Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Realty Talk: What we learnt in ‘23 to help in ‘24

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

Cast your mind back to this time last year.  You might recall the sobering predictions about potential doom and gloom ahead for 2023, pedaled by self-proclaimed experts and picked up as click bait and used in various sensational media exclusives.  Well they got it wrong with residential property in Australia defying those dire predictions to enjoy solid growth in many parts of the country.   One voice who didn’t cry wolf was Pete Wargent and he returns this week with Bushy to outline what he sees ahead for 2024. 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, and welcome to this week's Realty Talk show. Cast your mind back to this time last year. You might recall the sobering predictions about potential doom and gloom ahead for 2023. It was peddled by self-proclaimed experts and picked up as clickbait and used in various sensational media exclusives. Well, they got it wrong. Most of them did anyway. with residential property in Australia defying those dire predictions to enjoy solid growth

in many parts of the country. However, there was one voice that didn't cry wolf. It was Pete Wargent. And he returns this week with Bushy to outline what he sees ahead for 2024. Now, before we join Bushy and Pete, let me welcome you. If this is your first time with us, You can find us on all podcast players and through the Southern Cross Austereo Network. If you like the show, please hit the subscribe button. Help us to continue to bring you the best guests every week. You can join the conversation anytime as well on Facebook at the Property Hub Collective. We'll be back in just a moment as Bushy kicks off this week's show.

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finance and real estate expert and investor, and one of Australia's most highly respected financial housing market analysts, Pete Wardgen, with his view on the property market for 2024. Kick things off. How do you feel property performed against your expectations last year? And what have anything varied and why? A lot of the sort of normal trends have been thrown completely out of kilter for the last, well, I guess it's been four years really now since the onset of the pandemic and all the policy changes and lockdowns and everything. They're just through the seasonality of the market and the economy into disarray.

As you said, things are normalizing a bit now. But if you went back a year ago, well, we were into the period of monetary policy tightening. So interest rates are starting to go up. I think market pricing at the time looked very alarming, didn't it? We had interest rates effectively priced to go from 0% to about 4% for the cash rate target. And in the end, we actually overshot that a little bit. And I think the market feeling at the time was very apprehensive. And I think, well, I'm generally an optimist and the fundamentals for Aussie property tend to be very strong over the long run. And yeah, I think the market has overall performed better than I would have expected, given the trajectory of interest rates.

And I think when you look at the reasons for that, well, yeah, most people have decided to hold on to their properties rather than sell. Stock levels have been very low and it's been kind of cause and effect. Really, a lot of people don't want to sell because they're concerned about not finding something to buy, particularly for upgraders. and yeah a lot of the other fundamentals population growth has been record highs as it's rebounded building approvals are a decade low so the rental market is very very tight rental vacancy rates as low as we've ever seen now under one percent yeah so yeah look I think overall against expectations from a year ago the market has been stronger than I would have thought and why well it's really just a shortage of housing and a shortage of properties for sale

Yeah, very good call. So turning to this year then, what's your overall view about how property is going to perform at the national, regional and the sector level this year, mate? Well, the year has kicked off in a very buoyant way. You know, as you said, we work as property buyers. We're absolutely at full capacity. We can't take any more clients to buy in southeast Queensland at the moment. We're so busy. And I've spoken to buyers agents in Perth, which is booming.

I've spoken to buyers agents in Melbourne who are enjoying a nice Christmas break and watching the cricket and everything. And they're absolutely flat out again as the new year's kicked off. So sentiment is clearly stronger than it was even three months ago. I think that's really just been driven by a general feeling that we've reached the peak of the interest rate cycle. We're very close to it now. And market pricing for interest rates looking a year, two years, three years out, these four interest rates to fall. So I think for that reason, activity is going to be buoyant. A lot of those same fundamentals still apply. We've still got housing supply struggling to keep up. The rental market is still not a nice place to be. And just one trend that we've been seeing is parents deciding to help their kids into the housing market because the rental market is very competitive.

