Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Realty Talk: Regional B&B restrictions overcome

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

As many councils around the country impose restrictions on B&B style accommodation, the impact on regional economies is showing.  Bushy catches up with a serial entrepreneur who says she has a solution.  We start this week by tackling one of the most challenging issues facing anyone hunting a property as a buyer or as an agent.  We have a solution there as well. NEW – join our Facebook group, The Property Hub Collective: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1857513011165686 Join the Property Hub community on Substack! Sign up to get Australian property news, opinion, and episodes in your inbox: https://propertyhubau.substack.com/ Subscribe to RealtyTalk on the Property Hub channel: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Email Property Hub is a collaboration between Bushy Martin from KnowHow Property, Kevin Turner from Realty, Andrew Montesi from Apiro Marketing and Apiro Media, and Australia’s largest independent podcast network DM Media. Business and partnership enquiries: [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Kevin Turner and welcome to this week's Realty Talk show. As many councils around the country impose restrictions on B&B style accommodation in their areas, it's having an impact on regional hub economies that are really struggling financially because of missed opportunities due to a lack of local accommodation. Bushy catches up with the serial entrepreneur who says that she has a solution It could be a worthwhile opportunity investment for you as well. That's coming up later in the show. But we start this week by tackling one of the most challenging issues facing anyone hunting a property as a buyer or as an agent.

And that is their ability to identify good quality pre-market and off-market property opportunities. Well, we think we might have a solution there for you as well. Bushy uncovers that shortly. Hey, if this is your first time with us, welcome. You're going to find us on all podcast players and through the Southern Cross Austereo Network. If you like the show, make sure you hit the subscribe button and help us to continue to bring you the best guests every week. Join the conversation to any time on Facebook. You can do that at the Property Hub Collective.

We'll be back in just a moment as Bushy kicks off this week's show. Hi, just before we go back to the show, I want to spend a few seconds and tell you about a book that was sent to me that's now become my go-to reference when I'm looking for inspiration about property investment. You know, sometimes it's not about knowing all the answers. It's certainly more important to know what questions to ask. This book by Rasti is called The Property Wealth blueprint. And it's one that you don't read just once and then put it away. It stays out as a reference. It's a book that you go back to time and time again, as I do, because it's packed with personal experience and with great examples of how to get property investment right. It's very

frank. It's to the point. And as you can see here, I've needed to bookmark several points. And I can tell you that it's a constant companion on my desk here. The remarkable thing is that it's absolutely free on Rasty's website, getrare.com.au. Get Rare, it's a gateway to a richer life. The website there for you again, getrare.com.au. So get this book, get it for yourself. Realty Talk and your host, Bushy Martin. Now, from an investor's or property buyer's perspective, one of the most challenging, difficult, stressful and time-consuming issues that we see facing their buyers' agents and selling agents is the ability to source and secure good quality pre-market and off-market properties. But this is about to change. The revolution that's now occurring in real estate transactions that has the power to transform the interaction between selling and buyers agents and the founders of industry disrupting only source property, Tom Pettifer and Josh Deckard, join us today to unpack the details.

So welcome to Realty Talk, Tom and Josh. Hey, Bushy. Thanks for having us on. Thanks for having us on, Bushy. Good to see you again. Yeah, really excited about what you guys are bringing to the market. But so to sort of kick things off, and for those who don't understand what we're talking about, what is a property sourcing company? So, yeah, ultimately, we're a business-to-business company, Bushy. We're ultimately, we're building and maintaining relationships with selling agents to ultimately solve the problems of buyers' agents, which is to get access to stock. I mean, it's pretty obvious right now that one of the most challenging tasks buyers' agents face right now is actually getting access to the stock.

So enter only source property, and that's one of our missions 101. But also on the inverse of that, we're also about solving selling agents' problems as well. So, yeah, essentially we're solving problems at both ends of the equation. Yeah, I love that. So for those that are listening and going, I'm a bit interested in this. How does it all work? Yeah, so I guess for us to break it down,

we take on briefs from buyers agents we're looking to source stock so we have a vast network of selling agents that we're always continually building um so we take the buyers agents the briefs from their clients and when stock comes across our desk we basically match the two together and send the property through to the buyers agent uh it's basically as simple as that it's like a matchmaking service for for buyers agents and stock it just you know it makes it a little bit easier for them to not have to network as much yeah makes sense so to break into the details that a little bit if we can how does this actually help both the buyers agents and the selling agents yeah so i guess uh yeah ultimately it gives the buyers agent access to stock they probably don't

have the resources to get so because we're able to transact over and over again um with the same selling agents so for example one buyers agent might have 30 clients and none of those clients have an applicable brief for a really good quality property a selling agent has. So we can then expand their network for the selling agent to, say, 1,000 buyers agents. And that way, we can transact with the selling agents, which gives them exposure.

