Episode 97 | Fight, Flight or Freeze when buying property | Jacqui Pollock, Founder of Human Leadership

How the mindset of buyers heavily impacts their purchasing decisions

Jacqui Pollock, Family Coach and Founder of Human Leadership, a consultancy that focuses on leadership coaching. Jacqui has worked with impressive household names such as SBS Television, Sunrise, Audible and McDonalds. In this episode, Jacqui opens up on skills that improve a property buyer’s decision-making process.

Here’s what we covered:

• How to catch yourself as a home buyer from making reactionary decisions

• How to deal with the stress of buying property

• What qualities and values aid property buyers on their journey

• Why it is important, to evaluate the viability of property by financial and lifestyle expectations

• What lifestyle changes come with buying in an unfamiliar area.

• How to avoid buyers’ remorse

• Involving your children in discussing their needs and wants

We hope you enjoy listening.

GUEST WEBSITES:
https://www.jacquipollock.com.au/
Get a copy of Jacqui’s book “Knowing Me Knowing Them” click HERE
Work with Veronica? info@gooddeeds.com.au
Work with Chris? hello@wealthful.com.au

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: 
Please note that this has been transcribed by half-human-half-robot, so brace yourself for typos and the odd bit of weirdness…
This episode was recorded on 6 November, 2019.

You're listening to the elephant in the room property podcast where the big things that never get talked about actually get talked about. I'm Veronica Morgan real estate agent buyer's agent, cohost of Foxtel's location, location, location Australia and author of a new book auction ready how to buy property even though you're scared shitless and I'm Chris Bates, financial planner, and mortgage broker, and together we're going to uncover who's really making the decisions when you buy a property. Don't forget that you can access the transcript for this episode on the website as well as download our free fool or forecaster report, which experts can you trust to get it right, the elephant in the room.com.au please stick around for this week's elephant rider bootcamp and we have a cracking Dumbo, of the week coming up

before we get started, everything we talk about on this podcast is general in nature and should never be considered to be personal financial advice. If you're looking to get advice, please seek the help of a licensed financial advisor or buyers agent. They will tailor and document their advice to your personal circumstances. Now let's get cracking. This podcast is all about helping us all become better elephant riders, and just a quick recap in case this is the first time you've tuned in. The elephant is a metaphor for our subconscious mind, which many experts believe is responsible for upwards of 80% of our decision making. So the subconscious mind is the elephant and the rider. That little human being sitting on top of the elephant is the metaphor for our rational mind. The one we think is in control. Well, we all know that if your elephant wants to go left, your puny rider on top might want to go right, but you're probably going to end up going left.

The implications of having our unconscious mind dominate our decisions around property are quite scary. So many of our episodes have been dedicated to increasing our awareness of how we are being influenced without our knowing. In this episode, we are going to get into some serious elephant rider training. We're going to learn some skills for improved decision making. Today we're talking with Jacqui Pollock, founder of Human eadership, a consultancy that provides leadership coaching and workshops. In the corporate arena. Her client list includes some big names, audible, McDonald's, sunrise, the department of education and SBS television. And she's not only a leadership coach, she's also a family coach with rich experience of human behavior at work and at home. Her family coaching practice attracts parents wanting to create better relationships with their teenagers. Jackie has run hundreds of workshops helping people use the funnel to move from feeling stressed and banging their heads against a brick wall to having game changing conversations with themselves and others.

With over 2000 coaching hours under her belt, Jackie certainly heard hundreds of stories from people facing big life decisions who feel challenged and stressed about making the best choice. She understands what's needed to stay at your best and be resourceful when you're about to make a life decision. Simply put, humans make better decisions when they're at the top of the funnel. So, Jackie, I can't wait to find out more about how we can do this. Thank you so much for joining us. Nice to be here. Thanks. Ronica hi Jackie. How you doing? Do really well, Chris, thanks for joining us. So I, um, I love, I guess, models and, and questions and you know, things that we can follow to, to kind of go back to when we're feeling unsure of things. I guess. Where did the whole idea of the model that you've created, where did that come from and, and what drove that in the first place?

Hmm. I think I love your thought there around things to go back to and the funnel is so actually profoundly simple. Um, we just need to remember and the funnel a little bit like your elephant metaphor. It's just a really easy thing to visualize when you need to really kind of pull it back into your consciousness.

And so w what kind of drove you to kind of create that cause it's your, you created it, right? So what, what kind of drove you to create that in the first place? Like what problem were you trying to solve?

I think after hours and hours of coaching people, um, and also studying, I study lots about personality and one tool I love, or one map really is called the Enneagram and he talks about nine different personalities. But there's almost different levels of each of those personalities. So that's where we came up with the funnel at the top of the funnel, your, your, your best self really are your most expansive and you're calm and happy and confident. And at the bottom of the funnel is really quite dark down there. You're really restricted and squished and a lot of people I coached was showing up at the bottom of the funnel, not only to their coach sessions actually, but they were realizing that they were rocking up every day to work with their families in their relationships, how they were making decisions really from that very constrained place at the bottom of the funnel where we just, we just react. We've got very little choice down there.

Hmm. And do you find that can be either like incident, you know, some things happened and we quickly go down to the bottom of the funnel where we become stressed and clouded and not sure what to do. Or it can be like, you know, life's just getting, you know, unbalanced sort of thing. It's kind of can be either. All that drives us to the bottom of the funnel. Yeah. It can be either or. And, and the first step actually is trying to catch what just happened. It's sent you down there. We call it a trigger. And the trigger can be an event. It can be another person, which normally is to be honest, or it can be a thought that you're having. Um, so you, you, in order to take,

be aware that you're at the bottom of the funnel, you've got to catch that trigger first.

He's a good trigger. A lot of people get very triggered when they're dealing with sales agents. You know, they feel that they're not getting all the information, they feel that they're being made fools off, you know, all that sort of stuff. So I guess I could sort of imagine that people are quite calm when they don't feel that they're being made fools off and they're not being,

um, or there's no information being withheld from them. But then when they sort of get constricted, it's when they start reacting to that rather than, you know, understanding fully what's going on. Would you say that would be good example is exactly it. And in fact it's been quite interesting in the last few weeks in the lead up to coming to talk to you. I've been kind of fishing for property related triggers. Excellent. Um, I've been talking to ya and it, it, it also makes me realize so many people, the impact of either buying, renting, selling property, the impact that has on your ability to show it revert resourcefully at work and in family is huge. Yeah. So it's been kind of fun actually. So yeah, it's quite interesting. These are some of the triggers that I hear from people about the process and then it will be, you'll have ones from the other way round really.