rents have been going up generally um so to summarize it at the national level i think we'll see a positive year for property um i think the strongest markets well perth is absolutely flying um so i think western australia will probably lead the way but yeah i mean there's still still very tight markets in perth brisbane adelaide um sydney and melbourne probably a bit less sober still on the way up um and yeah some of the regional markets have been a bit cooler uh generally some of the coastal markets which um which really boomed through the pandemic when there was that race for space well yeah some of those markets really got overheated and maybe just coming off a bit but by no means crashing i mean uh i'm coastally based myself in queensland and

yeah the market's still holding out much better than you might have thought so yeah overall pretty positive i guess yeah totally yeah i think you're right i think people are seeing uh that things are on the up in in most directions uh that borrowing capacity is going to improve uh rates are likely to come back later in the later part of this year uh so the smart investors are starting to see the opportunity to get in before the crowd jumps in and and you know with the shortage of supply uh it'll be interesting to see how the listings level goes this year given it's been very strain particularly over the last 12 months so i'll be keen to see what that does but from your perspective what are the key drivers and influences that you think we need to be watching out for that

are likely to influence property movements in certain areas this year yeah on the supply side the the listings is a key point um the figures are out for january and december january is not a great time to gauge this stuff i guess because a lot of people on break and so on but i think if you just rewind to a decade ago, listings were about 50% higher. So yes, some markets like Hobart have eased off a bit and Canberra and Darwin. But if you just take it at the national level, there's very few properties for sale still. And in particular, in some of the other capital cities, in particular in Brisbane, Adelaide is still very tight. Perth is extremely tight so these things on the supply side is probably the big one um i think of all the

fundamentals that feed into property i think the main thing this year will just be sentiment driven because you do have this thing in aussie property um when there's slower periods you get this kind of pent-up demand and we've seen that building over the past two or three months a lot of people just sitting on the sidelines a bit concerned investors have been on the sidelines pretty much all year if you look at the stats um yeah in 2023 and i think people are just looking for that green light to make a decision um but as the sentiment turns then that's probably uh that's when you see prices move quickly because um demand can change a lot more quickly than supply can generally so um when you get those inflection points that's when you get a boom in prices we've

seen it in perth just over the past year or so and probably some other markets are heading in direction as well so yeah there's lots of sort of things that feed into that sentiment as you said the underlying fundamentals but i think that's going to be the main one um and if we start seeing around the middle of the year talk about interest rates um heading down well that will only sort of add some fuel to the fire i guess yeah i agree yeah what about on the sort of macro global economic front mate uh any thoughts on you know the us election or conflict in the middle east or other activity that that may have a flow on impact on on property locally yeah so the as you know i take a lot of interest in the global um outlook and the global macro economy i spent some time

in europe as i usually do over the christmas period um yeah i mean you can see things like fuel prices have come way down from the highs um retail prices are no longer going up i think um I think a lot of people have probably not for the first time been surprised by the strength and resilience of the US economy. We spent all those years wondering whether interest rates could go from zero to one and what would happen. And the funds rate has gone from zero to five and higher. And the economy is just still powering along.

I think it's a slightly different model in Australia because most of us have variable rate mortgages or at least short term fixed rate mortgages. So interest rate changes have a quicker impact on the economy. The flow through is much faster. So we'll probably see interest rates peak at a lower level in Australia. But, yeah, I think generally the outlook is more upbeat globally. I think inflation in most countries, if you look at the US and Canada, the UK, Eurozone, New Zealand, massive amounts of progress being made there. If you look at the risk areas, well, the main one is just geopolitical conflicts.

got the oil price down at around $80 today. But I guess that's the main risk if there's a big flare up in ongoing conflicts, particularly in the Middle East and maybe some other parts of the world. But if we saw the oil price really spike, you know, like $150 or $200, that's the risk, you know, that's what could reignite inflation. Or if there's major disruptions to shipping. At the moment, markets are pretty benign and they don't really see too much risk of an ongoing issue there. But if I was to look for, you know, what's the curveball or something from left field,

it would probably be something like conflict. 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 KnowHow 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

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as they look ahead at the prospect for property investment this year and in particular tax reform, stage three tax cuts, potential negative gearing changes, the rental crisis and mainstream media sentiment. Now I was sort of interested in seeing the recent machinations in relation to the modifications to the Stage 3 tax cuts and the hullabaloo that was made around that with accusations of breaking election promises

and all the rest of it. But I don't know about you, but my thinking is for those particularly on higher incomes who aren't going to enjoy the sort of tax breaks that they were anticipating, it may actually nudge some of them back into property as a way of actually managing some of their tax and cause an increase in demand in that area.

