Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Realty Talk: Will Sydney ever be the same?

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

Veronica Morgan is a highly respected real estate expert with extensive experience in the Sydney and New South Wales property markets. With a career spanning over 25 years, Veronica has established herself as a leading authority on property investment, renovation, and buying and selling strategies.  This week with Veronica, we discuss the current state of the Sydney and NSW property markets.   Veronica will share her insights on the impact of COVID-19 on the property market, the ongoing changes in demand and supply, and the latest trends and predictions for the future.   RealtyTalk is part of the Property Hub podcast channel, your home for property investment insights, inspiration, and stories from Australia’s top property experts, investors, leaders, and analysts. Subscribe now to get every RealtyTalk episode delivered to you each week for free, and also get full access to Get Invested, the leading podcast for Australians who want to unlock their full ‘self, health, and wealth’ potential and get inspired by the stories of investors, founders, and entrepreneurs. 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.

Welcome to Realty Talk, the show that brings together the country's most authoritative and respected property experts. Follow us on all the socials and subscribe for updates and exclusive offers. Realty Talk is powered by realty.com.au, connecting buyers, sellers and agents differently. Hello once again and welcome. Veronica Morgan is a highly respected real estate expert with expertise and experience in the Sydney and New South Wales property markets. With a career spanning over 25 years, Veronica has established herself as a leading authority on property investment, renovation, and buying and selling strategies. She's also the co-host of the very popular Australian real estate podcast, The Elephant

in the Room, and the author of several books on property investing. Today with Veronica, I'm going to be discussing the current state of the Sydney and New South Wales property markets. And as one of Australia's most sought after property commentators, Veronica will share with us her insights on the impact of COVID-19 on the property market, the ongoing changes in demand and supply, and the latest trends and predictions for the future. So whether you are a first time buyer, an investor or a seasoned property professional, the next 30 minutes or so will be invaluable for anyone interested in the Sydney and New South Wales property markets. So strap yourself in. Stay with us. Veronica will join me in just a moment.

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. Hey, Veronica, welcome to the show.

Good to be talking to you again. Oh, it's so good to see you. It's been too long. Yeah, I got to say, you're looking good. I love those glasses. Are they new? I know, they are. I'm trying to up my image.

Yeah, you remind me of someone. I'll try and get it before we finish today. But anyway, thank you. Listen, everything's going to your website now, veronicamorgan.com.au. Yes, I'm involved in so many things, right? My big mission, my big sort of hairy, audacious goal, I guess, is to help as many people make good property decisions as possible. And because I do it in so many different ways, I realized I had to revamp my personal website, which is

veronicamorgan.com.au. So that's like a triage site. Anybody needing to make those good decisions can find out how I can help them. It will divert them in the right direction. So all your podcasts and everything go from that site? yeah yeah you can get to everything from there good okay veronica morgan.com.au and now tell me how are you going to describe the the current sydney market because i think of all the markets in australia sydney would have to be the the what the most varied i would guess i don't know if it's the most varied i think it's it's definitely very there's no doubt about that and i think that there's so much commentary around about not just sydney but the whole

australian property market which is you and i know is not actually one thing there are i sort of worked it out there's a there's probably a couple thousand property markets within the country that might be a very um a very mild estimate shall we say um it could be even more than that could be tens of thousands so sydney of course it depends how micro you want to go of course that's the thing each suburb has there's how many suburbs are there in the country um i've forgotten now is it 14 000 17 000 something like that i can't even remember it's a lot but each suburb really you could break down into at least three micro markets at least yeah neighborhoods they really become yeah yeah so sydney of course uh you could break sydney down i think we've got

600 suburbs in sydney or something i really shouldn't be quoting numbers when i really can't remember off the top of my head so a lot of suburbs a lot of micro markets so when you've got this sort of sydney property market um headlines talking about price falls and all the rest of it it's like yeah fine but not every single property in sydney has fallen you know 13 in the last 12 months not every single property went up 27 in 2021 either um you know there's there's such a lot of variety and so i guess that's when you get into the macro you get into that granular level on on a local um local basis where the stories that certainly we're hearing and what we're experiencing in my buyers agency but certainly the stories that i'm hearing and um from talking to agents

buyers agents and sales agents across the the city are very are varied and i'll give you an example in my neck of the woods uh whenever there's a transition in the market i like to start tracking properties that have sold at the peak or at the bottom and then on sold right so i like i like to the bottom, the trough or the peak. And I say, right, well, how quickly are things moving really vis-a-vis what's being advertised in terms of media headlines? And I'm tracking now 22 properties that were sold either in 2021 or even beginning of 2022 when prices were still rising or holding and then onsold. You can ask why would that many people need to resell in such a short period of time and why would they choose those market conditions to do so? That's sort of beside the