Cause there'll be events and things that trigger you for different reasons. So you, you're right, it is around information and the thought that, you know, information might not be, might be being withheld, but they say things like it can be as simple as something like viewing time. You like the clash with another property that can send them off the behavior of other viewers at the property. Um, anything specific on that one? Well, normally when other people start sort of getting a little pushy or they try to start getting more time with the agent, even the way other buyers dress, even that came up where they parked their cars outside, you know, showing that he um, this was, this one's mine, I'm already in the drive. That kind of stuff. This one had me laughing a lot and actually they had me laughing. But this is why the funnel is so useful.

Something if you're going in in a couple something that their partner either does or says, but when they're viewing everything from their body language to a common or a facial expression, massive trigger to send the other person down down the funnel. Um, yeah. Real estate agents, their tone, the actual words or their behaviors, the whole process of getting your property ready just for open inspections. Stuff goes with that. Um, and then a whole load of other things that, you know, we can get into a little bit more, but some of the, almost the assumptions and the biases people run around the whole process and the people involved. So it's interesting. So

someone's going to an open home and they really want to see where they want to buy the place or not. So they should be really just focused on the actual property itself and does that suit their needs. Uh, and basing, you know, going there with an open mind and you know, not really worrying about what other people are wearing or doing or saying et cetera. But what you're saying is that people are going into that environment and then getting triggered by something and then going down a whole negative mindset when not even focusing on the property itself and whether it's, um,

a reaction to sort of like whether they feel that they don't deserve something or whether they do deserve something. It's got that sense of entitlement, whether they're rebounding off that it's phenomenal. And so therefore

the same stimulus could be happening, but different people will react to that differently.

And this is the fascinating thing about the different personalities. Same, same trigger. And then each person will respond to it in a different way. So some people will stay, still will still stay at the top of the funnel, others will go down the funnel. Now imagine there are nine different funnels and the behaviors at the bottom are really, really different. So then your behavior at the bottom of the funnel trigger someone else to go down to the bottom of the course. I'm sure that like, you know, the better agents out there though. Um, you know, uh, more aware of how they, they can impact buyers and things like that. But I'm sure some, some agents are completely oblivious that how they are ticking off by as an upsetting buyers because um, you know, and sometimes, you know, we've gone through the buying process recently and um, you know, there's sometimes agents that I would like, I would purposely not want to buy off them because of the way the experience went when I went there or what happened.

Now that shouldn't really be affecting my decision, but subconsciously it was kind of grilling on me. I really don't want to buy off that agent. Um, which is crazy cause I should be just caring, caring about the property. Isn't it? It's phenomenal. What happens to internal dialogue, see when you've been triggered by someone or a type of person already. So already you started to build a bit of a bias and an assumption. Um, but sometimes you have something called a compound trigger. So it just keeps coming back. And what it does is it stops you being present because instead of listening to what's going on, you listen to yourself. Yeah, you can hear, Mmm, Oh, it's just fine.

I've just got so many scenarios playing through my head where I've seen people particularly coming to us and when they always want to know what they've been doing in their property search so far, what's been happening for you? What's led you to actually, you know, potentially reach out and get some help. And so many of these stories that they do, they just balloon out of and it's quite clear that, you know, they've got sort of a set of beliefs or whatever that has been fed by whatever stimulus has been fed to them rather than actually what's been going on. And it's horrible place to be because it's so stressful. And the, the, like you say, the implications of getting it wrong is so enormous and they know that. And so, yeah, it's bizarre. And they get sort of in a

Whirlpool. You do, it's interesting you say Whirlpool at the bottom of the funnel. We, we've designed this other kind of bit of, of the model, um, and we call it the spinning wheel. You know, you know when your computer just totally freezes and it's gone into overwhelmed kind of spinning wheel of death. Well, we've actually used that and we've, we've designed different spinning wheels for the different personality types because if it's your habit, if it's because a value of, you know, say for instance you are a, you're a type one, um, I'm just referring here to the, any ground personalities. You're type one now that they're, they're quite, but they're very orderly, very organized. Hmm. Brilliant. At the top of the funnel, they really value honesty and fairness. Mm. Now they're going into a house buying situation and then fortunately there's honesty and fairness isn't, isn't kind of available, put it that way. So when a value of theirs is missing, that will trigger them. They think somebody is lying and not telling the truth right down to the bottom of the funnel. They then become really rigid. They can only kind of see black and white and they just lose that ability to be more resourceful in how they kind of roll with it. And you're making these lovely decisions about your future and they find all I'm doing is being critical and judgmental and then it

leaks into other parts of their life as well actually cause so of course the thing is of course, so say they buy something, although although type one, if they are getting to that sort of that black and white, often they don't buy because they will be like going, well I'm not paying you that price. Or they get some fixation against the vendor or whatever, or the agent or both. Um, but for someone else who ultimately does buy and they buy reaction in a reactionary way while rather than a, you know, a whole mind way where they really considered their decision afterwards, after the pressure's off, then what happens?

It depends if they feel they've made a decision from the best of themselves or worst of themselves. If they feel they made the decision from the worst place, then normally they kind of start resenting the, resent the decision they made and then actually they end up doubting themselves, self sabotage themselves, and you set up another pattern of saying, Oh well I'm rubbish at this. I can't be trusted to make decisions I was useless with. And your internal dialogue becomes kind of even more catastrophic or is loaded with even more judgments.

Mm. Oh, I really like that idea where you, you know, you become resentful or you look back on your decision and you credibly is negative emotions around it because I think that's the, the ultimate worst outcome, right? You've gone out in the house buying journey, you've gone and looked around and then you bought the wrong property and you rushed it and you didn't do enough due diligence or it just doesn't suit you. You move in, you've got the mortgage, you pay the stamp duty, and then you have to kind of pay the mortgage and you kind of stock, right? You can't just rewind that decision. So I think the, I guess what's ways you can counteract, that's where you're not going to regret a decision. So what are some of the things you should do upfront to I guess, make sure that you're doing the right decision for yourself?

I think the, the way that we find people stay at the top of the funnel or Ron stay at the top of the funnel because we're not saying top is good and bottom is bad. We're all this beautiful repertoire of humanness that go up and down it. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to catch ourselves where we are. I think some of our most profound human moments, a car when we catch ourselves spiraling down, you know that it probably comes more profound than just buying our house. It's around how we relate to people and relationships. If we can catch ourselves before we start spiraling, then we can choose to respond differently. We can repair a relationship or we stay really connected, but by two point Chris back decisions catching it is, is, is the big thing. So, um, I think you say in your intro, Veronica, that about 80% of our, our conscious mind is responsible for about 80%. And here's our problem. We need to get that unconscious assumptions and internal dialogue and patterns of behavior. We need to get down into our conscious mind, um, that we can kind of inquire, we can do a bit more with it. So what is your heart rate going up? It's the,

you know, tunnel vision, like negative thinking. Like is this when you,

you know, you're heading down there. So some, some thing physical can often occur when you get triggered. I mean, you know, so you know, just the, actually you could just think now about things that trigger you in. I mean, some people will just, you know, back at home, they get home and they're, I don't know, teenagers have left the house and a complete tip and there's towels, wet towels on the floor or something or it's very triggering.