But it means that we're constantly transacting with them, keeping them happy, and we're obviously fulfilling the property sourcing bottleneck that most buyers agents have. Yeah, really good comment. So broadening that out a little bit then, that how do probably buyers and investors benefit from all of this yeah so i guess ultimately they get faster transactions um so that the buyers agent doesn't have to hustle as much to try and find stock um if they're trying to find stock and they're on the phone all day there's less client

management time for client management we are able to send them numerous you know properties whereas they might only get access to say one or two here and there it gives them options as well so the quality of the stock that they get to see and that ultimately hits them uh is yeah is a lot better and there's a lot more stocks and more to pick from um that's basically what we're trying to achieve is access to stock which is crucial and in a growth market push it is obviously an opportunity cost to actually not transacting as well a lot of these buyers agents have done extensive due diligence and research in the areas they're targeting and typically they're growing faster than the average rate of the rest of australia so if we can get access to to stock

um you know earlier and if it's you know 750k as an example 750k property grant 10 a year we can get them four months earlier um you know we can say we can get a better purchase price from lack of missing out well and one of the other benefits i can see also in a in the current environment where the interest rates are still on the rise to some degree is that a lot of investors are pre-approved for 90 days and if the 90 days expires and there's been a rate rise they may actually be out of the game and their property purchase value is actually dropping as a consequence of that. So that speed of transaction exercise that you bring to the table is going to be a benefit to everyone involved, as I see on that front. So talk to us about any risks in the

process that you see, guys. I don't see a great deal of risk. I guess the only risk would be if the buyer's agent themselves wasn't economically viable given their fee structure. So they have to you know provide their value their services and the market's willing to pay for what their services are um yeah we see it's just a viability aspect if they they charge in you know 5k their services a property sourcing company like us wouldn't be a fit but for most buyers agents out there that are charging you know market rates it absolutely works yeah it's almost like having an extra uh team member that that's got an amazing octopus of networks right across the countries and am i assuming that you're pretty much got national coverage in relation to what

you do or your area specific can you talk to me a bit about that so i guess at the moment so the way we work is we follow the briefs as well so you know people do their research on what areas they're looking at and we deploy resources as as we see fit so basically you know for example perth adelaide brisbane at the moment are quite hot markets and access to stock is quite hard However, it is transitioning and we're seeing a bit of a change in the briefs that we're seeing now. So, yeah, we adapt. We don't want to waste selling agents' time either.

So we've got to be mindful that we're here to build relationships and maintain them. So that's the crucial part. You know, calling around Australia trying to find stock without having any ability to transact with them is just not necessary. So, yeah, we are seeing a bit of a pivot, aren't we, Tom, at the moment with where we're looking.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, good. That's good. So before we summarise, anything else we need to know about what you're doing and the benefits that we're seeing you bring to the table? I guess from a staffing aspect, we can ultimately provide a proper sourcing service. We can allow the wise agents to specialise in what they do best, which is lead generation, working on the business, not in the business. um so yeah we can allow them to really specialize and reduce staffing costs so um it's just one less headache um if some if that's the way that a buyer's agent wants to structure their business we can we can help them there yeah i can certainly see buyer's agents being able to scale their business much more effectively utilizing your resources because

you're maintaining those key relationships across the board that they're not having to spend time energy and money you're trying to do on a one-off and occasional basis so uh love what you're doing there guys so look i we've only just touched the tip of the iceberg so i'll make sure you get back to dive into more details on the exciting stuff you're doing so i just want to thank you for all this and it's it's clearly a transformational opportunity that you've created so we suggest that anyone who'd like to find out more jumps on your website at only source property dot com that's only source property dot com and thanks again for joining us on the show to open our both our eyes and our ears to this groundbreaking initiative tom and josh

successful property investment is a game of finance do you have the right team and the right game plan realty talk is brought to you by know how property more than mortgage brokers bushy martin and his team of investment architects set you up with a sustainable strategy structured to lower your costs, tax, risk, and stress while increasing your capacity for growth. KnowHow has helped over 1,900 homeowners and investors secure more than $800 million in property wealth. So get set to live more, work less, and live your legacy. Want to know how to invest in your freedom? Visit knowhowproperty.com.au. This is Realty Talk, powered by realty.com.au.

