stick it into something and then timeline it. Absolutely. Particularly if the property

is already um a reasonable drain on the household budget yeah it's one thing for the for the outlook of that particular market not to be great but um that that will happen for every location at some point in time because no no market will always be strong but if it's if it's um you know we can't really see any any sun on the horizon for that particular market and it's really adversely affecting the household budget quite a bit you know then we're starting to think seriously about But, you know, maybe the best decision is just to offload it. Yeah, no, I love that. Awesome.

Mate, final question in the ambush round. What's – no, it's not. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. What's the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received so far? The worst – I'll say advice, but it's more – it's not something that one person said to me. I guess it's more a belief of a broader society. and that is that the word capital in capital city has anything at all to do with capital growth.

Excuse the French, but it's complete horseshit. Capital city is just a term. It's not bigger. Well, it is often bigger, but it's not better. You can only have one capital city in a chosen state or territory, but it's got nothing to do with financial performance. It's not safer. capital cities are just as susceptible to downturns as a non-capital city so that's

probably the the worst generalization that a property investor is faced with what about the best mate what's the best piece of investment advice that you've received or the best piece of advice you'd give to an investor best piece of advice and i touched on it earlier is if property is your chosen asset class for future financial independence see um the equivalent of your stock exchange as those 188 individual towns and cities across our eight states and territories only eight of those are capital cities we are neither pro um region or anti-capital we're objective to all of those 188 individual towns and cities believe me they have all had periods when they've performed exceptionally well they have all had periods when they've performed abysmally

and they've all had lots of flat patches but the key is to first consider 100 of your options and progressively go through a process of elimination to narrow down to one yeah that's brilliant advice, mate, and a great approach that sort of parallels the approach in the equities markets, which is something you've got to consider. It matters nothing where you live. It matters nothing where you live. Yeah. Yeah, and I love that.

Mate, last question in the round. What's a personal habit that you believe contributes to your success so far? Well, it's been a big goal setter. um the way i think there's one way to set a goal but what what works for me is to first visualize what it is that i want to experience um however far forward that is you know you know i think um the better the the more clarity around this visual image of the future so for investor actually picture yourself at a particular age living in a particular dwelling you know with your family doing whatever it is that you aspire to do um you know it's planned with the end in

mind so have a really really clear clear picture um and then be brutally honest with where your starting position is your current financial position um and then map out something tangible you know mini goals along the way something you can see yourself achieving so um yeah goal setting is a is a big habit of mine i love it mate you've just described the process that we take our clients through we start living by design so tell us about what your ideal lifestyle looks like how much does that cost what does that mean in terms of assets and work back from there it's just a brilliant approach and i think some of the um the best role models of broader society are are many of australia's elite athletes and you'll find you know if you ever talk to any of them or

read autobiographies or whatever that most of them are really strong goal setters that's not just they were born with some athletic gift you still have to be prepared to put in the hard work whether you're an athlete or whether you're a property investor. But they set goals. They can picture themselves receiving the gold medal at the Olympic Games, for example, and then they work back from that. What do I need to do to stand on that pedestal? As an investor, you're not looking to stand on the pedestal

to get the gold medal, but whatever your retirement lifestyle looks like is the equivalent of that. Yeah, I love it, mate. Beautiful. Awesome, mate. Final question then, and this is a big question, but it gives you plenty of scope. If I gave you a microphone that spoke to every one of the 7.8 billion people

I think that are now in the world and I gave you a minute to talk, what would you say? I'll probably summarise some things I've said earlier. If property is your chosen asset class for future financial independence, you need to stop seeing property as bricks and mortar and shopping centres and schools. They are communities. You need to see property as a financial instrument and understand that the things that will have the biggest influence on how properties perform will be a combination of local economic conditions, which is on the demand side of the equation, and the things that influence the supply side of the equation.

It matters nothing where you live, which individual town or city, or whether you would live in it as in the individual property. The individual property needs to be structurally sound, it needs to be low maintenance, and it needs to be positioned fairly centrally within a town or city that has a diverse economy, and there's a big body of evidence that gives you confidence that the future years for that economy is a positive one. That's about a minute, isn't it?

No, you nailed that. I reckon you've concerted all of the gold that we've talked through the episode into that summary, mate, which is a great way to just reinforce all of the great wisdom that you've shared with us today. Mate, it's been really enjoyable finally having a chance to chat to you ears to ears. It's keen to continue to follow the awesome insights

that you share with hardworking Australians to help them in securing their future. for those that can really see the merit in the gold that you share and the process that you're taking through? What's the best way for the listeners to contact you, mate? Well, firstly, Bushy, thank you very much for having us on and for your great work, my friend. You're a good role model for professional services, so thank you.

Yeah, Propertyology's website is literally propertyology.com.au. there's in the menu tab um there's the option there of subscribing to our newsletter um it's probably more an e-research report than a newsletter per se um we there's never anything salesy in it um roughly once a fortnight um sometimes it might be once a week um the subscribers of that newsletter will will get research-based property research-based and education based um material so i personally write all those um so they're very uh they often can be very data heavy um numbers as evidence um and that's how we educate people um you know for example i mentioned earlier population growth is nowhere near as important as what people think

um you know we might produce a report that teaches people that um or we might produce another report that shows people um some opportunities in some regional locations or whatever. So I'd encourage you to subscribe to that and if nothing else, you'll be much more educated from doing it. I totally agree. I'd sort of keep an eye out for those newsletters and the gold that you share.

Also encourage the listeners to jump on and like your Facebook page because if you're into the social media thing, that's going to keep you abreast of the stuff that you are releasing on top of that, mate. So I would encourage everyone to get on board with that. And, mate, again, very appreciative of you spending some time with me today. Looking forward to keeping an eye on your ongoing insights into what's happening in property across the country. And if you're up to it, we'd love to have you back on a semi-regular basis just to give an update on how you're seeing things and how things are likely to roll out in the future.

Absolutely, especially in times – these are unprecedented times, Bushy, aren't they? And there's a strange part of me that's actually really enjoying this because, you know, like the GFC, there are incredible learnings to obtain from unprecedented times. We feel that we've learned a few things at the moment, but I've got no doubt there'll be lots more we'll learn over the coming months. So I'd be delighted to come back and share some of those learnings with your audience. Yeah, thanks, mate. And like you, I think times like this are massive wake-up calls. And you and I, I'm sure, sometimes get a blood nose trying to educate people on the benefits of investing. If nothing else, times like this wake us up to the fact that living mouth-to-mouth, week-to-week, isn't the way to survive.

If you do start investing in yourself and investing in your future, then when we do have these inevitable ups and downs that are going to occur in the economy, we can remove the stress because we know we're prepared for them, mate. So keep up what you're doing. we're creating a community of people who are going to be much better educated on their own financial positions which will produce a much better community mate so very appreciative of the hard work you do thanks simon a pleasure cheers mate talk soon well freedom fighters how good was that you get a summary of all this investment gold in the show

notes, just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au. It'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!