Episode 148 | Urban Design: What will future Australia look like? | Bernard Gallagher, Ethos Urban

What will your children and grand-children lifestyle look like? Pedestrian & bike paradise or urban jungles and skyscrapers?
Has Covid sped up and/or changed the direction that modern Australian cities will take? Bernard Gallagher, is the Owner and Regional Director of Ethos Urban. Ethos Urban has played an instrumental role in developing Barangaroo, Central Park and the recent redevelopment of Darling Harbour. Bernard and our host discuss the future of Australian cities, and pitting it against how Covid has impacted the rate at which our cities adapt to the new needs and wants of consumers.

Here’s what we covered:

• How will Covid change the way we design cities in the future?

• What is urban renewal and why is it so important?

• Will the work from home movement change what consumers look for in property now?

• Is the current urban plan of our cities good enough?

• Are developers pushing on with pre-covid plans or are they changing their direction?

• Will road redevelopments and expansion be possible in the near future?

• Will people go back to the office at the end of Covid?

• Will Sydney shape up to be a pedestrian city?

• What will urban designers do to create a more accessible city?

• Is there hope for Sydney to have high speed rail in the future?

RELEVANT EPISODES:
Episode 140 | Nicola Powell
Episode 138 | Simon Kuestenmacher
Episode 132 | Mark McCrindle

HOST LINKS:

Looking for a Sydney Buyers Agent? www.gooddeeds.com.au
Work with Veronica: https://linktr.ee/veronicamorgan

Looking for a Mortgage Broker? www.wealthful.com.au
Work with Chris: hello@wealthful.com.au

Send in your questions to: questions@theelephantintheroom.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 in October 2020.

Veronica Morgan: Living in a pandemic has caused us to reassess the very way we live social distancing, working from home, the logistics of safely moving a lot of people around within our cities and inside our buildings have all combined to challenge everything we've previously taken for. Granted will decentralize working arrangements, change our CBDs forever. What will a new found appreciation for local amenity mean for big retail centers? What does all this mean for urban design?

Veronica Morgan: Welcome to the elephant in the room. This is the podcast where we love to talk about the big things in property that never usually get talked about. I'm Veronica Morgan, real estate agent buyer's agent cohost of Foxtel's location, location, location, Australia, and author of auction ready

Chris Bates: It's mortgage broker. Before we get started, I need to let you know that nothing we say on here can be taken as personal advice. We always recommend you engage the services of a professional.

Veronica Morgan: Don't forget that you can access the transcript for this episode on the website, as well as download our free, full or forecast report, which experts can you trust to get it right? The elephant in the room.com did I use

Veronica Morgan: Urban designers have been reshaping our cities and creating new suburbs for decades and planning is done well ahead of construction today. Are we going to find out whether or not the pandemic has turned urban planning on its head? What sort of structural type changes can we expect? Or could we be knee? Jerking are the changes we're seeing in human behavior now are only temporary. Joining us today is Burnet Gallagher and owner and regional director at ethos, urban and urban development, consultancy servicing major private sector and government clients across Australia. Now they've been in the business for over 25 years. Creating what they say is a better urban experience for clients, communities, and places in new South Wales. They have played an instrumental role in transforming some significant urban projects. I just brand guru central park and the recent redevelopment of darling Harbor. Now I've been wanting to have this discussion with burner for quite a while, is I know he has insights into how I government's view the future of where and how we live, work and commute. Thanks for joining us today. Bernard.

Chris Bates: Thank you. Good to be here, Vernon. Thank you. As someone who loves thinking about designing great cities, probably in their sleep, how do you think covert kind of changed your view on how you do that?

Bernard Gallagh...: Well here, big one right off the right off the bat. I think I think let's start by putting things in a bit better perspective. There's, you know, cities are amazingly resilient. If you look over time, you know, if we go back was, you know, natural disaster cities have this amazing ability to bounce back from, from almost anything. And I think if we, if we you know, sometime in the future, we'll look back and, and hopefully view this as just one of those one of those events that come along that, that, that does change cities, but, but I think it will be seen in that bigger context. So overall I'm very optimistic about the changes and there will be some, some definite you know definite implications for the cities that come out of this. But I think most of them to be honest, I actually think there'll be very positive.

Chris Bates: Yeah. So you think that ultimately we would, the way that we were designing city, it was still the right way. Or do you think that, you know, we can do things a little bit better, I guess, you know, if there is I'm friends with, went from Jaime, et cetera.

Bernard Gallagh...: Uh I think one of the things that have, has come out and, you know, is that there's actually been lots of observations that have come out of that, you know, that traumatic event back in, whenever it was March where, you know, people went into shut down and literally overnight you know, the roads went quiet, the city streets, everything shut down, and it was quite an amazing event. And in a way from, from when you look at how a city works I think there has been a big debate growing around living patterns and housing patterns coming out of out of covered. And I think it was triggered mainly around when, when New York went down, there was a big debate around density and, and as it is covered related to density, you know, is it, is it high rise living fall about the time?

Bernard Gallagh...: You know, there's, there's different there's different supporters of suburban living and high density living though. But everyone came out and said, you know, the other's wrong. And, you know, we've all got to go out to the burbs and leave the cities align. And, you know, there's a lot of since you know, that that was back in you know, I went over that March or April, but over that time we've seen, well, that's actually not the case. It's, there's so many other factors that have influenced the transmission of Chi wood and it's not density the political system, the connectivity of cities to airports, the way people listen to government. And, you know, that's probably got a bigger influence than whether you're living in high density or not. So I think I think you know density will survive this, the other, the other really interesting thing.

Bernard Gallagh...: And I think we've all probably experienced this a little bit is that, you know, our local community, our local you know, when you're in that locked down environment and, or can't just travel too much, our local community comes so much important. So, you know, at a you know, at a metropolitan scale, we talk about a 30 minute city in, in Sydney, and it's about a 30 minute commute, you know, in a, in a when you, your local communities about your 15 minute community, it's about your life or shops your park here, being able to walk to school, doing all those sort of day to day things, those, those elements of of urban design. And, and this is nothing new. We've been, our planners have been saying, this is what we should be doing for a long time, but those, those those, that concept of that local village, that the street all of those that walkable community has, has come through to be a, you know, a really a really strong way of, of, of living and getting through something like this.

Chris Bates: You can say you're in the office today. You know, do you think that people will be going back to that sort of five days in the city, you know, for most people, or do you know? Cause I imagine probably 80, 90% of people were doing that, you know, product. I mean, what sort of drop off do you think, I think you will say, or do you think that, you know, humans are hard to change, even if we have six months out of the city, You still to go back to old habits?