Now, as the pandemic accidents to lifestyle and sea and tree changes to regional Australia continue, many regional hub economies, who continue to blossom financially, are struggling with missed opportunities due to a lack of local accommodation. There are just never enough local hotels and motels to cater for the growth of festivals and events, which has resulted in the growth of short-term Airbnb-style accommodation that's now being restricted by many councils, unfortunately. But this is only adding to the long-term rental crisis. So the business and accommodation cats just keep chasing their tails

and biting off their noses despite their faces in a crazy circular game of cash 22. So what's the solution? Well, serial entrepreneur and industry disruptor Ludwina Dortovic has come up with a great innovative answer and she joins us now to reveal this opportunity so welcome back to the show Luana. Hello Bushy it's so good to be back again. Absolutely I love talking to you I always walk away with a massive smile on my face and energised to do the Toyota jump so thanks for joining us again but to put some real colour around this very specific issue that's emerging around the place and give us some context can you tell us more about the challenges that are

actually being faced in regional australia at the moment yeah and i'll start off with the fact that you know you and i are both country peeps i grew up in a little country town called how long just outside of albury and i know you're traveling around different regional places around australia at the moment um look regional towns if they don't have the right infrastructure set up uh they can really struggle in certain areas um but as you just said in your intro with all the changes that have happened and kind of the you know the exodus of people from the cities to the country region sort of post-covid it's kind of increased the population of these regions but the infrastructure may not necessarily be there and i'm really passionate about helping support regional

australia as much as we can um in fact and you should be on this um bushy you know after the probably the end of january early february we're going to be doing a linkedin audio event talking about this very problem and getting a bunch of people from regional australia to discuss the issue so imagine imagine service workers for example uh people who uh work in hospitals fire brigade um police hospitality workers nurses just people who actually are required to service and run the town also needs somewhere to live yeah and you know i've heard of some regional towns but this happens particularly in peak season when they get an influx of people coming in that they sometimes have to serve their food on paper plates because they don't have staff

to wash the dishes or they can't open full hours or you'll have to wait in a huge line to get your coffee or your meal and that really is well that time of the year is really when these um towns actually you know bring in a lot of their um revenue um the accommodation isn't there when we're talking about physical bricks and mortar we need to find some kind of solutions to help cater for it so let's just park that that's just regular everyday life of regional australia but let's just say that there's an event or an opportunity that comes their way that will then bring an influx of a group of people on a short period of time so maybe a four or five day event or sporting event film festival whatever it is yep there's some opportunity costs there that

are lost in the the around the issue because of housing so we've been looking at a lot of this it's like how is it that we can help regional australia in a very targeted and meaningful way just with the regular everyday um housing um crisis and housing issues because per capita i think it's really hitting more um even than some of the the cities yeah they have an influx of spare bedroom so obviously that's one right so we're one of the we've got two solutions one of them is that we can create a specific marketing and landing page package that's actually drawing attention to the homeowners in those areas and then actually drawing attention to the people that are looking for accommodation so that's one thing that we have just launched

but there's another one where we're looking at partnering with various different regional towns to say look if you've got a an event that you want to have come to your town but you're saying no purely because of accommodation and if the only other solution is to you know get more short-term accommodation stock happening, then what that does, that's actually then exacerbating the original problem of then not having enough mid to long term accommodation. So that's kind of the problems that we're looking at. And we're looking at innovative ways to how is it that we can partner with regional Australia so that they can say yes to these opportunities instead of saying no. Love it. Well, let's dive into the details of a bit more of the solutions that

yourself and the room exchange are offering particularly in that b2b offering can you tell us a bit more about that yeah so uh the first one um out of the two b2b one of them is that we did this with study gold coast so they're they're an international student organization up in the gold coast and they were having problems with finding um accommodation for their international students and as you would know that's a big part of the market of our universities is that these international students so we we created a way to draw attention to the homeowners in the area saying with a room exchange in partnership with study gold coast you know if you do have a spare room we can help facilitate the matching of that come to the room exchange

