Episode 189 | Property Advice: Who do you Trust? | Daniel Butkovich, Domain

With property ‘advice’ so readily available who do you trust?
A core focus of the podcast has been to uncover who you can trust and who should you avoid when buying property. Today we are joined by Daniel Butkovich, Money & Advice Editor at Domain. He writes about buying, selling, renovating and investing in property to help educate people, whether they’re just starting out or have owned property for a while, with the aim of helping to inspire confidence in all life’s property decisions.

The Australian property market is highly unregulated despite being the preferred investment vehicle for millions of Australians. In such a prosperous but uncontrolled market how do property buyers looking to purchase their first or next set of bricks and mortar do so safely? What should buyers avoid and who should they talk to when mapping out their movements in the market?

GUEST LINKS:
https://www.domain.com.au/advice/

BEST ARTICLES - DOMAIN:

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 July 2021.

Veronica Morgan: In an unregulated high stakes environment, like the property market in a real estate, obsessed country, like Australia opinions and advice, and never had to come by. But how can you ensure that what you're hearing is good advice,

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 co-host of Foxtel's location, location, location, Australia, and author of auction ready.

Chris Bates: And I'm Chris Bates 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 to report, which experts can you trust to get it right? The elephant in the room.com did I, you

Veronica Morgan: Today, we talking to a professional advice giver and we're keen to understand how he sorts out the wheat from the chaff. When it comes to expert Intel about buying, owning and selling real estate Daniel book Kovich is the money and advice editor at domain. He writes about buying, selling, renovating, and investing in property to help educate people, whether they're just starting out or whether they've owned a property for a while. And he has the aim of helping to inspire confidence in all of life's property decisions. So we're on a shared mission. Welcome Daniel,

Chris Bates: Let me Danielle just want to say, love your work and your articles, I guess, becoming an advice editor, how did you actually become one? And I mean, what calls do you need? How did you get that role at domain? Because you've been doing a few years

Daniel Butkovic...: Now. Yeah. I've been there a few years now. Look, I come from a journalism background. I previously worked in some home magazines kind of from the renovation sort of side of things, I guess. And I guess coming to domain, you know, it was more of a, sort of a day-to-day journalist sort of role. Most of the property journalism we do at domain has historically sort of been that kind of reporting on what's happening in the market. You know, what prices are doing, you know, what, what's the latest data saying, you know, what's happening in auctions, that kind of thing. And so with this sort of advice, Naish, I guess we've tried to carve out this sort of nation a difference from the other content in that rather than you're telling you what's happening in the market, it's more about, you know, how can you use that information that you've gathered to make that informed decision? You know, how can you learn how to take that next step, whatever it may be, you know, what strategies can you actually use to, to start getting ahead in property? So, so that's kind of where I'm coming from more of the, sort of the practical side of things too, to actually make those real world decisions.

Chris Bates: I mean, it's so tempting to write those articles and they're like clickbait across every media platform. You see them like daily and noticed sort of SCADA my screen, but why did you really make that move away from things that are never going to be evergreen, things that are just crystal balling and just getting clicks and locks to actually articles that, you know, I've looked back at some of your articles like two, three years on are still very relevant to today.

Daniel Butkovic...: Look, I, I guess, I guess where I'm coming from is, you know, I'm personally very interested in property before coming into this role. I would often have a lot of questions about, you know, what I should do here, or, you know, what's the best way to approach this situation. And so I kind of like, I try to apply that kind of same, I guess, philosophy. I, when coming up with an idea for an article, you know, what's the best approach in this situation? What are the experts have to say on the topic? How can we kind of synthesize all the information that's out there as well as, you know, the data and what other evidence is out there? So I guess for me, it's, it's, it's all about sort of answering the key questions that people might have on their property journey. You obviously can't answer the more specific questions that someone might have. You know, you obviously kind of have to do it in a general way and that it can apply to as many people as possible, but it's really about answering those questions and kind of posing your question and try to come up with an answer that the reader will come away with with, with some kind of insight after spending the other two minutes, reading the article that there'll be able to, you know, hopefully that'll help them make a decision at all along their journey.