Bernard Gallagh...: Um yeah, it's a good point. And there's been lots of there's lots of studies and, and it's interesting again, over time when, you know, even over the last six months, we saw lots of lots of reports come out and firms saying, right, we never going back to the office. It's, it's a fact, you know, it's, it's, it's all, this is the new future and we're going to have our people at home. And, you know, I've seen a lot of the big tech firms are saying that. And even I was read something the other week, the the GM from Google, I think it was in the States sort of sit out, well, actually, you know what, there's actually a lot of good things that happen around collaboration and offices. And maybe it's not a, maybe it's a, it's a good thing that we actually have have have that spice and people together.

Bernard Gallagh...: So I think you know, I think locally we'll see definitely a change in, and again, this was a change that was already happening. Like the whole concept of flexibly. Isn't, isn't, isn't new. It was what, what COVID has done is just accelerate that trend and, you know, the, the, the technology of zoom and all those things were there. We just never used them. And it wasn't acceptable from a business point of view to, to, you know to offer. I liked that, but now those things are completely acceptable. So I think you know, like our business, for example, we, we were working at home completely for months and you know, there was a, again, there was a bit of a phase of the novelty phase and then it got a bit harder and, and slowly as things opened up you know, we've seen a mixed this, and, and it's quite typical amongst businesses.

Bernard Gallagh...: Some people are really keen to get back into the office. Others are quite comfortable working flexibly and that might mean a couple of days at home, you know, a couple of days in the office. So I think it's going to be a blend that's probably is the new normal. It will depend on the type of group is that you're in you know, businesses that need, you know, people oriented business that need collaboration. I think over time they will struggle with they'll struggle to, to build internal connections within their firms. So I think I think that we'll see a movement back to the city and, you know, I've just been in in the inner city in the last few days and just, you know, I work in homes great. And, and, and not, not missing the commute at all, but you can't bake the vibrancy of, of a city of a city street and cafes. And hopefully all of those things will come back over time as people come back. So, yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty optimistic that we will see you know, we'll see a gradual change you know, whether it ends up being you know, 20, 20 sort of 20% reduction. So like a four for four days in one day off type thing, I think that'll be fairly, fairly normal now. So yeah,

Veronica Morgan: Given, given the sort of extent and, and the, I guess the depth that you have to go to, or the, the extent that you have to go to when you're developing new urban plans, you know, precinct plans, whole new suburbs really, you know, that is done way in advance of anything being built. Right. And so does this change, does this idea of flexibility and sort of the fact is sort of embedded now within us all, does that change the vision for how our suburban cities are going to look or is sort of, cause I know that a lot of this is driven by government, but of course they consult firms like yours to help them to build that vision. Right. So is there any ever going to change or is it sorta going to be business as usual Oregon keep on keeping on

Bernard Gallagh...: No, I think things will change. Ah, there's probably two, two China, two changes we will see out of this. So I think the attractiveness of areas outside of Sydney now will become a lot more prevalent. So the, you know, places like the Southern Highlands, the blue mountains, that up the coast, that the idea of you know, working at working you know, living in that lifestyle and still working that will become so much more attractive. Now, it was always there, but it was sort of a bit of a, you know, wasn't quite, could it really work the idea of being in the office two days a week and three days. So, so there'll be a lot more pressure on that peripheral growth around the city. I think I mean that emigrant will create demand in some of those areas.

Bernard Gallagh...: And I think it's really, it is only it's a two hour radius outside of metropolitan city city like Sydney. I think the other, the other big influence here is, is the whole transport network, because a lot of a lot of our transport in, particularly in a city like Sydney, which is a radio network into a CBD, it was all about getting people in at that peak hour and moving mass people in and out. And the CA and same our Rodney work. So, you know, we've seen with, with, with flexibility and just that whole reduction there, that it actually could be a good thing that we actually have this flattening of the peak. You know, we, we, we, there is issues at the moment around the reluctance to use public transport and, you know, hopefully that comes back over time with, with with you know, with time. But hopefully over time with, with the change in I've lost my thought now 

Veronica Morgan: If people get back onto transport, we can, we just pick our dead, hopefully it is, but I mean, the government, this isn't a good impact for the government, right. Because if then they don't have to actually beef up that infrastructure in order to care, carry more volume of people in those peak hours, then they can actually look at spending money in other areas of infrastructure. Right. Or perhaps even, I don't know, dare we say at high speed, right?

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, yeah. I have a time there will be a you know, I think that changing in that peak hour, which again will be, will be a good thing. It may, I don't think the peak hour will be dead if it may be a longer more continuous. I mean, it will, it will put pressure on other movement networks though, if there's a lot more local local moments. One of the one of the interesting, you know, really exciting outcomes of of, of COVID is when the roads went quiet, all of a sudden, you know, the concept of being able to walk and cycle became a lot more attractive and people, you know, you just had to look around the city and the number of people that were out walking and enjoying, enjoying the, the, the the cycle tracks and the walking networks and their local networks.

Bernard Gallagh...: And we've seen the city respond by things like new cycle waves being, being built into the city. And again, trends that were happening, but kind of it's accelerated some of these things in, in a good way. So hopefully we will see, we will see more people using active transport, so walking on cycling and there has been unfortunately with people moving away from public transport an increase in car use but hopefully that will be a, you know, a temporary a temporary event that when people moved back to, to, to public transport,

Veronica Morgan: It's interesting that you say that because, you know, I got my dusted off my bike and got it serviced, you know, in March. And I walk around and cars are not the most confident on the road. And I do not like riding, you know, and I live in a very open area. So I don't like really riding around all the idiotic drivers cause they are you know, I tend to fall follow those Uber drivers. The ride is The point. There is, there's more cars on the road than they were before. I think it feels like at anyway, and I've put the bike away again, you know, I don't like being on the road and I want to cycle and so good to have these cycleways, but you have to get to the cycleway unless you live on one. So I don't know how this is going to, it's sort of a bit, it's a bit piecemeal at the moment. It feels that

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, very piecemeal and Sydney and, and and it will be for, you know, we're a long way behind some of the international cities on cycling, but, you know, it does take little events like this for people start to change their, you know, it only takes a few people to change their habits and things can grow from there. So I don't think you're the only one that dusted off your bike and match Sydney thing in the same week.

Chris Bates: So it's been a few years and it's been the whole Moore park road. I think it is down past the stadium. That's a, you know, a bit of a test or the local residents got very upset because that's where they park their cars and that doesn't exist. And so you've got that internal battle between what are the local residents wants and what's good for the city. I mean, even just the extending George Strait, I guess you're not taking cost off, you know, that's obviously been a success. They wouldn't be extending, you know, the walkability of just no cars on George street. Unless I think that that's going to, you know, the main thing is probably in lighting or the retail, isn't it. And encouraging people to connect with the city important.