point. At this stage, 75% of those have sold for more than the original price. So they sold at the peak. They then sold in a falling market and yet all of, sorry, three quarters of them have sold at more than what they sold for at the peak. And so what you could do, you know, what you have to take from that is that obviously not everything falls in value when the macro data is suggesting it falls in value. So you've got to carve into that and say, well, why? What does that even mean? And my first thesis was, oh, well, they must all be A-grade properties, but they're not. There's some absolute dogs in there. Absolute dogs, even they. I mean, let's face it. A lot of those owners would have lost money because of the in costs and out costs. They would have lost. But in terms of

sale price because that's what all the data is about it's about sale prices not the cost of selling and buying um yeah and the sale prices have increased even on some of those dogs so my theory that only a grade will rise that sort of thrown out the window i guess what it does say though is that really any buyer who is assuming that they're going to get the bargain in a falling market or that they can really screw down an owner and really be very aggressive in their offer, you know, they might not need to think again because they will be missing out. There's obviously buyers around and a lot of the agents are saying as long as there's

a, particularly in beginning of 2023, if the vendor is willing to meet the market, a sale can be achieved. So it's funny. So the official data and what's happening on the ground, not necessarily in total alignment. So that causes a lot of confusion for people. It does, not only for buyers and sellers but for you and I who are engaged in the industry all the time.

And, you know, we're quite often asked, how's the market going? Wow. I mean, they're saying about there is no one market. That's true. But our knowledge is showing us that it's even deeper than that, you know, like even two houses side by side or, as you just said, one house in the same market, different market forces, actually sells for more.

So it's, yeah, it's pretty vexing. How do you balance the demand between houses and units and what's happening in Sydney with units? Yeah, quite interesting. So if we look back to sort of during COVID and lockdowns and all the rest of it, of course, units drop like a stone. Lots of reasons, of course, we suddenly realize, oh my God, you've got to get in lifts and share air with people when there's an airborne virus around.

And if you're locked into a unit and you can't use common property, that basically caused units to be a bit on the nose. Obviously, very, very high vacancy rates in the unit market as well because a lot of the overseas students and also a lot of people that, you know, particularly in hospitality that might have gone back to live with their parents. So there was all this sort of pressure on the unit market, particularly in inner Sydney over that time. And certainly the owner-occupier and the push for more space is what drove those prices rising so rapidly during 2021. So that doesn't naturally align itself to the unit market being going to, you know, going to take off. And so

that's one of the things that would have contributed to units growth or being very, very sluggish compared to house growth. Now what we've seen, however, then when prices got so high, particularly towards the end of 2021, we started seeing units really pick up. It started with the three bedroom units. So people then faced with that decision, okay, well, I can't afford even a two-bedroom house in the areas of Sydney now, am I going to move further out or am I going to buy an apartment instead? And so that sort of started becoming the choice. And we started to see three-bedroom apartments really start going up in price and a higher level of competition there. That then started trickling down to the larger two-bedroom apartments. So if you see warehouse

conversions where they're particularly spacious, for example, they started actually really some crazy prices uh so there that then trickled down to one betters which is the one betters were languishing of course because anybody working from home doesn't want to live in a one better anyone sharing and working from home or locked in doesn't want to live in a one better there's a whole bunch of reasons uh as a couple you know um so the one betters really were suffering and then we started to see the larger one better so one better that might be the size of a two better you know with the living area we started to see those really getting competitive And agents were telling us that, well, actually that's a lot

of the people that had gone and done the sea or tree change out of Sydney wanting their bolt hole, right? So it's just interesting, yeah, how the whole human behavioural aspect of COVID and lockdowns and this pent-up demand to get out of the city from a lot of people has, you know, latent demand, I should say, that has been triggered through that 2020 period. And I think we're still seeing effects of that, to be honest. We spoke last week to Kate Bakos about the Melbourne market

and she made a very similar point that the unit market seems to have picked up in Melbourne because a lot of people who moved out to the regions, and I'll talk to you about New South Wales Regional in just a moment, but when they moved out to the regions, they're now finding that they're being called back into work and those one-betters are becoming quite popular because they just want that bolt hole in the city while they're living out in the region.