So what are your thoughts around that, if anything? Yeah, I know how much you love the police, Bush. Yeah, it's been an interesting back and forth on that one. Accusations of backflips and broken promises. I think if you look at it, well, you're more across the mortgage market than I am in terms of borrowing capacities. But I think for, particularly for two-income households,

up to sort of $150,000 per annum. There'll be some sort of welcome boost to borrowing capacities. I think the people who are most annoyed are at the top end, the higher income earners at the 45% marginal rate because they're expecting a tax cut of around $9,000. It'll be about half of that. So we'll get some boost to their borrowing capacity, but not as much as they were looking for.

And yeah, I mean, what's the old phrase? Happiness is expectations exceeded. Well, it's kind of the other way around, isn't it? So I think you're right. You know, what will people do? Australia is a relatively high taxing company, country for personal income tax, 45 percent plus the Medicare levy. And people will look for ways to find tax shelters. So family trusts and particularly negatively geared property are two of the ways in which you can reduce that personal income tax rate. So if you think about people like healthcare professionals and people in the trades who are earning and paying 45% tax, they'll probably look at property as a way to sort of reduce that income tax exposure in the light of probably expecting a better tax cut than they actually got effective from July. Yeah, I agree.

Now, as you just touched on, there's been some rumblings in the media about potential relooks at negative gearing, which I'd be very surprised at, given Labor's had a thumping and lost a couple of elections pretty much on the head of that back in the 2010s, and I think it's in 17 and 19. what's what's your read of whether that's likely to get a guernsey given the massive housing shortage we've gotten the fact that private investors are really shouldering the burden of of residential housing provision in that regard well yeah there's a few different things there firstly the public housing uh the public sector is not delivering any housing um i keep saying these stories about um like in melbourne four tower blocks have to be removed because they're substandard and rebuilt so although we're building some housing it's often just replacing what's already there in the in terms of social and public housing so um there's nothing really coming from

the government um in some cases in queensland i think the government has decided it's actually easier to buy existing properties rather than build them um just because of where costs have gone so we've seen in some cases hotels being repurposed for the homeless and things like that so the government is not really adding to the dwelling stock now um so the rental market is entirely shouldered by private landlords um so i think the absolute last thing the market needs when you've got a national rental vacancy rate of under one percent it's the lowest it's ever been yeah i don't think it's the time to be starting making noises about clamping down on property investors uh i mean who alone knows i mean rents have already been um pumping i mean just to take

let's take sydney as an example you went back to the pandemic six hundred and fifty dollars a week to rent a house uh jaw is actually closer to 600 at the lows it's over a thousand dollars a week now um so in the space of three or four years an enormous increase in asking rents um similar story in melbourne brisbane and around the country i don't think it'll be very popular um politically or in terms of the housing market to start clamping down on negative gearing now there will be some looking at um where some tax can be raised of course because that's um the progressive side of politics i think family trust might get a look in yeah capital gains tax discount maybe um but at the moment anyway it's not really clear uh but i think negative gearing

there'll be political suicide to go down that route again yeah 100 i think a smart politician if there are any out there is going to realize that given the 1.2 million target by i think it's 2029 of additional housing provision they're probably actually going to have to increase incentives to the private sector uh to enable uh that that to occur particularly given you know the ongoing immigration, well, that's likely to tamp down. And again, I'd like your thoughts around the immigration and population impact, particularly over the next couple of years. But I think a smart government is going to recognise

that they need to be treating private investors as their friends, not their foes, if they're going to get anywhere near to overcoming the rental crisis and the housing shortages that we're seeing, particularly given the construction sector continues to be challenged and it's not really likely to come out of the woods for a good couple of years yet, I would have thought. No.

So the original housing target was 1 million dwellings in five years. And as the housing shortage worsened, the announcement was just changed to 1.2 million. No sort of additional detail around that. We're just going to announce more housing. um i yeah i think um well if you look at building approvals for 2023 160 000 it was the lowest in what 11 years 12 years very very low decade lows um and one in four new homes is a knockdown rebuild the hia is just um sort of clarified immediately so a lot of that is only really

replacing existing housing um so yeah yeah where's the extra housing going to come from i think if you look to the previous cycle which is the only time we've ever built anything like um 200 000 plus dwellings a year was in the previous apartment construction boom well that was largely driven by investors from china you think back um yeah this time around with more or less taxed foreign buyers out of the market um you touched on there the other problem and we've got developer insolvencies at decade highs there's another major construction giant went down this week in sydney um so a lot of of people would be rightly pretty twitchy about buying an off-the-plan apartment, which is not going to help the supply. So I don't know what the answer is. I mean, really, the only cure for this