Veronica Morgan: Yeah. Or, or is it to stop people getting run over by trends? Cause they're basically staring at their phones.

Bernard Gallagh...: I think it's a, I mean, let's, let's, let's take a step back to, you know, pre pre George street pre-Trump, I mean, the place was horrible. The buses used to be on broad street, you know, the foot path was narrow. You'd be pushed out into the street. It was a horrible, horrible environment. And I remember back at the time when, when the plans were first envisaged and thinking, well, that's radical. I actually remember thinking that where, whether that would ever happen in, in Sydney. And I'm so glad I did because it actually showed well, how, how you can transform, even though it's a, it's, it's a public transport project. It actually ended up the Georgia. It's a public domain project really. And you go down there today or at any time and it's, you know, it's an amazing, amazing space and it's great that they're there. They are extending it. You know, I think that there was the, the, the opponents were saying, you know, where all the cars go, well, the cars managed to, you know, find a way out and we still getting around the city, it's still working and other again, Cindy's got this amazing sort of resilience to change and adaption that though. I mean, when the tunnel

Veronica Morgan: Was built, the cross city tunnel, there was, you know, a lot of controversy because of course the, the on the top, the freeway literally free way to drive across the city or through the city had been cut down to pretty much one lane. So it was like forcing people to take the tollway. And there was a lot of, a lot of negativity around that. And I don't blame the people that were vocal about that, but does the fact that you take away the opportunity drives through city doesn't really stop people driving through the city. I mean, you know, do they find another way around, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, does that mean, it doesn't mean sort of, it's almost like penalizing somebody, does it actually have the effect of changing their behavior?

Bernard Gallagh...: I think it's a combination of things that they, they the tunnel, I mean, there's different trips as well. So there's trips that are going through the city. They're not stopping in the sea, but they have to go through the city to go somewhere else. And they have the sort of trips that we don't really want him to city. If you have to, there's always going to be play that need to go to the city and you drive, and that's fine, you can accommodate that. But if you can take those other and unfortunately the way our city in Sydney or so is designed, it's constrained on two sides by water and, and, and, and other things you, you sort of actually having to force people in. I even the North South travel goes through the city. So I have a time, if you can take those trips out, you've actually got more space for, for the locals, for the people that need to be there that want to be there more spice for, for walking and riding.

Bernard Gallagh...: So I don't think that'd be a bad thing. I have a Tom, if you look at the ride network that's being built, you know, the tunneling network through, through Sydney. Yeah. you know, there's, there's, there'll be surprised and cons to that, but it will take a lot of that local traffic off that, that clogs up the roads. Yes, it'll put it elsewhere, but it actually makes some of those some of those rides and some of those areas on top, they'll be able to change and improve because you're taking all of that through traffic away.

Veronica Morgan: Am I arguing here for a second? But I listened to a Ted talk sometime ago. I wish I could remember who it was. It was a traffic designer and American traffic designer was basically saying that, you know, everyone cries out for, I want four lane roads. Why didn't you buy a faller, build a four lane road in the first place? And if you build a four lane road, then traffic miraculously increases to pull that four lane road. How does that work? I mean, is that sort of your area of expertise?

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah. You're getting out of my expertise here, but I mean, it's human nature, isn't it. If there's, if there's, if there's a easy ride or easy path to take, you know, traffic has this natural ability of soaking that capacity out, you know, if it's too hard and there's an alternative way, you'll go that way. So there's this natural balance and that's the problem. If you just keep building roads, you just keep it. Doesn't actually the problem because you're just creating capacity each time,

Veronica Morgan: Easy way out. It's like water.

Chris Bates: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that's the key point, isn't it. With the West connects the [inaudible] beaches link, you know, there's all these sort of big projects North connects. And it's two people with one people onsite offense assigned. Well, yeah, that's great. I can get around my city easier. I'm happy to buy the talls cause it means I can live anywhere and get anywhere. And then you've got the locals who are saying, that's just going to encourage more people using cars. It's not sustainable. It's not environmentally friendly. And people will just do it because you build the ride, you people will do it. So how do you see it on that debate in terms of growing a city sustainably plus, you know thinking about the different, the gift different stakeholders, I guess. Yeah. So, you know, traffic transport movements it's gotta be a combination of public transport and roads.

Bernard Gallagh...: We've, we've had a long time in this city where roads was the only infrastructure that was built. Microwave's freeways, you know, we're saying in the last few years, this emergence of the Metro network across Sydney which, which is going to be revolutionary. I, when that, if I'm, hopefully they keep, keep building that out there, they're doing it with the key, you know, the tough bits now getting through the Harbor and, and through the city. And then over time that will extend there's only, I mean, it's, the proof is worldwide around, you know, public transport in high dense cities. Sydney is moving to a city of 8 million people. We can, we can't get to 8 million still thinking we're all just going to be driving our cars every day, the same way we did as a city of 4 million, because it won't work, you know?

Bernard Gallagh...: And, and there'll be freeways everywhere if, if that's the model. So there's gotta be a balance and a, you know, Sydney does it, particularly those PKS has quite a good what we call mode shift mode splits. So that's the number of people that use different modes. So public transport cars, active transport. And I think with Metro connecting out to through new cities, new cities, connecting Paramatta, that'll be a game changer getting, you know, connecting the city and paramedical within 15 minutes. You know, that will be an amazing change when you could do that. Just thinking of being, you know, whether your office is an, either one to be able to get to the other center in that short of sorta, sorta short of timeframe. So 

Veronica Morgan: How does it work though? Because with the Metro going out to Paramatta, there's already a heavy, like a heavy rail going out there, and this is something I've never understood why they need to duplicate that with the light rail.

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah. That, that that, that train line that comes in from Paramatta into the city is one of the most congested lines in, in, in the whole network, because it feeds in, if you can imagine all of those sort of feeder lines that come in, I think it's, you know, it's slime by the time those trains are getting into the city, they're there either for, you know, they're at capacity. So it is, it's two things it's creating new capacity, but it's also much faster rate as well. So I think by the final, I think it's only four or five stations by recollection to go from the city to to Paramatta. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's also on the, the route.

Chris Bates: It's going into sort of Piermont potentially, you know, it's going to Roselle, so that's gonna activate that area five dock in a Sydney Olympic town. So it is stops along the way, I guess that's in the system, but also, you know, paramount, it's like you build the city and now calm. I don't think we Paramatta, they've been trying that and it hasn't happened. So what they're trying to do is get, I guess, the CBD is to be split a little bit and connect them. So, you know, if you have your office in Paramatta, it's not seen as such a far distance away from the city which it was in the past, is that sort of right?