So I don't know if you're finding something similar to that. Yeah, we are, and it makes me laugh because if you remember the first series, the television series that I was involved in with Bryce was Relocation, Relocation Australia. That whole premise of that show was trying to find people who wanted to do the sea or tree change and have a bolt hole in the city. It was a long bow.

It was really difficult back in 2010 to find people that, A, could afford it, but, B, had the inclination to do that, but now it would have been much riper for that show. Is the show going to come back? No, not to my knowledge. And you know Location's coming to Channel 10, don't you? Location, Location, Location Australia. I do, I do, yeah.

Not with Bryce and I, but that's another interesting conversation perhaps. Oh, well, we're so lucky that we've got you on our show. Well, I think it'll have the same name, but it won't be the same show. No, of course it won't be the same show. I'll never know because I won't watch it. Not with you. Thank you. Hey, tell me about interest rates and the banks.

What are you picking up in their attitude to the current market right now? And how are buyers feeling about interest rates? Well, of course, I'm not in the mortgage business, but the feedback I'm getting from a lot of mortgage brokers is that go to your bank and ask for discounts because the banks are, on a case-by-case basis, seeming to really want to retain their clients and actually getting quite good, you know, people are getting quite good rates compared to the official rate.

Now, amongst buyers, it's sort of interesting because obviously there are certain segments of the market that are more impacted by interest rate rises than others. And first-time buyers in particular are really impacted, not just the fact that their borrowing costs are going to be going up, but their borrowing capacity is diminishing with each rise. And so any first-time buyers have been sitting on their hands waiting for prices to fall, well, they've sort of been caught out because prices might have fallen. but they haven't fallen at the same rate their borrowing capacity has fallen.

So that's that segment of the market. We find that quite often a lot of our clients, for instance, at Good Deeds, they're white-collar workers, they're professionals, a lot of business owners. They're not necessarily always borrowing to their maximum capacity in the first place. And they tend to have a good amount of equity in the properties that they're selling to upgrade a lot of our clients anyway, certainly the owner occupiers. So yes, it's going to cost them more in terms of their repayments, but they're certainly not as impacted in the way that you might imagine. And what I'm also seeing is that there's certain regions or areas that are

much more susceptible or vulnerable to interest rate rises than others. And if you're looking at in very established areas, then of course, generally speaking, the longer or more established an area is the lower amount of borrowing that is in that area. A lot more properties are owned outright and a lot have very small percentage of borrowing against them. So of course, they're going to be more robust and people are not going to be forced to sell in those sorts of areas, where in a lot of the more house and land packages recently released or completed house and land packages recently completed buildings that sold a lot to investors who will be feeling it and also to owner-occupied first-time buyers in particular you know those are naturally vulnerable markets

to interest rate rises so I guess that is still fairly dispersed certainly in my experience in Sydney I mean that I'm not to minimize the impact in some areas and some individuals will be really suffering but it's quite contained i guess is what uh is what i would say there yeah while we're talking about banks too banks are very sensitive to certain areas and just because you get knocked back on finance it might not necessarily be because of your own situation it could be the property or the area that you're trying to buy in 100 so they've got these sort of blacklisted postcodes blacklisted buildings even where they might have too much exposure in that particular building i've come across that before um and also you know i was talking to a broker only

yesterday or the other day and he was telling me that so brokers have a duty of care um or they have certain obligations um you know under the duty of care that the banks don't actually have and i did not know this so he was telling me that sometimes if he just can't get a deal to stack up at a certain borrowing capacity uh for a client sometimes in a small percentage of cases he'll recommend that they go directly to the bank and the bank is not under the same constraints as the brokeries. So that's something that may, I mean, it's one story, it's anecdotal, but that was just something that I'd never heard of before. I'll tell you what, you wouldn't get too many brokers mentioning that, I wouldn't have thought. I won't name who told me then. No, no. I want to move to

the regional markets after the break, but before we do, just give me a bit of a view on what you see the sydney market like in the next five ten years oh well here's the thing with sydney for starters i'm never going to re-predict i don't want to be a subject of my own report the full forecaster report so i'll come back in five years time yeah you said this yeah one thing i will say sydney is as we all know the most expensive market in australia right and it's not just because it's got a harbor it's because there are economic drivers and there's the demands for quality property in this area and there's there's an aspirational element to to a big chunk of sydney not all of it um also migrants tend to come here first you know they might disperse from here or