Veronica Morgan: I've liked your articles. And I have to say that I read so much about property and most of the time I'm like if it's, if it was on television or yelling at the screen, you know, because most of it is self-interested, it's shallow. It's sort of designed like you, like Chris say saying the clickbait it's designed that the quick wins that the magic formula is all that palava, that does my head in and yours is always really pragmatic. And you do talk to a lot of people. So I wonder you must have a antenna because I would imagine you still get fed a lot of that you have to sort out and to get to the practical stuff. I mean, you know, without giving any, any names, how do you do that? How did you do that without actually having a real estate background on yourself?

Daniel Butkovic...: It's tricky, but you, you know, you do learn after a while, you know, I guess, you know, any expert out there, anyone in the property industry, anyone in any real industry, most people were selling something in some kind of way. And so you just have to keep that in mind when you're talking to these people, understanding, you know, what, what, what is their kind of motivation here? What kind of are they pushing someone towards some kind of product or some kind of type of property or whatever it may be, I guess you just have to keep that front of mind, anytime you're talking to anyone to understand, you know, what their motivations might be in, in giving, what kind of advice, and, you know, I've done interviews with plenty of people where I've just thought, you know, I can't use any of this. This is, this is simply not true. I'm just not going to print it. So you just have to, I guess you learn that over time, but I think keeping in mind, you know, what someone's motivations are in, in telling you something and, and keeping that in mind when you're, when you're putting this stuff together,

Chris Bates: I mean, I might have lots of different avenues to their business and they're always evolving and the main home loans now, and, you know, all sorts of different things, right? Our new property off market, I saw recently as well. I mean, how are they sort of getting involved with what you do and are they sort of directing your boss or you sort of in control of your journey? And you can say, no, I don't believe in that type of investing, let's say it was new property or something like that. Can you sort of decide exactly what you put in your articles or domain sort of getting their fingers involved?

Daniel Butkovic...: Look, I, I guess I can. So that's tricky one. So obviously, yeah, we do have various different aspects to the business. But generally we maintain a sort of an editorial independence, I guess. And so it's never really a case of, you know, someone who's selling apartments coming to me and saying, Dan, you know, can you write this article about this apartment? Or, or, you know, can you read this article about this, this specific type of property or whatever it may be that just sort of doesn't really happen in my field. You know, obviously we are a business, we, we do have a suite of products, you know, the, the business, like any business exists to make money. So, so all those things are happening, but I guess with the content, we try and keep that editorial independence at all times.

Chris Bates: Well, that's the key to journalism, isn't it is if you start to lose that independence and you start thinking about self-interest, then your quality of what you're reporting on changes, right? And so then people can sense that and then they don't want to read your stuff anymore. So it's sort of how do you manage that sort of stay true to what you believe? I mean, have you built a bit of a property philosophy, I guess, yourself, where you've spoken to people over many years, lots of different experts and maybe a few things have always wrong. True. And then when you've compared that to the market and what actually happens, and you built your own sort of personal property philosophy, which is not safe domain, but, you know, Daniels,

Daniel Butkovic...: I guess, you know, if I were to have any kind of philosophy, it's, it's sort of unfolding I guess, and, and you know, evolving, I wouldn't say I sort of would adhere to one sort of school of thought only. I think it's important to always be exposing yourself to lots of different sources and lots of different ideas, because that way you're going to be able to make the right decision for your circumstances. But I think my property philosophy would have, would have changed over time, I guess, a bit, I think probably coming into the whole property world, I was probably something that it did appeal to me earlier on was, you know, I think we've mentioned it a couple of times before the, the kind of the people who are out there, you know, with the 10 properties, you know, by the age of 23, they've got a million dollars, the bank, they've got a Lamborghini, all that kind of stuff, but you know, how realistic is that kind of scenario and how often can someone actually, you know, pull that off. And so I guess, you know, for myself coming, coming into it, you know, it was that idea of, you know, building wealth through property over time. And then over time, I kind of started to think, you know, maybe this isn't the most effective way for everyone out there to be doing it. There's probably, you know, some more realistic strategies and options that people can apply to their, to their real world situations.