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll see it now with the amount of the, the amount of new office space being created in Paramatta. You know, there was a big residential boom for a number of years there, but we're actually seeing now the move to commercial office and that's both government and private sector moving to parameter. So,

Veronica Morgan: So city Sydney's sort of had this idea of what the satellite cities is. It called the satellite city, the city has three CDs or something, what's it called? Liverpool Paramatta and the sea, but in North Sydney and the CBD I mean, Liverpool's obviously a bit further out than Paramatta. Is that, is that sort of still on track? Is that, does that change in any way due to what we're going through now or is that certainly, you know, something that's still required when you folks, when you're sort of visionary looking at a city of 8 million people, plus of course you've got 8 million, it's gonna be more than 8 million.

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, those types of plans are longterm and, you know, that's a, you know, 30, 40 year and some of those ideas have been around for that long as well. So you know, the good thing with Sydney does have these, this network of quite a strong centers, like all like your, your Liverpool's and your paramedics and ignore Sydney's, he chats words that are all connected on the railway network. They've got good retail centers with them. A lot of cities, you know, Melbourne struggles in that regard, it has a very strong CBD, but then as you know, it's, other than a couple of centers, it's quite a suburban sort of framework. Whereas Sydney has these multiple centers which, which I have a time you know, they, they are providing all of those local amenities, jobs, retail schools, universities, the universities now are tending to move back into, they want to be in centers like Liverpool and Paramatta. So I think that is, that is the, that is a real strength of Sydney. And that's part of the reason I think we will be able to accommodate, you know, million people at a point in time because you've got, it's not just all concentrated in one or two centers that are, you know, everyone's trying to get into the same point at the same time.

Veronica Morgan: How does that plan sort of work say for Melbourne because they've got projected very similar population growth, right?

Bernard Gallagh...: Mm, yeah. I, I think I think in Melbourne, you know, it's, it's, they're struggling a little bit around grappling around what that transport network is going to look like. They've got a great radio network of trams and, but they don't have that heavy rail network that Sydney does or the, the length of it. And those, those centers, those, those centers outside of the CBD to that city does. So yes, what Melbourne has is really you know, quite flat developable land cause Sydney is, Sydney is very constrained. We've got, you know, natural beaches, which, which in a way to me is a good thing, cause that stops the city and we'll stop the city growing too far and too, too far out. Versus you know, if, if, if it's easy to just to keep spreading, it's like water, right? It'll, it'll find the finally natural path at the past of the path of least resistance. So

Veronica Morgan: That's a really great urban design then, is it because, because you're talking about basically Melbourne could join Adelaide soon. And, but, you know, it keeps getting further and further out, but there's no like hubs or employment hubs being created, then that's a real problem. Right. And then you've got the transport issue as well, because you don't have a heavy rail that work that sort of has as many tentacles, I guess. Yeah. So, but yet there are urban designers involved in those suburbs, right. Those new suburbs. So what's going on there? Is there a disconnect between what the government's visioning? Is there a vision?

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, there'll be, there's always a vision and there's always competing interests around as well. Even amongst government, amongst transport agencies and planning agencies and you know, other infrastructure agencies. So it's never an easy, a single vision by, by all accounts. You know, I think I've you know, we are getting better at we are getting much better these days at delivering the infrastructure, along with the, the, the communities, if you look back to, and even, even in Sydney that, that some of the suburbs that were built in the sixties and seventies, they, you know, they didn't even one of them didn't have basic services. The schools didn't come for a long time if ever. I think we're getting a lot of that infrastructure planning, correct, or, or much better these days. It's never gonna be perfect because it's sort of a bit of a chicken and egg thing. But when you look at some of the you know, some of the new communities out in in Vincent Park, for example, out in Western Sydney, you know, railway stacks and, you know, quite a, quite a strong set retail center school, all of those things are being planned at the same time as, as the residents. They're not an afterthought. Yeah, it's not a, it's never a perfect science town planning. If you like

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Chris Bates: So obviously the Metro is an amazing project. I think you know, living in London, you know, anyone who's probably spent a lot of time in New York or Paris or big global cities. The Metro is what drives the whole city. Right. And if you you know, if you've got a friend over the other side of town or you've got a new job, you're not concerned because you're like, well, I've got the Metro to, or the tube or whatever it is to fall back on. What are some of the other big sort of projects that you think Sydney are going to probably implement over the next, you know, 20, 30 years at all kind of big game changes like the Metro?

Veronica Morgan: Well it doesn't sound encouraging. Is that an elephant in the room?

Chris Bates: What about the tech Sydney? I mean, tech Sydney's a, I do think that the Harvard last year and phrases are in there, you know, activating central station, you know, the Everly sort of area. Do you think that gives Sydney another dimension or do you think it's just going to be a few towers and an empty square?

Bernard Gallagh...: No, I think that'd be a, that'd be really exciting down around central. You know, it's really been to be honest. I mean, it's been pretty bit of an eyesore for a long time, you know, for, for such a great city. You know, we've got the beautiful Harbor and, and, and water waterfront it's sort of was always a little bit left behind and in a way it's the, it's, it's a major, you know, gateway or there's the Southern entry into the city.

Bernard Gallagh...: And it's, you know, it was a way of traditionally all of those things, all those come together where the interstate trains come in, the, the, the country chimes and it's a big it's a, it's a big connection points. I, and it's interesting how, you know, when you look at tech, for example you know, that the, in the the eighties and the nineties tick tick was all out in suburban campuses, they wanted to be out and whether it was here or in the U S right. And it was now a lot of that movement that now they want to be right in the middle of the action, you know, and that's why come there, I'm sure like a, lesson's going to a place like that because it's, they look at their workforce the, the, the ability to track the people where their, where their workers live in and the, the, the environment that they want to create what, what better place to be, you know, right on top of central station or my, so I think will be fantastic for that part of the city.

Bernard Gallagh...: You've got central park there, you've got the university hub, there's a lot of vibrancy already. You know, it's such a great asset and it will really improve that bottom part of town. I have a time and they connected by by George street up to up to the Harbor.

Veronica Morgan: So it's sort of, it's interesting, isn't it? Because there's this a lot of investment and enthusiasm around that very urban precinct. And yet at the same time, this sort of migration of people that it seems to be in this pent up demand of people living in urban centers that go, you know what, I want to see change. I want to treat change. This is my opportunity. I can work from home part of the time, blah, blah, blah. I'm getting out and talking to real estate agents, both in Sydney and out of Sydney, out of Sydney, the same that Sydney siders, and it buying up, you know, sort of ache region, CJ and tree change areas and in Sydney, Oh yeah, my vendor, you know, where is the owner going? Or they're moving to bar and they're moving to central coast, they're moving to Southern Highlands.