they might go to melbourne as well so sydney and melbourne have a lot of similarities and and probably the gap between sydney and melbourne might close a bit over time because there still is a gap and and the population uh projections for the two cities are somewhat similar so perhaps that gap will will shorten but from what i say from what i see there is always going to be demand for quality property in sydney in well-located areas there might be that as population rises that there might be more of these villages that are attracting people outside of the cbd so the cbd typically has been the big magnet if you like and and you know the areas within a 10k radius have been the strongest pull and obviously the highest land value

and highest demand. It may be that some other villages outside that ring may well establish themselves over time and have the same pull. But to be quite frank, we don't know. And also who knows what's going to happen with the next pandemic or the next big shock that we have. But the other thing, these things take years to materialise. You know, people were starting to predict that Marrickville,

just as an example was going to be the paddington of the inner west uh in sydney uh probably 10 years ago now right now it's never going to be the paddington of anywhere it's going to be marrickville but the fact is that marrickville was the poor that was the poor choice anybody who wanted to buy in the inner in the west who couldn't afford anywhere better used to say oh i can't go to marrickville if i have to marrickville has developed its own life and its own vibrancy now it's a huge suburb there's a lot of diversity there but people now will say I want to live in Marrickville for its own merits but that took I think a good 10 years to develop so any of this sort of stuff that we talk about you know you any investor is trying to bet on one area versus

another they're putting all their eggs in one basket and they're waiting 10 years to know whether they made the right call or not so I guess when I when I talk about Sydney you really to be safe there's lots of very well established areas in sydney that have for you know time in time out proven that people always want to live there there's a desirability i don't think you can go wrong choosing a good asset in those types of locations i don't think that fundamentally the the shape of sydney is going to change to make those areas underperform and anyone who thinks they've already bolted it's like no market bolts and then that's it unless it's a hot spot that really shouldn't be invested. If you like what you're hearing, the lady to talk to is Veronica

Morgan at veronicamorgan.com.au. And you're showing us clearly too, Veronica, why people should use buyers agents because of your depth of knowledge and you cover all suburbs. So you go to a real estate agent that only talked to you about the area that they're in now. It'll be very accurate information, of course, but you need a broader view. Stay with us. Veronica is going to come back with me and we're going to talk about the New South Wales regional market in just a moment. Before we do, I trust you're enjoying the show. If you do, make sure you hit that like button below and also the subscribe, whether you're listening to us in audio or video, we come to you in both formats. And we're on a bit of a mission right now. Veronica, we're out to get a

million subscribers. So what we're doing, yeah, I know, for every new subscriber, we're out to save lives. We're going to donate a day's worth of life-saving water to families in Ethiopia. So please subscribe now and help us help some others. And when you sign on to get the show on realty.com.au on the homepage, you're going to be sent a free copy of Bush's award-winning book, Get Invested, just for making the effort. Stick around. Veronica Morgan back with me in just a moment. Property deductions can save you thousands of dollars each year. To make sure you maximise 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. Welcome back to the show. My special guest is Veronica Morgan, veronicamorgan.com.au. This time I'm going to have a look at the New South Wales regional market. Hey, Veronica, compare the Sydney market for me, Sydney Metro, to the regional market in New South Wales.

Well, I tell you what, there was such ridiculous growth across the entire country in 2021. It was like almost they were all behaving exactly like Sydney market. Crazy. It's interesting though, regional New South Wales, it's a big state and there's a lot of ground to cover there. You've got the sort of two-hour travel distance radius around Sydney, which of course is highly in demand, particularly with this idea

of work from home and I want to maybe have to go into the office one or two days a week. I can manage it with a two-hour each way commute, although to be honest i'm not sure personally how long that'd be sustainable for but so that area that ring if you like so out to the blue mountains central coast down to you know the south coast down to woolloongong maybe slightly outside of woolloongong and that that arc if you like you know that's highly sought after highly competitive those prices rose uh look off the top of my head i can't tell you in 2021 but certainly i think more than sydney house prices

oh wow so uh huge demand and what that then did was push people outside that magic two-hour commute right um now that went gangbusters everywhere pretty much but that is the first to contract that's been the first to contract with the slowing down because of course with this calling back into the office and the reality of well actually the amenities may not be as strong and as good and you know in some of these areas so there's been a little bit of a u-turn with some buyers as well but some of the buyers agents that I'm talking to in these areas particularly Matt Knight for instance is one that sort of springs to mind and he operates down the south coast now he's telling me where is it presium from presium buyers agencies down the south coast sort of Wollongong