Well, I want to meet yesterday I was driving and he was tailgating me and I'm like, do not be that close to behind, like behind the car. And I was like watching and I'm watching and I'm like, you're getting closer and this is dangerous. Like, Oh, I was just kidding. I couldn't turn off the road as well. And I'm driving Fila and this is, you know, morning seven o'clock, light down a pretty busy road. And he grabbed it. I don't want to be going 80 K's down there, which she wants to go. Um, and it was frustrating me so much. I mean, I guess catching that though, I just wasted probably about two or three minutes of frustration. I know. And even it was like next to me and she's like, what's up? So this lady's targeting me and I was getting real frustrated and um, but yeah, so it's completely unproductive, right?

Yeah. So, so you, right, but what you were saying about the physical thing, so you're right, you the first sign it, well actually this is on the second sign, but the first one sign you can get something physically happens. So yeah, your heart rate can, can increase. Some people tell me to get a bit of a dry mouth. Sometimes I get like a churning in the stomach. I get like indigestion or you know, some people like feel this tension and they'd start talking about the trigger and I'll watch the shoulders let go. So watch your body first. Cause that's the first sign that then you pay attention to that. Right. And then the second beat in cause the step one to get back up the funnel I called catch. So step one is catch that trigger. Um, but you have to be quite specific what it was the person did cause you'd then got and made some meaning about.

Yeah. Um, someone that used to write um, emails to me and when they got really angry they'd put, I dont know if they were angry. I was guessing when they were trying to make a point. But at that way in the text of the email, they'd write in capital letters trigger massive trigger. So I'm saying, stop shouting at me. You're rude. You know, I'm just going to ignore you. But the more I worked it out, the trigger wasn't those capital letters. The trigger became their name in my inbox, so I saw the name trigger. Um, you know, we think about property, you go to property and you see a real estate agent, you can immediately just look at someone and you're triggered down to the top of the funnel. It's a Pavlov's dog, isn't it? Exactly. Yeah. Someone said it happens in a 60th of a second. I don't know how they can manage it, but it's really quick.

Yeah. Yeah. So you're feeling this and you go, this is not a great place to make a decision. What you know, and going through the bikes or you might be buying a property now or you might be thinking about selling it. What's the best thing to do to just give yourself time, step away from the situation, right. You become a bit more calm and then rethink about the problem is that that works. If you're interested in exploring it a little deeper or, yeah. Then do is when you've caught your trigger, you work out what on earth am I saying to myself? Because when you get triggered, you are making a statement. Now, you might've done this for a long time. If it's something that triggers you all the time, it takes a while to kind of get this statement out of your head. Quite often actually tell people, write it down where your brain's not clever enough.

It'll just keep colluding with it. So someone interrupts you and you just immediately going, you're rude, you're unprofessional. You know, it's more, isn't it? Nobody respects me because it's about you in a way, isn't it? It's like, yes, that person may or may not be rude, but it's what you tell yourself about you, that that's what makes you feel sick. Yes. You know, you tend to that the voices, the voice in the, in the bottom of the funnel can be quite, um, quite judgmental. Critical. They normally go out to the person, but yourself. So yes, you know, you're telling lies, you're dishonest, whatever. But then it comes back to you. Because the reality is that when we're not stressed and we come across somebody who's being rude or telling lies or whatever, but there's no impact on us. Who gives a shit? You know what I mean?

It was whatever, you're a liar and I don't care, I don't have you interact with you. But if it's attached to something as meaningful as buying my home, you know, that becomes intensely personal, doesn't it? You know, buying anything to do with buying or selling your home. It's, it's such a highly personal, um, thing that we're all going through that you are, you're, you're, you're triggers are kind of on high alert your, and that's one of the truths is just to say I am going to be more sensitive to this. Um, so to your, to your point, it's around pausing and trying to slow down the speed that that spinning wheel is whizzing around so you can then get some of those thoughts out of your subconscious, into your conscious, and then you look at them, especially if you've written them down and he just say, is that true? Actually? Is that really true? Um, and when we, when we analyze that, then we see the different perspectives, things that are true and false and it kind of begins to give us an insight that,

well, when you're under stress and you're feeling under pressure, particularly, you know, in the, like an agent might call you and say there's an offer on a property for instance. And then there's all these different alternatives of what could have happened, whether they're telling the truth, not telling the truth, what the process is going to be, options that you have at your disposal. And quite often people don't go through a very logical path when this sort of happens because it's like, um, they feel under pressure to perform very quickly. They don't often have the luxury of time to slow down catch, let's think. You know what I mean? It's like, um, eh. So yeah, how do, how do people get their best? And also I guess when you first explained the funnel to me off off air, which is why I wanted you to come into the podcast cause I just thought I had this sort of visual of when you're in the funnel and the constricted, and I didn't even understand the nine personality types at that point, but I just thought you've got less ability to even conceive of other alternative ways of approaching this.

And obviously when you've got the benefit of of being more flexible in your thinking styles, then of course you have, but when you're in constricted Headspace. So I'm really curious to know that at that point, you know, you catch yourself, you don't have the luxury of time. How can you then get yourself back to that expansive thinking?

Yeah, it's a couple of thoughts. One actually is our whole, um, our whole thinking about time actually sometimes P Oh, that'll take me hours to unpack. Actually. It might not. If you're really discerning and you've learned to be more discerning about what you're thinking about, you can actually use this thing in real time really quickly, but you almost kind of need a bit of practice beforehand. And this is kind of like, ah, you know, this is one of the things about kind of our muscle around our emotional intelligence. Really. Yeah. Um, and you're so right, or what you were saying about, you know, I kind of know at the top and I know those are the qualities that I can use to be more resourceful than karma and everything. Um, but if I'm got easy access to those, when I need it,

the hell am I going to find them? Literally imagine yourself at the bottom of the funnel. You're looking upward. you can really visualize it pointing out the, again, I want one of those.