Veronica Morgan: They may be in the mountains, whatever. So this is, there's a lot of, it seems to be a lot of people going, you know, one of these has been this level of discontent now you're right. That's it, now's our time, but there's sort of two directions, right? There's sort of the middle ground. I wonder whether that's going to be that appealing as time goes on. But that two hour commute thing, cause you touched on it earlier, you sort of talked about the 30 minute commute and then the 15 minute commitments and the local community thing, and now the two hour commute. So this significant number in how permanent do you think that that demand will Becky? Because I wonder about the, the, the magic of it all, you know, you take your problems with you wherever you go, you know, is it going to solve our discontent with our lives? And also even the fact that you're going to have to do a two hour chemo two or three times a week, it might sound fine in theory, but when you actually have to do it, like whatever it is that Tuesday and Wednesday is going to be a two hour commute day, you're going to love Tuesdays and Wednesdays. You're gonna freaking hate them. I wonder how our really, how entrenched or permanent this will be. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, I, it won't be for everyone, for everyone to tell the agreement and it will very much depend on the type of job that you have and the flexibility and that comes with their jobs. So it's not going to w will cert suit certain people. And you know, yeah, I mean, ideally we would have really good public transport networks to those areas and we'd have, you know, a 30 minute train to the Southern Highlands or to the, you know, again, we've got some geographic issues, but if we can solve that, that, that transport out as well, then it's taken out that two hour drive and replacing it with a, you know, a they condition drying. It's got wifi that you can work on and you know, be, be be at home. And you know, I still work a couple of days from home or in a local sort of work hub and then be in the city when you need to be.

Bernard Gallagh...: So I think if you look at you know, again, if we come back to technology, I think will probably ax has accelerated technology and, and those types of changes, they will then have flow on effects, but for urban planning it'll be, it'll be the fact that, you know, you can do again, you can do zoom meetings, you can do all those types of things now, completely acceptable type of way of doing business where, you know, a few years ago, that was probably not the case. So yeah, I'm sure there'll be some people that make that change and then realized that, that actually, I, I, you know, the city is not too bad. There's a few things that I miss though.

Veronica Morgan: It'll be the, the, the U-turn for you time. Yeah. If they haven't sold out and got themselves out of a market that they they can't get back into, I shouldn't laugh. That's actually not a nice thing scenario for anybody, but it does happen. So burner, I'm curious to, you know, everyone sort of knee jerk, well, I feel like everybody knee-jerk too, or they are the knee jerk to, or set on their hands in, as, in a sudden sudden abrupt stop in March, April when we went into lockdown and obviously Melburnians ever had extended to. And second round of that did you have clients coming to you at that point saying, right. We need to stop all projects. We need to reassess everything. Was this, was there a sort of a knee jerk in that whole space that you operate in or did, was there a sort of, a bit more of a calm, the surrounding, you know, what, this will pass, we continue with the big plan. How, how did that pan out?

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, very much the latter there was a few, there was a few obviously projects that companies wanted to just take stock of, of where they were at through, through March and April. But what we've found is most, you know, most planning exercises take time. And you know, as I said it right at the beginning, if you, if cities have this ability to be adaptable and change, and I think over time we will find this is a, it is a bit of a blip. Yeah, probably the, the biggest impact we will see is through the, the drop in migration. And that, that will have a big impact. I think the lowest or it's something where the other day that the lowest in band room of migration since 1916 or something, which was the war. So that will obviously obviously migration, particularly in cities like Sydney and Melbourne have a big drivers of the housing construction economy.

Bernard Gallagh...: Had a lot of, a lot of their migration is also, you know, students, international students, which, you know, that whole market will hopefully come back. But yeah, I don't know. I'm pretty optimistic. And you know, if the overall, if, if cities like Sydney can hold it together, then you know, we still look pretty attractive. And on the world stage, when you look to what's happening in the States and Hong Kong and even Europe you know, Sydney as a place to live and do business is, is really right up there on a world scale. So I think there'll be, again, hopefully there'll be a bit of a bounce coming out of this and you know you know, there'll be some positive changes that, that do transform the city, but we will be, we will be back to a new normal.

Chris Bates: Yeah. I remember back in 28 saying Gladys was you know, stadium was getting a bit funny for a lot of people, you know, congestion was getting a really big problem. You know, a lot of people were complaining about sort of migration we're growing too fast. Even Gladys was out in the media saying, you know, we're going to cut, we need to cut migration. We need some, you know, we buy some time we need to get on with these infrastructure projects. And so she's kind of got what she wanted, not in the right way, but you know, by no migration, it's, it's kinda, that's what she was calling for. She was calling for, you know, we need to build the Metro. We need to build these roads. Does the viability, obviously, you know, if there's less people commuting and they're assuming we get the confidence to go back on public transport, which, you know, when you've got no cases now for five days, right.

Chris Bates: If we get five months of no cases, you know, you've got to be pretty silly, not silly, but you gotta be pretty fearful in your mind that you're going to get COVID if no, one's got it for five months. So shouldn't, we go back to public transport and we commute less because I've worked from home in some form, there's the viability or the need to build our big roads that we were planning on doing. I E the F six down towards, you know, granola, Orland, gong, the linked the Western Harbor tunnel. I think they're your three biggest ones. Did they kind of shift now as the government say, look, we're not growing it three, 400,000 people a year or whatever it was. And we don't need to get everyone to the city as much. Maybe we should just prioritize the Metro and go big on that. Is that, are they shifting their thinking like that from your insights? Or is it still like, you know what, those rides are pretty good. They cried a lot of jobs and they make the city better. Let's just do that. You know, I think the key thing here is the,

Bernard Gallagh...: You know, the planning horizon for these projects, you know, these are things that are a 50 year projects. So in what sort of happening now in the scheme of things, probably Y you know, there'll be, there may be some local sort of reprioritize pre prioritization of projects, but I think over time, you know, that they, those big projects, a lot of them are already committed. And whether they needed, you know, next year or five years or 10 years, it's, it's going to be needed as, at a point in time. Right? Yeah.

Chris Bates: Yeah. It's a good point, right? Because there's the amount of money that probably spent on doing all the assessments, the environmental assessment, the community, I mean, there's contracts, they're probably signed, et cetera. You know, you can't just walk away sometimes. Right. And and I think that will be why with the stadiums are there with one of the stadiums, but they're still pushing on with the other stadium. Yeah, they can't really just unwind those big decisions.