Veronica Morgan: And that's interesting because you know, I'm a property person and have been in property for 21 years. And it did take me quite some time to come around to that myself. And I guess when you're immersed in it, you don't even think of anything else, you know, property is not for everybody. And certainly that get rich quick scheme. That's always bothered me anyway, doesn't sound right. You know, too good to be true, et cetera, et cetera. And then you dig a little bit and you find out that it's a lot of hot air and, and quite often some pretty catastrophic fails as well, along the way. So on that. Cause you're the money and advice editor on the money side of things. How do you wrap that into the property side of things? I mean, how do you sort of, you know, delineate or, or Myrtle segue from one to the other look,

Daniel Butkovic...: I guess the money side of things has, has a couple of aspects. I mean, when we talk about property in Australia, you know, people were obviously so obsessed with it, but it's also one of the main ways that people build wealth in Australia, if not the mainly. And so I guess trying to think of that in a couple of ways, one, you know, property can be used to build wealth. So how can you do that in kind of a sustainable and sensible way, but also, you know, pretty much everyone who's buying a property in Australia is, is getting a home loan of some kind they're borrowing. So that's, you know, probably the, the main way that the money side of things comes into it. You know, how can you set up your financial situation in a way to maximize your chances of getting a home loan maximize, you know, the borrowing sustainably to, to purchase a property or that kind of thing.

Daniel Butkovic...: So, so the, the money side of things comes into it in, in sort of, you know, I guess, tips and strategies to, to set yourself up financially, to purchase a property. Then once you've done that to maintain that property and keep going and then be able to take your next step. And I guess what I'm trying to achieve with the money side of things is to bring these financial concepts to people who may not have any idea of how this kind of stuff works, explain it in really simple language, in a way that someone can apply it to their, their personal situation.

Chris Bates: Mean if you think back over some of your articles and maybe there's a hundred there, but you know, is there one or two where you think I learnt so much out of that, and it's really shifted my direction in terms of, you know, my overall thinking about how it all works,

Daniel Butkovic...: But then there'd be a few. I'm just trying to think of a couple off the top of my head. I did one a while ago. It was on it was on tightly held neighborhoods, right? And so I got this idea I'd been looking at domain myself you know, browsing the, the map search. And and I found though there were a couple of places, you know, in sort of really popular suburbs where there was just, there was no green dots coming up. There was just nothing for sale. And I thought, why is no one selling in this area? Is that they seem to be a really popular areas? What, why, why they know properties for sale? And it's, it seems like I had this hypothesis thought these people probably they know they're onto a good thing, so that they're not moving.

Daniel Butkovic...: So I sort of tried to unpack this idea of these tightly held neighborhoods. What makes a neighborhood tightly held? Why do people kind of really want to live in these specific areas? And so, you know, in speaking to a couple of experts on topic, you know, a couple of themes sort of came to, came to the top of the stack, I guess, you know, some of these, these sort of areas tend to be, you know, if you look at, you know, how S cities and towns have, have evolved a lot of the, kind of the older areas, the earliest sort of land release areas, I guess the best land would, you know, be the most expensive sort of properties. So you, you know, you can kind of move back from that. And, you know, w w where this is the sort of the, the oldest part of the town, what what's, what's, what are the areas that are kind of within walking distance from the shops and good schools and all that kind of thing, or the kind of fundamentals that we talk about yeah.

Daniel Butkovic...: Unpacking in that way, in, in, in how a city has sort of evolved, but then, you know, looking at other factors that might be a play, you know, one of the sort of pockets that I looked at, they had a, I think it was developed in like the forties or fifties. So they had like a, a caveat over the, the lots to do with our selling, that the people had to spend a certain amount of money on the house that they were building there. And so you end up getting these, you know, these, these big lots, you know, with great houses in a well situated area, and you kind of form this little pocket. And then once someone buys into that, they go, Jesus, this, this is basically we found the best property ever, why would I want to leave? And so it ends up sort of being tightly held. And so, yeah, so, so that's, that's one, one example of an article where I kind of want to try and unpack a concept. And I learned quite a bit along the way. I mean, hopefully able to a bit of that rubbed off on the readers. It's quite