and we did the same for the international students so what we're doing is we're actually creating a way a meaningful way other than just a link that they can put on their website to say go to the room exchange when really then they're just landing on our public website which to them doesn't have any specific meaning to their problem right so what we're wanting to do is to create some this marketing collateral for them so that they can say well they've actually got ownership of these pages they can push them on social they can push them out to the pr or on their websites or when they've got people inquiring they can send them over and then we nurture them through our process with the language and the modeling of around where they've come from does that make

sense yeah totally i love it because the this is the issue with technology as we know uh unless someone's clear on what their problem is and what the solution is and there is an easy means to bridge the gap often they don't happen so what i'm hearing you saying is that you are specifically attracting the people that have the issue you're talking to them in their language but also in the way they like to communicate and then you're linking that with the solution at the other end for those in the regional areas who are struggling to take advantage of the events and festival opportunities that are emerging because they just don't have a solution that's going

to work quickly and effectively. I think that's absolutely brilliant. You mentioned that's one. There's another one as well. Do you want to expand on that? Yeah, so that one I just described is more so for regional towns that are just looking for a housing solution, a general housing solution on an ongoing basis, right?

So when we're talking about service workers, they need somewhere to live, this is a really great way to help support your town and also to utilise that space and get some rent for your room so that's one problem that we can solve there the other one is when there are opportunities like festival and events now obviously this is a short-term accommodation play but our first value and rule is that we do not remove any properties from the long-term rental market that's a rule that we have so how can we how can we help support them then without doing that so um you're probably old enough to remember this term i'm 57 we used to

have this thing it's kids called billeting do you remember that absolutely absolutely we used to do it our family used to do we used to billet people uh we we did student exchanges where we used to get students from overseas and we we'd built them in our home and it was not only good for them it was great for us because we got exposure to people we'd never otherwise would i got to learn about new cultures and and things at an early age which was really formative in my approach and and then for almost invisible ability to embrace different cultures and people because of the engagement the interest that I got out of that so well a lot of benefits from doing the old bill of exercise and a great way to go yeah so that's probably more commonly known as like a student exchange kind

of program um when I was in girl guides I remember that you know if we had sort of like an excursion um in a different town or interstate there will be a girl guide community up there that will say look we've got girl guys coming from how long can you bill them for a couple of nights so they've got somewhere to stay and so that's what i'm talking about in terms of it's more of a community focus around well if you if you live in a regional town this is a benefit to everyone right if you live in a regional town yeah and you want this event to come to your town but accommodation is an issue to the point where people are having to travel an hour outside or whatever to to be able to come to this event that's not good that doesn't work so if we but there's a number of spare

bedrooms in the town in homes and and when you're talking about this billeting concept it's not like an official short-term accommodation where you're paying top notch and the entire house has to be hotel ready you know who wants to do that it's just too much work but you know you might say look i've got a tent i can pitch in the backyard the kids can crash in there or you know my kids can share a room for the three or four days the event's on or we've got a couple of air beds we can put on the floor it's that real sort of like casual temporary thing that really all you want is a place to crash for a few days so you can go to the event the household can make a few dollars out of it you know the people that are coming for for the event have got somewhere in town they can

stay and they're connecting and networking with local people the benefit of that is that the people who are opening up their home to bill it are helping increase the economic value of the town they're helping to bring more and more festivals and it just does so much for the local community i'm i'm really excited about this now this is different to the first model first model is a lower end product this is more of like a white label solution we would have to build um kind of like a micro version of our main website um for that but what it would mean is is that that town could utilize this technology for any event they wanted to they can turn it on and off whenever they want to they can have homeowners pre-list so they know how many people would actually be

happy to open up their homes how many bedrooms they would have access to so when they're pitching for the event they can say look even though we're a small town we've got expressions of interest from 300 local homeowners who are happy to share their bedrooms that equate to you know 300 people we can sleep and then you know and then whoever they're pitching that event to can say okay well they've got the accommodation issue covered and that really is a big factor for these councils in these towns to be able to pitch an event they need to be able to show that they've got accommodation now the win with this is that there are no long-term rentals that are taken from the market it um the homeowners don't have to feel like they have to run their place like a hotel

it's more of a community focus and everybody wins and i think this is just such an ideal way to um to solve this problem and then maybe these homeowners might go well wow i really enjoyed this i might actually open up my house you know longer term for somebody in our local region as well so i i just think it's it's a great win-win there's no additional resources that need to be built we're not putting people out we're not reducing housing stock we're utilizing what's there already and we're strengthening the local community yeah i love it i think the you're right it's an absolute win-win-win in all directions and and the the human connection and the human experience that comes out of it is second to none because i know myself that whenever we've gone to an event it's