Chris Bates: Before we sort of, you know, people are pretty confident to get back into those sorta sorta things. How does all that, knowing that say big day people that I attract new developments right. Are just one of my interests. I want to know what's coming and, you know, and you can find out about all this stuff pretty easily. You know, what's the new tower that's getting approved and most people have no idea about the amount of towers that it getting built in Sydney. Whether it's North Sydney, whether it's st Leonards the CBD South of Sydney, et cetera, how, how are all these developers thinking about all this commercial space? Are they, you know, a lot of them pivoting and saying, well, let's create more hotels, but then there's not much tourism. So all let's create turning more reef residential, which generally hasn't sold that well in these sort of areas you know, are they shifting how they're gonna, you know, cause ideally you want to be a lot of, you know, lots of different sort of segments, but the commercial segment was so enticing because it was completely undisciplined. So let's just build lots of commercial. Is everything shifting. They're like, they're still going to build the towers, but what's in that tower is going to change. Yeah. This

Bernard Gallagh...: Is a constant even pre COVID. There's a constant market shift going on with all these big centers and different land uses, you know, we see we, em, and they often come in waves. So you get a, you know, a residential boom, you know, we saw that a few years ago and then you know, and then, and then commercial becomes comes back because there's been a, and that is for whatever reason the demands built up and, and that becomes the highest and best use on sites. And then we, we did see that through hotels, there was a big shortage of, of hotels. I think that that's probably coming to the, to its to its natural sort of end or equilibrium at the moment. So there's always this dynamic of, you know, and it's it's, it's a it's a, it's a constant struggle between what the market wants to do and, and implanting or authorities because, you know, sometimes you know, you want to keep, you don't want to leave or let centers could get completely developed as residential because then you're, you know losing that potential for commercial as well.

Bernard Gallagh...: So there's, you know, so the site design, that's where designing provisions come into it. We're seeing a lot of you know, mixed use projects coming through. So rather than being completely commercial or completely one thing, it's the idea of breaking a commercial, having some commercial office, a hotel, some residential, all in the same building. So those sort of models which traditionally haven't probably been you know, favored, but I think we're going to see a lot more of that. And there will be some changes to floor space demand. So some of those models of that that's been used to determine, you know, how many people will be in a building. Some of that thinking will probably change out of COVID. So that may change the equation on some sites that, that we're thinking one thing. And then all of a sudden now other types of uses become more attractive.

Veronica Morgan: So I guess it's, it's all about diversity really, isn't it? Because, you know, you're spreading your risk, but what about retail? Because, you know, you, your Westfields and those big you know, retail centers, they are sort of copying a bit of a hammering, right. I mean, and retail was already in trouble, right. So before coven, I guess one thing you mentioned early in terms of what does COVID bring it's accelerated change. It was already in the wings and it certainly revealed quite starkly weaknesses that were already in the system. So retail is one of them, and I know the high street is, you know, that was sort of going through a metamorphosis anyway. And we were seeing a lot of you know, officers moving into shopfronts, for instance, and, and now little offices probably aren't, there's probably not a huge amount for those the moment either. So what's to do, what's going to happen with that highest rate what's going to happen when these big centers, is there any sort of thoughts on that?

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, I mean, retail is, as you say, was already w was already struggling in many, in many parts of its sector. Pre-K that, you know, online shopping was was, was happening and it was, it was, was growing and it was only every, you know, every week you'd read in the paper about another brand that that's gone into liquidation, or, you know, some of these kids, these are big names and that was happening pre and I think you know, I'm going to, again, through my stuff, I said probably, you know, using more online shopping and more online through COVID, and that's probably, again, accelerated a change that was slowly happening but it will have an impact on, on some of those traditional retailers that, you know, shopping centers were already, many of them were looking to, to diversify away from just being a retail center and whether that was including, you know, residential hotels you know, food precincts, all of those types of things to, to keep people coming into those centers.

Bernard Gallagh...: So I think retailing is probably going to be, you know, whether it is your big shopping center or even your, you know, your local shops on the high street that, that have really been hurt from this. It's probably the one sector that will take a long time to bounce back. And we might not see, you know, we might say some, some brands, some stores that, that don't come back from this and, and you know, that, that might be, and then that will create an opportunity for change. You know, one of the things we are seeing is the rise of things like fulfillment centers. So, you know, the amount of online shopping, and there's a whole logistics chain that comes with that. There's a massive growth market in, in that, at the moment.

Chris Bates: We're probably not gonna be buying things as much, you know, because it's the whole hassle of going to the shop and buying it and, you know, a couple of clicks of the button, then you've got it. Yeah. We still gonna want services. Right. Whether it's in our bothers or in our cafes or whatever it is. So, you know, kind of the cities are still going to want, I services you actually need compared to the, the retail segment. And that's the problem, right? Which is, there's a demand for other things, but it's not, we need kind of fill the gap of, you know, lots of different shops, et cetera. Hopefully we do.

Veronica Morgan: It was interesting because of course, you know, if you've got a building that previously would have been all commercial and then you've got to look at, okay, well, you've got to mixed use it now. And, Oh, there's no point putting a hotel in there cause there's not much travel. There's no point putting residential in there cause there's already oversupply of apartments. Oh, there's no point putting retail in there because is all got off on online. We'll put a fulfillment center in now. That's going to be really you know, using some very expensive land for warehousing effectively and distribution. You know, we interviewed, was it Sarah Wilkinson from UTA some time ago? And she was actually talking about you know, using car parks for hydroponic lighting, for urban farming and stuff like that. I mean, what's sort of really out there ideas are there for reuse of these, these buildings and structures, because let's face it, the traditional way that we've used these structures isn't necessarily going to be a demand for the foreseeable future.

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's, there's lots of there's lots of things like that. Typically the car parks are one example where, you know, it's a, it's a use that sits there often, you know, using, using really valuable land. And you know, particularly, particularly if you can get that parking either partly underground or, or up a bit, and you can create ground space, all the rooftops of buildings, you know, the, there's a fantastic thing down in Everly there where they've created, you know indigenous gardens on roofs of buildings, you know, there's fantastic ideas that, that you can actually use these spaces for more than just the building itself. So yeah, I mean, things, you know, we're, we're, you know, innovation comes out of these these times, right? When, when everything's great, you don't have to do much, but when you, when you, you know, and when you look back and say, well, we can't do this and that, well, we're going to have to innovate.