is higher prices. Developers aren't going to be building at today's prices. So I think you'll probably see unit prices rise quite significantly before you get a supply response. I mean, if you look at Brisbane, we had a dozen years where unit prices didn't really move much. Well, now they're booming and i think that's what will eventually bring the next cycle then there's a risk here that if you try and build 1.2 million dwellings in five years um you might get the quantity but whether or not we get the quality is a whole other question and we've already seen some high profile stories about um construction defects so yeah caveat emptor and um yeah the supply issue is going to persist for at least the next three years i guess i think the other issue that's

allied to this is it's not just about the number it's about the appropriateness of the properties to suit the right demographics and some of the concerns i have and again interested in your thoughts but the build to rent exercise isn't going to be the savior that a lot of state and federal government supporters are thinking it is because i think it's it's more targeted from what i can see at the the upper levels uh it's certainly not going to satisfy the you know the average rental uh scenario so well i think there's some real challenges there around not only the the number of uh an amount of housing that's provided but the appropriateness of that uh what are your thoughts on that one please well yeah i do have some first-hand experience of this because as you

know i spent a lot of time in london where built to rent is far more advanced and there's some parts of london if you uh think back to the fa cup final back in the day as people used to walk down the Wembley way to the stadium well boroughs like Wembley would be a good example it's built to rent everywhere now and um what has it done for the market well um yes you're right rents are actually higher you know the built to rent properties are built by developers who are profit focused um so it's not an affordable housing solution in most cases um often I think it's proven to be very difficult to repurpose existing buildings so stuff is having to be built from scratch it's pretty expensive um it's been done quite substantial volume actually in

london but yeah experience has been very mixed you know some people say it's been okay other people feel like they're just a number in a system and you know you're not dealing with a landlord in in the traditional way you're sort of becoming a part of a cog in a bigger machine so i think we'll see particularly in melbourne i think is likely to be the main sort of market where we'll see built to rent and there has been capital raised there but yeah i think um yeah this stuff has got to stack up and make a profit and you're not going to get capital growth really on a built to rent investment so it all has to come from the rent um so we do have some built to rent in australia but generally the rents are probably about 25 percent higher than what you'd pay on a normal rental so

it's like it's a part of the housing solution but um as you say is it really appropriate for a big parts of the market? Probably not. 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 Rasty 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.

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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. This is Realty Talk, powered by realty.com.au. And we rejoin Bushy and Pete as they detail some of the important fundamentals we should keep an eye on this year. What are some of the important areas and sectors and price points that we need to keep an eye on in the year ahead, Pete? I was just thinking there when you said that, I was thinking back, I think maybe 25 years ago,

I sat in a Kevin Young seminar and he said, you know, what happened to the price of bananas when there weren't enough bananas? You know, he was talking to a Queensland audience. So, you know, speaking language, you can understand. And that's right. We've got a massive shortage of housing. We've got population growth. Last year was running at nearly 650,000, not building anything like enough housing. So that does point to a positive time for property over the next few years. interest rates are going to come down so you need to manage your debt carefully but generally yeah if you join it all together the fundamentals are very very strong and you can see that

shift in sentiment um in terms of markets that are popular um well let's go around the traps we mainly buy in brisbane um we've seen a lot of people first-time buyers looking at units you know units haven't been particularly popular in brisbane in recent times because of an overbuild around 2015-16 but unit prices are moving is that is that a purchase is that a purchase price power issue they just can't afford to buy anything else given the limits of borrowing capacity or there are other things absolutely yeah i think you're right interest rates going from the cash rate target going from zero to 4.35 percent has pushed people down the price points and um yeah i think um particularly a lot of first-time buyers are finding it hard to be a renter so people are

looking for an entry-level property they still want to be close to the city and close to the action yeah um i think um in new south wales um we're doing quite a bit around newcastle and central coast and those kind of areas um i think sydney is its usual expensive and challenging self but nothing really changes there and some of the markets have come off a bit i guess um uh canberra hobart and darwin is kind of cool but i mean you've got to see this in the context that they've come from some very, very strong performance in recent years. So it's not entirely unexpected. And the same probably applies to some of the regional markets as well.