So some of the things that I encourage people to do and it sounds a little, um, it sounds simple. It's actually really profound. It's to work out actually, who am I? Yeah. What really are they qualities, values that that I use when I'm really being my back. If I can find even I can find five words that describe those and I do quite a lot. You'd have some people make nice pictures around them or some people just, you know, make a visual or something or the other way. Yeah, I need to find them. It's um, I need to find some shortcuts too. And one of mine is that I'm at the top of the funnel. I'm really, really creative. But the bottom of the funnel, lemon hideous cause I get really like moody and quite like a martyr. And when I'm down there, if I literally just, okay, I just need sometimes I sort of say to and a like a volume control while graphic equalizer, he got all these different qualities. I just need a better creative. I just need three out of 10. That's all I need right now. Now even in saying that to myself, I'm going to start creeping up, right? I'm going to respond differently. I was identifying,

you know, the aspirational behavior in a way, isn't it to say that sexually the way I want to behave, not, not this way or it's way I can behave cause I know I can because I've been there and I know that when I haven't been under stress I've been able to do this. And I guess that's that self talk isn't it around all that. I've actually, you were kind enough to give me a copy of your book and I know I stole it and I'm jumping. The queue would link Chris ever, cause he's not a dad yet. Whereas I am a mom. I'm technically yes. But anyway. Well as in, as in you're not parenting on the outside. Yes it has. That he has, he's a dad. He's not parenting he's got a little extra, I've had 13 years of parenting on the outside, so he's um, he's a little bit behind the eight ball so you can get the book next.

Um, or I'll give it to you next to hand bullet too. But, um, so I went through those styles and it's actually interesting cause you'd do a little bit of a diagnostic in their self-diagnosis and um, and our number seven, by the way, that's my number one dominant. I thought it'd be number one, but it wasn't, it's a seven in the one really closely linked great thing. It can be the best of one of them and they'll make it quite stressed. We go to the worst on the worst of one. She definitely see it once you're separate and you go to the worst of the lung. And the worst of the one is highly critical and perfectionist. So anyone who knows me all year.

But um, but yeah, that's quite interesting. Even just the fact that that you, you go into different zones. So we're not sort of, it's not just like a personality type where you go, well that's eat, I'm everything in there. It's under stress. You would do this and in your best. So it's ease. Quite fascinating to look at that. And even in itself is quite expansive in its thinking. You know, once you start getting your head around that sort of thing, do you find that you need someone to get you out of it though? Like, because

if your corner, if you can't find the trigger, you're just not even aware you've been triggered,

you're just down in this negative and then your partners also been triggered because you're both frustrated, you've been looking and you're both down there fighting each other and you're kind of both just, you know, in this really negative space, no one's dragging the other one back up. I kind of feel like that's where a third party really adds the most value. And I think, you know, hats off to buyer's agents in this space because you know, a lot of buyers through the journey would be triggered, you know, ah, missed out at auction. I can't find the right property we need to buy tomorrow. And it's just that buyer's agent that kind of gives them that kind of guidance and coaching and drag him back up and lift their confidence back up and thinking. And I think, do you find that's where the real value with third party, like in coaching and relationships and things like that?

I think you're, I mean to start with, I would imagine a lot of buyer's agents and real estate agents, I suppose you do a lot of coaching and counseling through that process. Property therapy, therapy, nice word. Um, cause you are, you're, you're holding people and it's responsibility. You know, we, we've chosen to work with children, with children and with people when they're going through big transitions. So I do feel for any of us, it's a responsibility for us to be respectful and empathetic to what they're going through. But she, a bit earlier on, Chris, quite often I am, I go into all my coaching sessions and workshops and I carry around. You've got funnels. I carry around a little plastic, read fast now you too can laugh cause you see what I'm doing. But it's easy also to visualize and imagine. So many conversations occur when both people imagine this a funnel and there's pointy bits at the bottom.

So many conversations occur when both people at the bottom of the funnel and it's, yeah, everything you say triggers the other person. So it takes the bigger human to be the one and all you're looking for is to do something different, which breaks the pattern. Yeah. Um, so yeah, you often find in relationships, it's funny, there's always a habit. It's normally one, one is the person that manages to bring the other arm. Probably that person has just got a little more heightened intelligence. Then initiate the breakup down the future cause the other one's not taking responsibility for themselves.

So the elephant in the room is 100% for you. The reason that Chris and I do these podcasts is because we passionately believe that property buyers can do it better. We really want to help all of you understand all the risks, but also the ways in which you can avoid your elephant making the decisions. But what we would love for you to do is just to share this episode and share other episodes with people around you that are going through the property process. Give us a review on iTunes. Five-star, please would be very appreciated because this is about making sure that we all benefit from the wonderful information that our guests have been sharing with us.

Sometimes you get clients who ones really wants to buy and then the other ones being the one who's holding them back, like those keep waiting, you know? And they kind of balance each other out pretty good to be honest, because, which means I never buy. They sometimes will because it just takes time for this other person to get to that point where they're both ready to go. And so I think that's actually a really good match. But I've also seen the opposite where you got two people who are very conservative and they're both kind of talking each other out. So when someone gets excited about a property, the other one talks about, or the other way you get to people who are trigger happy, who just want to buy. Um, and so they're the kind of people that you need the help the most.

They're the ones that are least likely to get the help. The ones that are trigger happy, they're all gung ho. That's what I think anyway in my experience it is that that couple thing is really interesting because you do see that a lot, don't you? And then they focus very much on the differences. And I see it a lot of fear. I see that quite often, particularly with a couple, you know, young families is a really good example cause quite often one, and look, you know, it's stereotypical and I don't necessarily agree with this society, however, it's still mostly the women. If they're going to take a backward step in their career and take, spend more time at home for instance, for a period of time. Not always, but mostly so it might be in a stereotypical couple that husbands working ridiculous hours because you know that he's um, sh shouldering the financial weight and the wife's at home with the kids and you know, she's a career person too.

And it's not really that fulfilled by doing that. But that's the decision they've decided to do for their, their family and all the rest of it. So being connected and, and, and mobile and all that sorta stuff really important to her. And not so to him cause he gets to go to the office every day and you know, so the drivers and the fear around that, he's worried she just wants to spend more money to be an expensive area so that, you know he's going to be working til he's 80 she's worried that, Oh my God, we're going to work, move out to the burbs. Where are we going to be miles away from anybody and I'm going to be so miserable I just don't want that life. So you've got this, this massive pool and you got both of them at the top of the bottom of their funnels and I can just sort of visualize it, your two funnels there. And so he's got his fear around that and she just wants to spend all my money and know and he just wants to be a tight ass and he doesn't agree with all that sort of stuff that they talk about. I mean, sorry, I can go on a run out of hours about these, cause this, I use it all the time. I'll see it. You will see it all the time.

Well, it show, I think, I mean, I've, I've got clients exactly in that situation. Um, and they're, they're in a house and they, ah, fulfilled in the house. It's just not in location they want to be, but too, it's a good house. It's, you know, in a West suburb, you know, et cetera. But no one wants to upgrade. One doesn't want to upgrade. And you know, it's been lots of meetings around discussing whether that's a viable option or not. Um, he's coming from a point of view that, you know, worried that in 10 years time they might could be redundancy, which could happen to anyone. And he's, you know, worry that. Yeah. Even though he's your top of his game now in 10 years time, all of a sudden something could happen. He could get redundant, his salary could have, and he doesn't want to have a huge mortgage.