and south and he's mentioned to me more than once that he's there seems to be a second wave of buyers entering these markets who missed out first time with the first century change yeah and they're like sort of going oh i just i just want to get on with it now so maybe their work from home arrangements are more concrete maybe they are able they're more confident to be able to make that commitment so not the knee-jerking buyers that said that's it i'm out of here straight away with lockdowns this is more i considered maybe you know the later doctors but perhaps they'll benefit from slightly less inflated pricing. So that's something that we're certainly seeing happening. So there's a little bit of a U-turn from some people who

have realised that actually it's not everything they wanted. And then this sort of second wave of buyers coming out of Sydney that are thinking, no, now's our time. Yeah, well, that was going to be my next question. Are you seeing any of those buyers move out there? and the answer is yes, but they're probably a little bit more mature in that move in that, you know, it's very considered and probably going to be a little bit more long-term. You mentioned there are a two-hour timeframe in a, you know, travelling, commuting.

I guess, therefore, a lot of people would be reliant on public transport, wouldn't they, or are they driving? Well, the train line is a really important one and obviously you can get the train up to the Central Coast, but then beyond that you know it doesn't it doesn't service the entire central coast so there's a bit of both really uh certainly down to Wollongong I mean all the way down to Wollongong is a very well serviced train line beyond Wollongong becomes more problematic so if you go you want to go down a berry or somewhere beautiful like that but it's certainly not as a it's a two

hour drive but the commute via public transport is not so easy and up in the mountains there's a train line as well um although you know that was out of action for some time was it bushfires or floods i can't remember now why was it okay which actually does lead me to something else i've done that a few times it's a lovely trip but that that also does lead me to something else because something that regional australia particularly in the northern rivers and i spoke to michael murray he's up there byron property search and also vanessa simpson she's at coughs harbour um those areas you know there's very patchy in terms of properties property uh behavior of all like or the market behavior is because they're very heavily flood affected in some areas as well

so it's this sort of two-speed markets in many cases because of these these you know whether they're weather events or um or just the market behaving the way it does yeah i know you mentioned a couple of agents you've spoken to and i know you spoke to quite a few in preparation to coming onto the show what were there any significant growth areas that that they were able to tell you about or that you've picked up on without having to go into any stats necessarily just something we should have a look at well i wouldn't necessarily um say anyone's really poised on the edge of growth i mean i spoke to kylie freeson for instance she's up in newcastle and and you know obviously there's this talk of a fast trainer that that's definitely going to um to put some

up with pressure on prices in newcastle if that does come about but newcastle itself you know is quite a big employment hub now there's a lot going on in newcastle obviously fabulous beaches and and like lifestyle wise is great so for anyone who can work from home um and confidently not need to return to the office one or two days a week that i think that there's still interest up there Now, she did say that, and likewise, Matthew Ward, I spoke to Matt Ward, he's out in Orange in the Central West out there as well. And both of them said that there are still properties with multiple offers on them being snapped up really quickly, but prices tend to be holding fairly firm.

So it's not like there's this huge price drop. It's just that there's this perception amongst buyers that they're in the hot seat, that they are in the end but then people who sort of think that they're in the hot seat and don't act and not responsive they're missing out so but it doesn't it's not really translating into a increase in prices definitely there's exact there's demand though yeah I want to ask you a question without notice here and I know you'll be able to answer this because it's something you'd face all the time but multiple offers you know when they come along for someone who's new into the market they're pretty scary you know when you're told all of a sudden that you're in competition and the first

inclination is to think oh that's bs you know the agent's just having me on but there's every chance that it's not what would be your advice to someone who finds themselves in that situation oh well you know this is an interesting one actually because you know some agents who are very bad at negotiating will manufacture another buyer and and of course you've got as a buyer you need to better work out are they manufacturing that buyer in order to get me to increase my offer because they don't know how to negotiate any other way that's right very poor negotiation yeah or is it because it really is another buyer and so this is a very interesting question because what you know we take our clients through this process and and as a buyer's agent the very first

thing we need to do is price the property so even in your first homebuyer guide as you know um there's one of the podcasts that i'm a co-host of and uh yeah one of the many yeah we have a we offer a free mini course. You can get to home buyer academy via vernicamorgan.com.au if you want to get this free mini course, but it's a free mini course on how to price a property. And that is basically a simplified version of what we do in our business. And I will put a caveat on this. Not all buyers agents do this and they should. And if you're going to hire a buyers agent, you may ask them what their pricing process is and how do they advise you. If they don't do that manually, then don't engage them. If they press a button or call logic or God forbid,