But, yeah, I mean, overall, the fundamentals are pretty strong. And, yeah, if you're an investor, really start with your purchasing power and your borrowing capacity. And that will probably inform the decision as to where you look in the country and, you know, what kind of property you go for. And I think that's actually driving growth in certain areas and regions of property types, actually, to some degree, because people look at it, well, this is what I can do. Where am I going to be able to get that? I love your thoughts.

So, you know, there's been this debate and everyone's got a different opinion on the regional versus the city-centric approach and the changes that are occurring in that regard. What's your read on the flow between regional and city? And what, if anything, is likely to change in that regard over the next 12 months? Yes, if you go back to 2020 and 2021, it's not even up for debate. The flow is all regional. There was a big shift. It made rational sense. Friends who were living in tower blocks and they couldn't even use the lift due to restrictions.

If you're in a tower block and you can't use an elevator, what are you going to do? going to get out and find some somewhere with more space and a lot of people took the opportunity to go regional especially southeast queensland east south wales coast but actually all around the country really um so this the flow is definitely all in that direction um now we've got the borders open again new migrants tend to go to sydney and melbourne yeah uh in that order and then to some degree brisbane and perth um so that flow that inflow has started again i think internally people are still moving um to western australia to southeast queensland and um yeah places like gold coast sunshine coast have been very popular up our way even to womba to some degree um so yeah

i think um we've been for something of a hybrid model now i think um people are generally not going back into the office five days a week um but some people are in three or four days so you can make the case for either I think if you look at what the demographers would say you'd probably favour those peri-urban regional markets i.e. the ones that are within a two hour striking distance really of the capital cities they would probably be a good bet

so if you look around the country, places like Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong, those kind of markets where they're regional but close to the capital Sydney's got Wollongong and some of the markets to the north that I already mentioned. So, yeah, I think the affordability will really drive that because markets like Sydney in particular, it's extremely expensive to get in as an investor

and it's hard to make it all work, I suppose. Here's how Realty's discovery search works. Now, think of AI as an assistant on your real estate journey. How AI works is by using algorithms and data The words that you use to describe the type of property you want. By entering what you want, the AI learns and makes predictions or decisions, and then shows you the results. So rather than searching by suburb, and then property type, and land size, and so on,

simply type in or say what you want. The more you use Realty's AI discovery search, the more accurate it becomes. And in closing, Bushy now asks Pete to focus on a few specific areas he thinks will have potential for growth this year. Hear what Pete has to say about Adelaide and in Queensland, Townsville and Rockhampton. A couple of areas I wouldn't mind just diving into. I mean, Adelaide, given I spent a lot of time in Adelaide,

it's had a bit of a bull run in the last couple of years. I can't help but sense it must be getting pretty close to the end of that run. It's probably likely to flatten out. So interested in your thoughts on that one. But also in, you know, further north in Queensland, there's been a lot of talk around Townsville and Rockhampton in recent times.

Wouldn't mind your reads of those three areas, if you don't mind. Yeah, so Adelaide, as I often say, is my dad's favourite city in the world. But he only ever sees it during the Ashes, of course. So it does get a slightly skewed view once every four years. So I don't spend as much time down there because of that. I usually go down every few years or so.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, the market has been extremely tight. While some of the other markets have gone in for building high rise, Adelaide has largely stayed a low rise city. But it's made it difficult to deliver the supply that people have wanted and needed. and even as we speak here today the rental vacancy rate in adelaide is about 0.4 percent it's extremely time and it's off the lows but yeah um i think you're right though i mean generally um you know when you see markets have a really strong three years yeah i mean it makes sense that they would eventually reach an affordability uh barrier or a plateau but i mean yeah i mean it's difficult to argue with the the uh the shortage of housing because that's that's ongoing

And Adelaide doesn't really go in for the medium or higher density stock in the same way. So, yeah, you're probably better placed than me to judge on that one. I think if you look at markets like Townsville, that's been quite popular with retirees, especially from Sydney. I think a lot of people, they see it as part of their pension, selling their place in Sydney and moving up to a much cheaper market in some way that's warmer. So, yeah, I think there's a bit of a tailwind for some of those regional Queensland markets as well. I was up in Cairns actually just before Christmas and a very boy ends up there as well, becoming much more popular.