She's , well, I want to live for today. You know, we've got two young kids. We're not on the right road. We want to be in a better suburb. Let's do it for today. And he's in, so they're coming at two different points. One is really worrying about the financial side of it. One really wants to get the lifestyle and I, I think it's, you know, that's where, you know, through conversation, like if you may we kind of really understand is it viable or not. Um, and so I guess that's where you get someone to drag you back up the funnel where you thinking more kind of clearly.

I think it, I mean, it's great conversations in a way that they must be having as if you know that much information about them. I don't know if you're having this three-way or whether you just know for free. So those are really great conversations because what's coming out there is the real, the real truth about what's important. Now the higher we get up the funnel, the more willing and safe and actually better we are at expressing our truth. And we can say it in a way that doesn't hurt other people. Um, and actually the other people can understand and, and does expressing our truth and being heard. Help us got the phone. So it's sort of a bit self fulfilling. It's completely when you have two couples with two different motivations, now it's different stage of life. It's different lifestyle and also two different personalities as well.

Neither is right or wrong. No, it's just the fact that just the conversations that go gritty are when one of them doesn't feel listened to and understood. Big, big trigger, huge trigger for most human beings. So they then get out of the bottom of the funnel and everything. The other person is saying they're listening from the bottom of the funnel. It's a really grim place to listen to someone and it's a really grim place to talk to someone from as well because it's, it's not, it's not real off truth. There's not really connected conversations. I can sense it pretty quick. Uh, so I'll always,

um, sometimes not in the first call I'll just have one party so it could be the guy or the girl and they'll have that, you know, have half an hour chat. Cause it's, you know, Julie generally during the day, during the week and you know, it's usually a bit much to get both on that first call. But the second meeting I always have like with both parties and I think in the first, you know, five minutes, I can probably tell like really what the personality is and you can eat unless both are on the same page. Like someone like you for example, you know, the female, I get triggered and you can see it's completely shuts off from the conversation, withdraw, not invested in it. And it's kind of complete waste of time to be there. And I guess what I'm buying mass situation, I go in, I'll just focus all my attention on her to get her included, to make sure she's heard. Because you know, if someone's trying to lead the conversation and one's getting their voice out, unless the other person gets their voice out, it's kind like there's no,

you're not really making a decision together, are you? You're not one of those spinning wheels at the bottom one. One of them that we have is actually around detach. And that's what, that's what some personality types do. They just attach this conversation, I'm not being heard and now it's taking me seriously. I'm not interested. And actually all they're doing is listening to all their damaging self-talk. But the bottom of the funnel, um, sort of what it sounds, one of the things that you do in there is really allow both, um, both viewpoints to be heard. And one of the lovely ways of getting someone up the funnel is just paraphrase back what they've said is the most nice way of being recognized. And if you do it, if you do it from the top of the funnel place, just your nature, your voice, your, your, your intent to try and help someone come up and to let them know you've seen and heard them as sometimes it's as simple as, well, okay. So I think what I'm hearing is, or what I'm sensing is important to you is it's as simple as that. And then the have, yeah, you're right. Or they'll say, no, no, no, that's not what I mean.

I mean this and that's equally good cause then unification really clarified, had a situation like that recently with some clients. And it's sort of along those same sort of lines. It wasn't so much the drama of the husband, you know, worried about the finance and the wife. Yeah. Not but, but to some degree that they both agreed given finances given what they wanted or the rest of they'd agreed on the area. But because I'm moving from the inner West to the Northern beaches, um, they were concerned, she was in particular concerned with that, that lack of connection. And so she was looking for exactly the same sort of things that you would value, say if you lived in Balmain or like out or somewhere like that. Um, but of course buyers in the Northern beaches, well, people who live there don't behave the same way.

They don't go out there and walk around the corner of the shops and get a coffee in the morning and stuff. There's none of that, you know, people get in the car to do things and they also do travel to do other things. I'll go to the beach and they'll go, you know, um, you know, the narrowband likes or whatever. There's, there's, there's different types of behaviors, different, um, different. Yeah, just different behaviors. And so the community's meets elsewhere, not at the local village, you know. And so just having conversations with them about that, um, he was less worried about that, cause of course he was, he's still working full time, whereas she's yet to go back full time and she was very worried. I could just see it in her face. It was just almost like pure panic. I don't want to be disconnected.

I don't want to it. So then we, we sort of named it and started talking about that and silica. I can say that in your face or I know that if I was in your shoes I would feel exactly like this. Is that how you feeling? I was like, yes. And, and like, well let's talk about that because after you get up there and you've settled into the new groove and how it all works up there, then the actual house is going to be more important. Yeah. So we need to be thinking, if I'm going to be spending more time in my own home, we need to make sure that the own home is such that you are going to be going, thank God I bought this one. So with that in mind, they went back up there and looked at re looked at some other houses that we'd, we'd shown them, which were much nicer than the houses that we're trying to buy and they actually, you could just see relaxed and actually ended up getting, Oh well I'm actually really proud of Lucy negotiated this dealer off market and one of the ones that was substandard that that we honestly didn't want them to buy for it for a number of reasons, but they were, you know, she was very keen on because of these connection, it actually subsequently sold at auction for more money.

It was worth less, should have been worth less every day of the week because we could have this conversation and just get this out in the open and, and really explore what it was, the fear that was actually, you know, she was right at the bottom of the funnel. But did she know that that was her fear or did she, you know, cause when you're talking about self-sabotaging and things like that, she probably was displaying it in other ways and you know, like was coming up with other reasons why she doesn't want to live for example there or worries, but hadn't identified that it was really that connection that she was pretty clear. But I guess it was drawing the link between short what she was letting go when she was leaving an area that she's really familiar with to going into a new area and to just sort of getting it out there that that area has different things to offer than this area. And if you go there thinking, looking for the same things you get in this area, you're going to be disappointed because they're not going to be the same. And so it was really just sort of getting that out on the table. And so, because I don't want you going there thinking you're going to replicate what you have here because you can't and

you know, yeah, I love what you did in. Um, so it, it in, as, as we start coming up the funnel, we find the truth. We found the truth of what's really what's really triggered us all. We find an alternative truth, um, until we, until we name what it is when we're stuck at the bottom. So you can imagine this lady might have been, I'm guessing, but might have told herself, Oh God, if I move over to the Northern beaches, you know, I'll be really disconnected from my friends. Now imagine where that thought would go. I'll never make any friends again. Yeah, yeah. I'll be really lonely. Um, this'll be all my husband's fault. My children won't have nice play dates because I won't know all the people. I'll never get back to work because haven't got any contacts there. So I never imagine how quickly that could spiral.