put a finger in the air and say, I think it's worth this, do not engage them. There's a very rigorous process as a buyer's agent we go through. As a buyer, if you're not going to engage a professional, you need to do this yourself. You need to work out really what that property is worth. Look at recent sales. Look at what the market's doing. Do you need to index them up or down? Really understand how good the property you're going for is relative to all the others, all of those things. Once you've done that, you can say, right, I'm prepared to push myself to X for that property and I will not pay more than that. And you need to set that limit before you start negotiating. This is where it all goes to pieces for most buyers. They go into negotiation

thinking I'd like to pay X. They never ever think, but if push comes to shove, I will go to Y, but I won't go to Zed. Now, if you have that in your mind and you've done that research, so you're confident what that property is worth, it doesn't really matter if that agent's bluffing you or not. It doesn't matter. You've got your game plan set. You've got your game plan and you also are really confident what that property is worth. So they could be a bad negotiator and doing that to get you up, you'd probably go up anyway if they were a good negotiator. So you just think, all right, give them a bit of grace. I'll believe leave you for whatever it's worth, but I'm still not going to pay more than X because that to me

is just not right, right? If however, they're telling the truth, then you're still going to be in the game that way. You're not going to be second guessing the agent. You're not going to be, you're actually going to be calm and you're going to know what it's worth to you. And you don't want to pay more, let's face it, but you will, if you have to. And what I find is that, you know, a lot of buyers don't, they sort of get caught up in the, I don't want to lose. I don't want to be an idiot. I don't want to be made a fool of all this sort of stuff. Instead of thinking, how much do I want the property? And am I prepared to call their bluff? If I'm prepared to call their bluff, cool, run the risk of missing it, right? And if you call their bluff and you get it at a

bargain price, yay, double thumbs up. But if I'm not prepared to miss it, then don't call their bluff. That's such good advice, whether you're in a competitive situation or not, any kind of negotiation. That's outstanding advice. Veronica, thank you. I want you to stick around because I want a summary as I take a short break now, but then I want to come back and just get a quick summary from you as to some of the things people should be watching out for if they're looking at buying into the Sydney or the New South Wales market. Okay, can you stick around for just one more minute? Sure can. Make some notes. Stick around. Veronica Morgan back with me in just a moment. You can reach Veronica at her website, veronicamorgan.com.au. I'm Kevin Turner, back in

just a moment. 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 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. okay welcome back as we wrap our show today with veronica morgan and you can reach veronica at her website and check out all those fabulous um programs that she's got and all of those wonderful podcasts veronica morgan.com.au veronica just give us your top you know maybe two or three tips for anyone looking to buy in the sydney and new south wales market right now what should they be aware of. This would probably apply to anybody buying any property anywhere in Australia to be quite frank. And one other thing is that at the moment it's a buyer's market, but what does that

mean? Because quite often buyers find in a buyer's market is actually not that easy to buy a property. And one of the reasons it's not that easy to buy property is because listings levels tend to shrink if you're in a good area, not in an area that's really dangerous and volatile that is. So looking at buying in a good area, listings shrink. And what that means is that a disproportionate amount of A-grade properties vanish from being available to be purchased. So you always need to be thinking in a buyer's market that, okay, it's worth waiting for good property, right? Don't feel like you have to drive trying to find a bargain to take advantage of being a buyer's market if the bargain is a B or a C-grade property. So I just think that because often buyers, they don't

understand a total cycle. They don't see the property market in and out like we do as professionals. So they don't realize that what's happening right now isn't necessarily typical of all markets. So it's a matter of just sort of pulling back a bit and recognizing that there's less stock around because sellers don't feel the pressure to sell. And so to be patient and when they find a cracker property that really suits them, don't think that they're totally in the box seat just because it's a buyer's market to understand that good property will still get competitive. Very good.

Wonderful. Thanks for your time, Veronica. It's been great talking to you. Pleasure. Thank you, Kevin. Always good to catch up. VeronicaMorgan.com.au. Hey, just before we go, make sure that you don't miss

any episodes of the show. You can do that by subscribing at The Property Hub on your favourite podcast player. You can do it right now. You'll also receive the Get Invested podcast, which is delivered to you each and every week. Thanks again to Veronica Morgan. Also thanks to realty.com.au, BMT Tax Depreciation,

Apiro Marketing, Dear Media and Southern Cross Austeria for their ongoing support and helping us with distribution. Veronica, thank you, dear. I'll see you again real soon. Thank you. I'm Kevin Turner. Thanks for your time. Miss something in this week's show or want to catch up on past shows?

Do it anytime at realty.com.au where we connect buyers, sellers and agents differently.