I mean, when I first used to go to Cairns as a young backpacker, it was largely driven by tourism and retirees, but it's really starting to get a bit of an economy in its own right now. So, yeah, there's some decent prospects there. As usual, you need to be a bit careful about where and what you buy in those markets. It's got to think in Queensland about things like climates and flood risk and all of those sorts of things

and also the types of property that people really want because there's certainly a real mixed bag in some of those regional markets. Yeah, totally agree. The one thing that's sort of picked my ears up in recent times is a number of insurers now who are backing away from any extreme weather locations, and that includes some of the areas in far north Queensland.

uh and other areas around the country so i think uh obviously they're looking ahead at potentially what the climate change impact is being and the risk uh the insurance risk that's associated with that that's so certainly i think if you're an investor or a homeowner for that matter yeah you need to have a good chat to your potential insurer before you sink dollars into a location to make sure that you're not going to be left high and dry or drowned and wet and if the the worst thing should happen so but i found it quite interesting that the insurers are starting to take that that action have you heard much about that yeah that's a really good point actually because when you look at those if you look at the inflation figures um where is inflation still

sticking around yeah tobacco excise you know that kind of thing but yeah rents new dwellings but actually insurance has been one of the most punchy parts of the inflation story yeah plenty of examples of people saying premiums got 30 percent um so yes services inflation and insurance is really where it's at at the moment i think if you look further ahead i mean the reserve bank has done papers on this and you know what percentage of properties could be a risk of climate related impacts from fire and flood uh you know this is the sort of thing that you know people it sort of lights up the switchboards and people say why are you pushing this you know uh climate angle and stuff like that it's not about what i think or what you think it's more actually about

what insurers think because um if and you know this as well as anyone but she like you've got to be well covered on your property portfolio if your insurance premium goes up it's not just a problem for you it's a problem for the next person you go to sell on to yeah and um if properties become uninsurable if the insurance premiums are very high which we found in brisbane at various times some of those flood risk areas well then you've got a problem because it impacts on your capital growth impacts on your resale value so even if there isn't a flood just the fact that the insurers won't touch it or the insurers are putting a high premium on the property so it's not just about you know what do you think about the climate it's about what other people think

and the perception and so definitely take into account things like flood risk because So, yeah, it could become an issue for insurance, for sure. Totally agree. Well, I always feel like we could talk for hours, Pete, on our favourite subject, but to sort of bring it to a, put a bow around the exercise, any final summary thoughts on the year ahead? Yeah, I think overall it's pretty positive.

I think obviously interest rates are a bit higher than they were, higher than we got used to. So don't borrow more than you can afford to comfortably repay. But if I was an investor this year, I'd definitely be looking to make an astute investment, try to focus on properties with a decent land to asset ratio, look at what's in demand for the area you're buying in, try and take a longer term focus if you can. And most of the sort of enterprising investors, they try to buy something with good capital growth potential. but if it's got some future value-add potential as well, and you would definitely be thinking along those lines as an architect, you know,

if you've got something that you can maybe add value to in the future, all the better because it gives you a different direction you could take your investment in. What I love about property is that the base fundamentals actually never change. It's just the icing on the cake that scares people and the media likes to talk about.

So as always, you know, I really want to thank you for taking the time to share these quite timeless insights with us, Pete, and joining us on the show. And for those that are listening, as you've just heard, when it comes to long-term investing, Pete's rundown is really further evidence of a need to ignore the short-term media noise and on uncertain things that may not even happen

and instead focus your property and investment energy on the fundamentals that don't change because this is what separates sustainably successful investors from the rest and to keep the conversation going on what's in store for 24 and property join us and follow and join us and fellow investors eddie the frenchman on the property hub collective facebook community by clicking the link in the show notes or just jumping on facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash the property hub collective where you can post any or all of your questions and get them answered by credible fellow investors and

proven industry professionals in a safe environment where you're never going to be sold to thanks for all that and let's keep the conversation going pleasure thanks bushy it's always great to talk property with you and look forward to a good year ahead and that brings us to the end of this week's show big thanks to pete wargent and bushy martin for a great show hey make sure you don't miss a single episode of realty talk or bushy's get invested podcast delivered to you each week and you can do that by subscribing to The Property Hub now on your favourite podcast player or wherever you are 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 and Apera Marketing. I'm Kevin Turner. On behalf of Bushy and The Property Hub team,

We look forward to seeing you again next week.