My life is horrible and my life is horrible. Of this. Now this whole is sounding, you know, very, very pessimistic and we do, do, do hold onto an element of that. Now then what happens is if that's how our mind is thinking when she's trapped at the bottom of the funnel, it's the rotten thing about being a human. Your brain then starts wanting to collude. It kind of runs a confirmation bias. You see, look at that, look at that. It goes, it goes looking for evidence that tells you, Oh no, this, this is a thing. Um, another thing, and it's, and it does that to sort of try and confirm, you know, that you're right. Now the reason it's doing that at the bottom, now I'm not a psychologist, but you had, we had the term an amygdala hijack. Yes, yes. So your amygdala part of your brain is the fight or flight.

So that's where she is. She's in, you know, she's hydrated or for, I fight flight, freeze. So she's in a heightened sense of anxiety around that. The amygdala's taking over all the blood energy, oxygen, glucose is going to that part of the brain. You can't get out of it. You can't get out of it from that part of the brain either. Um, so by what you did in the step two of coming up the funnel is articulate some of those things you're saying to yourself or you might be feeling, is it true? Is it really true that you know, people in the Northern beaches, you know, don't connect or you might find new friends or they'll never go for a coffee together or, and then when she realizes, no, actually that's not true, but wow, what is true is connection's really important for me. Whoa. Now you're an exciting place to look for house. Yeah. And then you've, you found new truths for her around connection with that knew her as a beautiful piece of coaching. You did

so excited. I have to say, I mean, it was just so wonderful that we left it with them to actually say, well, now that we've had this discussion, you know, just rethink and revisit. There's no pressure to buy any of these houses. You know, it's around. If it takes time and you need to go. And actually we talked about going and renting there too for a while to test exactly that, to test those assumptions. And because just to take the pressure off, you know, you don't have to make the decision now. You don't have to buy now. I know. It feels like the market's a bit crazy up there at the moment as well. Um, so that doesn't help. But you know, at the end of the day, the, the wrong decision will actually cost you in numerable ways, but you're taking a bit of time out, won't, yeah,

I think that's right. I mean, that's the thing I get clients, um, yeah, they're calm. They want to make, you know, really want to make something, buy something, especially when the media is there, pumping it up and there's, you know, they're worried the market's going to run on them and they always want to, but it's the worst time to make a decision when you haven't been thinking about it, then all of a sudden you'd want to make these huge life changing decision and do it tomorrow. Um, you know, like it's, it's, you know, I've client just recently, um, you know, luckily, fortunately they missed out at auction. Um, but it was the first property they'd looked at and it was the first weekend we had them appropriate and they'll going home on this property. And um, but like, you know, I just don't think they've, it might've been the right property, but I just don't think they've done enough leg work and enough research because it's a different area. They haven't really lived there before. And then all of a sudden they found this property. I thought we just got preapproved yesterday or we going on auction Saturday. I'm like, it looks fine, but is it really what you want? Um, and you know, they did miss out so they're still looking. But I feel like it was a good thing to miss out on it just cause it gives them time to look at other options. Really.

Yeah. Cause I think the faster you rush things, it's again, it's that, you know, it's like this little voice on our shoulder that is telling her thing, telling us things that I don't know to be true, making massive assumptions about them because I was sort of, you know, I was thinking about this podcast and I was coaching a client the other day, totally not about property, but actually she has recently bought a property and I, and it now makes sense when we unpacked the funnel with her around that purchasing choice about how much it was impacting her life. But one thing she was telling herself is, I'm useless. The auctions, we're never gonna, we're never going to buy a house auction because she had lost two or three that she'd really liked. And that, that, um, that limiting self belief was they were about to panic and go and do something awful. They did in the end worked with a buyer's agent because I think their truth was not, we used to sit our auctions, we're never going to buy our house. The truth was, Oh, this is competitive. We're not actually skilled. We're both busy professionals and actually this is having a really negative impact on our life. We probably need to get new experience or different experience. That was a really lovely choice.

So that came from their, their truth. And then the third step is choice. What will you go and do differently? Which action? Which case makes sense? It not going to make sense in everybody's case. But it is funny that you say, you know, the truth is we're crap at auctions. Well, yeah, that's true because most people lie. Even those that don't think they are, but, but that the follow on from that calmer and that means it will never buy. So that's a really interesting sort of, yeah. So have, instead of just being defeatist about it, packing up their toys, Chuck them out of the court and saying, I'm not playing in this market, which some people do. That's how they've gone until children

through the buying process. Again, I've literally just got a new client and a, you know, they've, they've hashed back to me a story that how they bought their own other place and, uh, it was that auction and they're engaging a buyer's age. It's not in one of your patches. Um, and uh, it's, um, they went to auction and it was, it was quite, yeah, it was 1.4 they'll buy it and then they, it was just, they were the highest bidder and the auctioneer puts so much pressure on them to beat again against themselves. there we're a hundred people in the crowd and they'd bid against themselves and they add an extra 20 grand on any knock the hammer down and they will like walked away and thought we just bid against ourselves and pay an extra 20 grand. Now they like switched on and I know, and so now they're like, we're never going to be at auction again. We want a buyer's agent. They came to me with that. Um, but it was interesting though, like as they were, they could just, and they just, it was completely irrational. They knew they shouldn't have been doing it. The in the moment she, she said to me like, I knew I shouldn't have been doing it and we looked at each other and we, but we just felt compelled to do it. And I was like, wow, that's really interesting to get it from an elephant. Yeah. Just to,

he wasn't there. Right. Or wanting to go right on the often going left. Isn't it?

My parents you do a lot of coaching with parents,

with teenagers mainly or is it younger kid? I mean all of the, all of these things, all these great sort of tools that you can learn to kind of like, I don't know, find, find a higher masterful level of yourself in a way. Um, they work with teenagers. They work with, um, with younger kids. While I love doing the most is working with parents around that kind of, um, transition stage where they've gone from, um, you know, initially when you know, when yours is born, you're, you're very much, um, parent's teacher to begin with. You're teaching them everything. That's your role. Then you kind of switch into this parent as a manager and you kinda like bloody drive them everywhere and you're getting them out of bed and you're teaching. Are you making sure they get to school and you're managing and we get really good at managing and that's where we get stuck because then they start turning some 12, 13, 14 they don't want to be managed and a lot of families then start, it gets bumpy.