actually the interactions we have with others that are actually more memorable than the event itself quite often and they build long-lasting quite often lifetime friendships as a consequence that flows on so i think there's a a massive opportunity there again it's staring at us right in the face uh the i guess the obvious question then the winner is what do we need to do to make it happen and who do we need to hassle to help make it happen look really just if you if you got somebody in the local council who is in charge of um you know negotiating these event opportunities uh that would be the ideal person i think also to the local traders association perhaps or um you know there's a bunch of kind of like local community groups that are really supporting the local

business because this really does support local businesses as well so if we can get people and the other great thing about this is that yes there is a cost to it we're not a charity but But we can get, we can help support you by getting sponsors on board to help cover the tech costs. And then that way they can, you know, be profiled as well. So we're really happy to work with councils or, you know, regional areas in a way that it's like, okay, well, this is what it is. What resources do you have access to to cover it?

What can we get access to to help you to get this on board? And, you know, we only need probably about three months lead time to pull this off for each council. and most events have got at least six to 12 months lead time before you know they're going ahead anyway so there's ample time for it um and i and i just think the thing with technology um bushy is that you know we've invested six years at six years of knowledge six years of tech six years of you know um understanding what's required what's not required you can't just do that offhand i mean you might think that yeah okay you can pull something off the shelf and build something

together but then you've got all of the matching you've got all the you know verification and all those things that go behind it don't let that be your reason to say no use what's already available which is our technology and then let us create a version of that or a form of that that can actually help solve your problem so all you've got to do is just think about saying yes and figuring out the rest after that i love that so for those that are picking up their ears and going wow this sounds awesome where do we go to find out more well please connect with me on linkedin uh ludwina dortovic thank goodness my first name so unusual bushy you can just search that um oh no i've even got ludwina.com oh don't go there though it's not it's no i've read i've got the url

but i've got nothing on it um back to the point uh ludwina dortovic on linkedin or the room exchange letter x c h a n g e but probably best to um there won't be any information on there about it because this is a b2b product where our main website is um for our consumers uh just consumer users um but email me admin at the room exchange letter x c-h-a-n-g.com um but just happy to have a conversation and you know i call it playing what if you know let's just see what it is that you want to do and i guarantee your technology can do it it's just a matter of figuring out what it is and i'm everything's figureoutable i'm a strong believer i'll say yes and figure it out later everything is figureoutable so you know i really want to

make a difference and have an impact in regional towns um it's same as in the cities as well but i just know the regional towns are struggling their budgets are generally you know a lot lower so it's here so use us absolutely love it again i want to really thank you for revealing get another easy-to-implement solution to a growing accommodation problem, Luena, and we encourage everyone who's interested in finding out more to reach out to you and your team and again, I'll repeat that, at the Room

Exchange, that's the Room X without the E, exchange.com Is it .com or .com? Just .com and we'll put the links to that and your links in the show notes, Luena, so thanks again for your generous time on the show today.

Thanks, Bushy. I feel like i'm a resident now on realty talk oh you're a favorite that's for sure so any excuse is a good excuse let's keep the conversation going thank you so much bushy property deductions can save you thousands of dollars each year to make sure you maximize deductions you need to work with the most experienced quantity surveyor in the country bmt tax depreciation is the leading specialist in the industry they've completed over 700 000 tax deduction schedules for residential investment and commercial properties Australia-wide. BMT guarantee to find double your fee

in the first full financial year deductions. Call BMT on 1300 728 726 today for an obligation free quote. Realty Talk exclusive to The Property Hub. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's show. A big thanks to our special guests for their contributions. You can catch up on individual interview segments

at any time. We break down the interviews that make up our show and we republish them as stand alone. Check it out. You can do that at the Realty Talk channel. Make sure too that you don't miss a single episode of Realty Talk or Bushy's Get Invested podcast delivered to you each week by subscribing to the Property Hub now on your favourite podcast player or wherever you're listening to or watching this show. Also join the conversation anytime on Facebook at the Property Hub Collective. Thanks to our supporters and content partners,

Realty.com.au, BMT, Tax Depreciation, Know How Property Finance, Get Rare Property into Pirro Marketing. I'm Kevin Turner, and on behalf of Bushy and the Property Hub team, we look forward to seeing you again next week.