Chris Bates: So we might find, we might find actually this, this growth of these ideas that even a few years ago, because there was a strong residential market or commercial market was never going to be viable, but people actually have to create the opportunity. So it could be, we could see an acceleration of some of that innovation. Well, maybe we just do nothing in these spaces, you know, just give them back to the people because I mean, that's what really people really want, right? And they want green space. They want open air. You don't want to be in a Manhattan sort of, no, can't even get a little bit of sun. And that's what I think, you know, the opportunity for the city personally is, you know, start ripping stuff down and creating more than that people actually want to use. And then you got people in the city and there were people in the city and they will need things. And then you're, you know, et cetera. So you've got to get the people back to the city. That's why I'm a massive fan of, you know, getting congestion charge in the city. Now I drive to the city cause it's, you know, it's easier And it, cause it's really crap, public transport.

Chris Bates: That's true. But I used to drive the city when I didn't, you know, rise by you know, cause it was more efficient and et cetera, and that's any 40 minutes from people. A lot of people do it in Bondai, et cetera, top parking's cheap. So Um know, but if you had to pay a congestion charge or actually getting into the city and giddy out and sitting in the car, it's just too difficult, then you push people to public transport and then you create those spaces to green spaces and, you know, walkable city, then that encourages residential and writing. And so I feel like you've got to be quite forceful in planning cities because aren't humans or just do what's the lazy option, right. That the easy option that's just getting in the car and you know, so I think that there's a lot of big opportunity I think with, with readers, especially with, was it, you know, I lived in Melbourne, I've lived in London. And you talk about the Sydney CBD five years ago. And you know, it was a bit disastrous, right, as a dead zone at night, you know, no real vibe on the weekend darling Harbor or the, you know, horrible place. But I feel like Sydney has turned the corner. It just needs to keep on going where it was going. What do you think?

Bernard Gallagh...: Well, there was about 10 things in that in that comment, it's a bit of a ramble I want to go, I want to go right back to important point. You said there around the value of, of open space and like open space. And, and I think, you know, through COVID with saying just how important those local connections, your local parks, you look at the Byron around in the inner West that, you know, the talk about congestion, there was congestion on the buyer on a paper,

Bernard Gallagh...: Right? What a great thing to have, you know, when you're, when you, when you can travel you know, out out of your local community, are those communities that had that access to walking paths and some way to, you know, take the kids to kick a ball that it just showed how important that is in a community. So completely, completely agree with that. You know, I think local parks, local cycleways walkways, the appreciation of them, there was always, yeah, there was always a need and a desire for them. But I think that broader, a broader mainstream appreciation for those types of facilities has has only increased through this. So yeah, it's really been dialed up. Yeah.

Chris Bates: Let me laugh on the work-wise cause you know, I'm at the stage where I've got a newborn and you gotta pram, right. And you know, that footpath has never meant more to me then, you know, when you've got a pram because you know, you just can't get any way. Right. It's just dangerous. And so you walk around up on the beaches, which is an errantly Healy and their walkways are awful. And, you know, coming into that sort of environment pre-baby with just, and even pre COVID the walking in your local suburb you know, you just get it until you're at the stage where you go through these experience, then you start to appreciate them. And I think that's what people are doing is they're appreciating their local community more and wanting to be yeah.

Bernard Gallagh...: Which is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I was thinking about this probably probably many of them actually, and being a town planner, I thought I'd, I'd probably have to link it back to being something planning related. And one of the things that, you know, I've seen over the years is people not just not doing their due diligence when they buy property and due diligence in terms of planning what you've got, what's going on, not just what you can do on the land now, but what could change around them. So, you know, I see so many, particularly in an areas that are changing people, buying either houses or apartments and centers, and then, you know, they might live in a high rise building, but then forget that there's probably gonna be other high rise buildings going up around them.

Bernard Gallagh...: I have a time. And, and you know, you just, I know it's a, you know, it's sort of difficult, but you know, people do need to not just look at what planning controls say now, but particularly in those areas of changes, they are going to change and, you know, part of the attraction, why you might like to buy there or live there is going to be the reason why others want to live there as well. So that would be that would be, that would be my tip around, you know, do do your, do your due diligence and think about what can change in the future and just be aware of that because you know, particularly things around views you know, people were buying apartments with views that unfortunately can, can get built out in the future.

Veronica Morgan: Totally. I mean, we certainly, in my business, we look at, okay, well, how could the view at outlook privacy or natural light be impacted by changes in the surrounding properties. And, you know, it's important to look at the zoning to see what could happen there, you know, like, so if it's currently zoned, whatever it is, you know, how many is, could it be, is it max currently or not? But then I guess beyond that, can you, is there any way that you can predict you can look at things well that may get, that zoning might get changed? Is it, are there any early warning signs of that, that you can give us a hint too,

Veronica Morgan: Other than a crystal ball?

Bernard Gallagh...: Are there any sites that sort of show what, what is, is being muted? No, I know I did look at the pattern of the city. You know, I look at okay, you know, the growth is going to be continue to be around train stations and centers where that's, where it makes sense that that future development will happen. So, you know, there'll be opportunity, there'll be opportunities in those spaces over time. And then there'll be other parts of the cities that are being, you know, character areas that are being predicted for the, for the ramp character. So yeah, it's Not, it's not too difficult to sort of look at the overall pattern if you go back 20 years and then try to predict how things will change in another 20 years.

Chris Bates: I think that's one of my favorite. It was to be honest. Cause I think I've got it's one of the things that I, I will do a class though. What's your feedback on this? You know, I'm not, not about saying you should buy this well, so have you thought about that and you know, pros and cons that I can just see sometimes. And I always always go to the satellite and look at where it is. Look at the street, look at the neighbors, look what's behind the property, look how far it is to the main road. And there's been a common sense really? Isn't it?

Chris Bates: Hence the elephant. Yeah. And that's the thing that like, it, there's a little part next to you, right? It's council land, like yeah. It's, it makes sense to be customer, but as the city gets bigger, the counselor's going to be looking at land and saying maybe we should put a childcare center there or, you know, or if it's a school and it's, you know, the school can always do a renovation or, you know, there's so many things that you know, or if it's on a main road, you know, like I remember when I was going to apply some of it like this, you just, if you're busing onto a main road, you just never know what could happen. Right. So it's just, you've got to like, think about these risks, what could happen and change around you and how does that potentially change the livability of your property?

Chris Bates: Because as soon as that gets public knowledge or your, it is talked about your asset values, you know, severely impacted and then you got to sell that property. And everyone knows about that things coming and you're like, Oh God, what we should've got rid of it. And then, and then you're selling and then United is selling and then you get these bit of a fire style problem where, you know, someone's gotta be an opportunity to want to buy there. And I think it's one of the biggest risks that a lot of property investors don't think about. They just fall in love with a property, but never check everything around them and how that could potentially you could fall out of love of the property pretty quick. As soon as you find out that, you know, you've used going or you're going to get noise problems.