So then we, the the, my solution is you'll learn how to become a parent as coach because then actually not managing them. You're coaching, you're asking them questions, you're allowing them to self solve. You're trying to empower them to be really independent and responsible adults in training, I don't sent training, but if you learn this stuff early and you bring your kids out with this kind of language, literally when they're really little, um, it's just, it's just smooth. It's going to be easier for you crease much easier than for me. I'm only learning it now. Audible books on this on a holiday and lots, lots of, what are some of the things it says of coaching though parents with teenagers. What are some of the things that you think that a pro, if you add property into that property for free parenting advice sort of things that they want with teenagers.

Like do they want separate living areas? Have they Oh good. Yeah. Impacting their relationship because yeah, without doubt at will. Right. Because if the property is like a too small, wrong way out or things like that heavy, have they appearance ever talked about how the half location or the style of the property really is impacting them? But they do because then also depending on the personality of their children, depends on how much they hear from them about you know, what they want. Um, yeah. And also you watch, sometimes you watch a whole family rock up at a viewing and you know, there's, you know, stereotypical grumpy teenagers, you know, slouching around, and this is all rubbish probably because there's something in that particular house that yeah, that doesn't suit them.

A teenage retreat or a separate entrance or they wrote bathroom all, yeah we help a lot of families and it's really interesting how some parents give the teenage kids a lot of say and others given. Um, so it's, it is a really interesting just to, to watch that dynamic play out and the, some of the things that they're definitely want, they want the to be able to be more mobile with public transport. Um, so that, you know, mum and dad do have a life and don't have to be fairing all the time. And as the kids get more independent obviously that, that is easier.

Funny you say that, cause I think a lot of people don't realize like the bus stop out the front or just around the corner a couple hundred meters away. Probably not out the front. Don't buy that one but a couple hundred meters away. If you drive to work or you don't need the public transport, you never anything but you think I don't even need that. But it's the kids isn't it? It's the teenagers that opens up, but it's actually a better property because it's got that bus stop. Even though you don't use it

and when your kids are in primary school, you just don't even think about that. It's only really when they hit year seven. Um, and then the other thing that a lot of teenagers or parents of teenagers really all of a sudden it's like they absolutely desperately need that second living area. And even if it's sort of above the garage or at the side of the garage or something because they want their kid, their kids to bring their friends home. Not so much cause they like having teenagers around, but a lot of parents want to have that sort of home where the kids feel safe and feel comfortable and confident. They prefer to have stuff happening under their own roof. Then having those kids go elsewhere. So there's, there's, you know, a little bit of a control freak maybe, but, but there's that sort of giving them the space so that they feel that there's a little bit of autonomy with, it's like freedom within the fence, you know, it's that sort of safe. Uh, and it's quite incredible how much of that comes up when we've got, when we're working with families with teenagers.

Yeah. I mean, I, I think, you know, the, the ants is around asking them, but obviously it's not like a wishlist. Yes. And I've got a fairy wand and I can have all of these, but is before you start the process, um, and before you start looking, it's kind of just find out a little bit about the types of things that you know might actually trigger them or that they might be looking for. Now, you can't promise all of them, but if you have that really nice open kind of connected conversation at the beginning, um, then if you are going to end up finding something that doesn't tick those boxes, at least, you know, and that's all around sort of teaching people about compromise and give and take as well the same way couples. But I think the biggest impact I've noticed, and this is within families when they're, when you're buying a house or you're looking to move, but it's also in the, the huge amount of corporate work that I do and the impact it has on people at work. It's watching how if you're at the bottom of the funnel, around your property purchasing or selling, that just leaks out into everything. Um, and it's really trying to watch that because the sometimes unintentional, but the negative impact that can have on other people, the whole thing then gets blamed around the property. So, you know, mum and dad cranky for six months while we're looking for a house and moving, moving into that house. Something about the environment and the energy.

Wow. So it's not as nice as like it to be interesting.

Every week we hear incredible stories of the dumb things, property buyers do, dumb things that end up costing a whole lot of money and our whole lot of stress mistakes that can be avoided. Please, Jackie, can you give us an example of a property Dumbo? We can all learn what not to do from these stories. So look, I don't know if it's a Dumbo or not, but it's an interesting, it's interesting kind of to debrief. One of my clients was telling me the other day she was doing, so she was really, she was really, really triggered. This is the one actually that in the end did engage a buyer's agent, this agent, but how just her experience and she wishes she could have cleaned this up a little earlier. She could have done this sooner. So first of all, remember, yeah, with a funnel, first thing, catch it, catch the trigger and her, her trigger actually was her real estate agent who was ringing apparently all the time, leaving a long messages and she was getting, you know, really, really triggered her response.

Actually was whenever she would listen to the message should her chief. Wow. So she was really quite triggered by him then she wears, actually it wasn't the message, it was just, you know, singing his number coming in on the phone. So all ready. She is responding in a bad mood. She's really, um, she was saying, I'm critical, I'm really unfocused and I am so cynical about this whole process. So that's just like, and I mean to in a way about a little bit. What did she do? Well, she started, you know, I ask people what happens there and what is your behavior at the bottom of the funnel? And she just got short and abrupt. Um, and just a bit snappy. Yup. Um, whole load of internal, listen to this, this, the internal dialogue going on in her head. He's an idiot. Doesn't he realize I'm busy. He's just making stuff up. He's lying. This is ruining my life and my job will never find a house. Always stuff up at auction. What is the point? So that's, that's, and she wasn't conscious but when we kind of write it down, that was what was fascinating.

We did a bit of an exercise about the funnel and we sort of tried to access, you know, which I've got time for now, but how you access the truth, the real truth, how you hear, you know, the discerning voice in your head and in, in her tray. She has some really lovely insights in how truth she said and making huge assumptions about him. I really do no about him at all. Um, my, because I'm being cynical, it is leaking out everywhere. I'm snappy with my kids. I'm snappy with my husband and I'm not listening, I'm not listening to a word he's saying. So she realized sing, he has got a lot of wisdom and experience and missing all of this because I'm so, you know, fixed up with my internal dialogue. Um, so she realized I am letting his name in my phone cause me to be cynical and unfocused all day, every day.

And then actually it was then sort of probably, you know, damaging her trust with other people as well. Cause that's just how she is. Interesting, isn't it? Um, so the third step is once you've had that, well now what, what choices have you got? So it's now a bit of a brainstorm with yourself, isn't it? Yeah. How kind of, what, what, just what can I do differently? Uh, in her biggest insight, she said, I am letting what should be a joyful experience become painful. Yeah. Wow. So what you're gonna do, so beautiful is really lovely insight. So she gave a couple of tips to herself. I will pause before I pick up the phone. Now it sounds simple, but you can imagine how profound that loss calls before pick up the phone or just say it's taking a moment just to take notice, isn't it?

Yeah. I will just take a breath and remind myself that this actually is quite a joyful occasion and we're fortunate and we can buy a house. Um, I don't think she just said she had a little message, which is probably a bit private for her, but it was about being happy in her head. She had a little mantra to say in her head. Um, and then had two thoughts where it's not forever. I've got to stop getting angry with a thought. love it. So re yeah, really kind of cleaned it up. And I think had she not done that or had she, she wished she had done that earlier and probably saved in a good, phew, phew. It's actually,

there's quite a few clients recently. I think the stuck in that. So they've, alright, it's a really hot market out there right now. And so they've got a house, they've got preload debt and thinking about investing and so then they're out and they don't want to, you know, even though I advise them all clients to go and use buyer's agents, they don't want to do it sometimes because of the fee or they just just don't really see, just don't want to do it themselves. Right. And they go out and then they miss a few and then you know, then they just, they don't go by. Right. The, so what was potentially something great for their financial future, something they should have done. If they'd just had enough knowledge and enough confidence, then they kind of self sabotage, like probably goes through that thing. And then this is all bit to waste of time.

It's really frustrating. I kind of, and they just park it and whether they reinvested or not, we don't know. Like they might revisit it in 10 years time and they go, actually now it's too close to retirement now maybe I shouldn't do it. And so well it really was, it's just catching himself in that situation and going, this is all a bit, why is this so hard? It doesn't need to be so hard. What are my other options? Can I find more? You know, and then get the job done, you know? And so it's very, it's very good.

Did you have a Dumbo as well? Another one? Did you get to the, the other Dumbo was a very simple one. And actually it's, it goes back to what Chris was saying. This was a story that came up and did a party the day that I was at. And I just said to people, Hey, what's the biggest property mistake you've ever made? And someone started talking, this had happened 15 years ago. It was as if she was talking like it had happened yesterday. And I just thought, wow, you're still carrying all of that. And now obviously we've got the insight of something like the funnel. But she panicked. She had been, she put an offer on, she had got all the paperwork back in the day when she took it, ran to the house. And the, the, uh, the real estate agent said, here's the trigger line. Is that your best offer as the way he said it apparently or where she heard it? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. She says that, that's my best offer. Is that really your best offer? And he asked the same question three times that really intimidated her, panicked her. And then apparently allegedly, uh, he also said there was another offer on the table. Um, so she upped her offer, um, went away. And apparently as she was walking up the drive, she had the champagne cork

with the real estate back in the house and felt there never was another offer or I was overly intimidated, played. And she may or may not. Oh, she meant it. She may not, but she's got the house and that's what she wanted. Well, never, she still believes she was intimidated because 15 years later she tells a story. So she has a story. There's an element of regret there. Won't say it now, but also names a real estate agent and probably does that quite readily as well, which is a real shame for that real estate agent, real estate agent. EFE actually they just were they just doing their job end of the day, what they're doing. Yeah. You know, because they've done their job, you know, rightly or wrongly. Um, anyway, it is interesting though, but yeah, to carry that 15 years later and still may not satisfy that you got a good deal. That's, that's all that it didn't matter. You know, other role. That's, that's really quite sad isn't it? And as you say, it's probably not a truth, but it was a perception. It is. And then every time

that particular person is back into property related conversation or buying other property. Again, there's that bias that, you know, all real estate agents are lying and had to rip me off. And that sits there and it's not a truth, but it sits at the bottom of the funnel and then clouds the ability to really see objectively from the top of the funnel.

Well this has been a very interesting conversation, Jackie, who is so in, you know, appreciative of you coming along and sharing this model with us and the thinking behind it. There's a lot more to it. Obviously that one little interview I need to scratches the surface. So you've got some resources that we can, well you've got your actually the book, your book on parenting, parenting, which yes. You know, let's face it. This is all about just decision making and in life. It's the life skills anyway. So we'll put the link so people can buy that if they want to. There's a, I'm sure a lot of parents of teenagers out there. I'm reading it. It's very helpful. Um, so we'll put that in the show notes and, and you know, we're going to take on board all the things that we've learned today. And thank you so much.

You're very, very welcome. It's great. Can we talk to you? Thank you. We want to make you a bit of elephant rider and this week's elephant rider training is, well, I want to answer a question that a lot of people are asking me at the moment. Okay. So the market's hot, prices are rising. Uh, we've had, um, you know, quite rapid growth and, and clearance rates sort of in the highest seventies now for a couple of months. And people are saying, okay, well, is the market too hot? Should I buy now because it's going to continue growing or shall I wait? And what I want to do is, this is a good example, I guess the funnel decision making at the pointy end of the funnel. You're feeling pressure because prices are rising and your fear of missing out on all that stuff. Am I stupid for buying or am I not stupid for buying, et cetera, et cetera is going on in people's minds.

Well, I guess one thing I would say by now if you find the right property, it's crazy to wait and you know, you think prices might fall in the future or whatever, but the right property may not come up in quite the same way. So if you found the right property, my advice is buy but do not buy now, and this is when it is right to weight your weight if you haven't found the right property, if you are buying now because of FOMO, if you're buying cause of fear, that things rising in you being priced out of the market, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, I get the pressure of that. I get that, that that uh, is a very real fear for people. However, it is never the reason to jump in and buy the wrong property. People who lost the most amount of money when the market down-turned were those that had actually bought the wrong asset, those that bought wrong and had to actually sell in a very inconvenient time.

Physically did lose money, but others lost money in terms of capital growth or in terms of like a capital growth or minus growth because they actually bought an asset that wasn't a great asset, you know, on a main road or something like that. Now. So they're the things not to jump at. So that's the two general rules. You know that yes, the market's hot. Yes. You might feel like you want to sit at your hands and wait it out until things cooled down again. But if you found the right property, don't do that. Just give it your best shot. And if you haven't found the right property, it's the right time to wait. And I'd second that with um,

yeah. Get yourself, get your ducks lined up and stops. Even if you don't want to bought to the new year or something like that. Just to start getting it, doing the leg work, doing you're looking at lots of open homes and actually finding out what the right property is because um, you know, you don't want to then go waste three or four months in February, March time just waiting for the market even further. So yeah, I would say that, you know, even be proactive and get preapproved and don't delay even that process because you know, you never know that right. Probably could come up if you're not even ready then just my point even.

Yeah. The old girl guides and Scouts motto, be prepared.

don't forget, we're on all the social channels. We're on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn, broad Twitter, or you can connect with us on the elephant in the room.com today. You, the links are all there for you. Please connect and send us a message we'd love to hear from you. The elephant in the room property podcast is recorded at the Sydney sound brewery. This week's podcast was recorded by John risk editorial by Gordie Fletcher. And so next week, don't be a Dumbo. Now remember, everything we talked about on this podcast is general in nature and should never be considered to be personal financial advice. If you're looking to get advice, please seek the help of a licensed financial advisor or buyers agent who will tailor and document their advice to your personal circumstances with a statement of advice.