Chris Bates: So it's a really good one. True. Cool. Thanks so much. Amazing. Thank you. It was very good. Very enjoyed it. So I'll be calling you, but yeah, I really appreciate it. So it's a very important topic. And I think that, you know, cities are gonna, a lot of people say, well, you know, they think today 5 million people, but you know, time is fast, right? And then we get to six, can we going to get to seven? So you can't stop that train. Our economy is built on migration and growing up. That's what growth is. So you just gotta be aware of it and, and try to find your place within that city. And I, you know, I think be optimistic about the city. Sydney is a great place. It is, and it's getting better. And, and on a world stage, as I said, it's a really attractive place to live and work. And well, I think time will tell, we'll get over this little, this little hiccup and and we'll you

Veronica Morgan: Picking up on burners Dumbo, which is about due diligence and looking at what could be built around you basically that would change the livability and the, the value really of your own property. You know, I've been working with Megan Wells on this project Komora Academy, we're doing the, your first home buyer guide, which is a course, right? And in, in, in that course, we've been building in modules on teaching first home buyers, how to do due diligence, what to research and you know, so obviously I'm based in new South Wales. When you buy a property in new South Wales, you get a contract and in that contract are a number of essential documents now. And, and one of those is a zoning certificate from the council. So there's quite a lot of information packed into these, these zoning certificates. And I highly recommend that anybody read them.

Veronica Morgan: And you know, for many, many years I've said that these contracts aren't exhaustive, they don't have all the information that you need. I mean, for instance, a survey is not an essential document yet. It is the only way that you can actually confirm the boundaries of the property that you were buying. You know, if it's been renovated recently, there's no, no's no. There's no requirement for them to be a homeowner's warranty certificate in there, or an occupation certificate or a building certificate. None of these are actually required documents. What I've been astounded at. So that's new South Wales is that in Victoria the contract doesn't have any of these con these documents attached to it. The there's this thing called a vendor statement or a section 32 statement, which has a number of these things, but not quite as extensive as what is required in new South Wales.

Veronica Morgan: And then when you get to Queensland, the only essential document in a contract is actually a pool compliance certificate. They don't have to even provide a plan to show that you're actually getting what you think you're buying. I mean, there's no zoning certificate whatsoever. You have to actually request an order. These documents yourself as a buyer. And you know, if yours, if you get a cut price conveyance of, for instance, they might not even recommend you do this. It's actually fully buyer beware of quite alarming. So what I've realized is that, and you suppose you get better disclosure than probably anywhere else in the country, but that disclosure is not enough because it won't let you know if they, they have put in a da let alone, you know, what's actually been done or built on the property. They're actually thinking about buying there's, there's it won't let you know zoning is changing.

Veronica Morgan: It. Won't let you know if an industrial parks about to be built across the road from you. It's actually not going to tell you any of this stuff. You need to take, take this seriously and actually get in there and really look at all of this stuff. There's an enormous amount of things that can go wrong, or you can be completely unaware, or if you're buying a property and if you haven't actually gone through this exhaustive process, well, I recommend she can get, you can join the high bar Academy course, and that will teach you at all, but, but really, and truly a very good property lawyer should be across all this stuff. But at the very, at the very minimum, read that one for now. It's actually not called a one 49 anymore. It's called the 10, seven, I think certificate it's called the zoning certificate anyway. So in every contract in new South Wales, there's a zoning certificate. And if you ha you're not in new South Wales request one from the local County.

Bernard Gallagh...: Yeah. I mean, it's just such a big point that I think people fall in love with a property that, you know, most people aren't buying in the suburbs that they spent a lot of time in, you know, they can't afford to living their life and, you know, yes, people are upgrading. And so you may know what's going on within your suburb, but not many people would track everything that's happening in suburb. They don't know what the local schools going to do. They don't know how the retail things changing, et cetera, the night want to do an upgrade and they fall in love with the property. And then it's all too late to start doing your due diligence. Cause you're, you're already too emotional. So yeah. Get, get to understand what's happening at a suburb level. Get to really understand how it all works. What's potentially going to change. And then when you go and look at properties, you can already be discounting those ones and some, well, no, I'm not gonna even go look at that property because it backs onto that main road or whatever it is. Depth. Yeah. I think that most people go in there and look for find the right property and then just try to make it work rather than the other way round making sure that you know, what you're looking for.

Veronica Morgan: There's also other things in it. There's only certificate, for instance, we'll tell you if it's in a bushfire zone or if it's in a flooding zone, you know, and these are really important things. And, and particularly in Sydney, you don't think so much about flooding zone, but they're actual, there are absolute flooding zones around the city. You want to know, particularly if you're buying in Brisbane, you want to know about a flooding zone. I mean, you definitely want to know about bushfire zones because if you're ever going to do work on a property, apart from the fact, you can burn down if it's not built properly, but or if it's not built to current code and therefore protected, I should say you know, but if you ever want to do work on that probably is going to cost you more. I mean, you might be required to clear, clear the trees around. I mean, there's just so many implications of understanding actually the planning aspect of buying a property, both for your property on what's around you.

Chris Bates: Yeah. The bushfire ones, they seem well, I mean, I get insurance cost to get, to be more expensive, right. So, you know, when you look at the cost of running that property, well, you're going to have to factor in that, you know, and maybe they won't even want to do insurance or the number of providers. So yeah, you definitely want to get a house, you know, you're, you're building sort of insurance done before you purchased that property to know that it's reasonable. And you know, because, and you'd have to buy a lot more building insurance because if your house did burn down it'd be a lot more expensive to build because of the location and the materials you have to use, and everything is completely different. You know, I've got a client trying to do a renovation on one of those properties and, you know, it's probably double almost what he probably would have to spend if it wasn't in a bushfire zone. So, you know, those things you don't know until you sign that contract, Oh, we're with Pfizer and we want to do a Reno. Well, sorry, it's, it's, you know, a million, not 500. So it's digital, it's probably the key thing. But you know, I lock out probably saying before, I think people do join after they've fallen in love with the property, and most people will go back to head in the sand. We just want to make it happen and she'll be right mate. And it's just not good enough. Unfortunately,

Veronica Morgan: You know, those sort of things, okay. I've had the contract looked at, I've had the building and pest inspection and that's it. And I think what most people don't realize is how much more needs to be done. And you've got to take it seriously. People spend more time really researching a car than they do a house.