Veronica Morgan: Fascinating that isn't it. I did a little bit of research years ago and family homes in all facing gardens and trying to work out how often on average they would turn over versus those with south facing gardens. And I had similar hypothesis, you know, I think people won't move as, as often. And they didn't, they in the research that we did, it showed that the ones with Southwestern gardens are less comfortable to live in. And probably people couldn't articulate that they wouldn't even know really why they sold or why they were eating to get out of there. You know? So it's sort of interesting stuff when you dig like this, and I know that some of those older areas where their caveats, the caveats actually insisted on certain building materials, it created a certain consistency of architecture in an area as well. And so those one reasons why heritage suburbs hold their value really well, because then I become a mish-mash. I often take clients on the streets with, you know, they, they want to knock down and rebuild and I'd take them down the street with it, where people are allowed to knock down and rebuild. And again, look at this dog's breakfast of a street.

Veronica Morgan: There was an article that you wrote some time ago about property forecasting. And I was gravitate to those articles. I start storing them up as I'm thinking about what we're going to be putting in each year, annual lab full of forecast to report. So, you know, because you obviously in the media, you're, you're a journalist, and I imagine you get fed a lot of data when it comes down to, you know, macro right down a micro w what are some of the things you've been learning in terms of the information flow that comes to you as a journalist, that you then have to work out how to disseminate what's valuable for, for actual, in a pragmatic sense,

Daniel Butkovic...: I guess in terms of sort of some of the data points out there is, is, is that what you mean? Is it the, the, the different data points that are available?

Veronica Morgan: Well, yeah. I mean, people, people look to data to make decisions, and you're, you're all about writing advice, columns to give really practical advice, to help people make decisions. And I guess what I'm asking you is what have you learned about the difference between sort of what often people gravitate towards, so making cells feel better about whatever they're going to decide or to lean on versus actually what's important. Yeah. Right.

Daniel Butkovic...: Okay. So, so I guess, I think I know the article we were talking about, and we're looking at sort of leading and lagging indicators. And so I guess when we talk about price growth, that's a lagging indicator. That's talking about, you know, something that's sort of already happened, but that always gets to the big headlines, you know, house prices up 10%, 20%, whatever, whatever it is, you know, these are the suburbs that are growing the most either. So they're sort of going down the most, whatever it is that that's always the thing that's going to grab people's attention. But I guess the problem with that is that it's talking about something that's happened in the past, and it's not necessarily talking about what's happening in the future. And the future is I guess, more difficult to predict that's something that hasn't happened yet. So it's, it's hard to kind of, you know, guess, you know, what's happening down the track.

Daniel Butkovic...: And so looking at the different data points that are there out there, there's, there's leading indicators and there's lagging indicators, leading indicators, being something like auction clearance rates, which, you know, tends to I might get this wrong, but he, you know, in, in Sydney, if you know, auction clearance rate to, you know, around 70% or higher, you, you know, you're generally expecting an annual growth of something around 10%. And so I guess, yeah, it's, it's, it's understanding, you know, what, what these different indicators actually mean and how you can kind of apply that to your own. Decision-Making

Veronica Morgan: It is interesting about leading lagging indicators and what people want to know about. And it does seem to me that they want to know what's happened rather than what they think they want to know what's going to happen. But instead, what they're looking at is what has happened. And then assuming that that means what is going to happen in the future. So whole price, growth areas, and top 10 lists and all that sort of stuff is very, very misleading. Now, how do you determine, I mean, Chris asked you earlier, and you said you had a fairly free reign. It sounds like your own curiosity sort of leads you down the path of coming up with ideas for your stories, but do you, you know, what do you get asked about the most by buyers? I would not just buy as obviously renovators cause you're helping everybody.

Daniel Butkovic...: Hmm. Look, to be honest, the, the question that gets asked to notice what's what's property prices going to do, like what's gonna happen in the future. That's the hardest one to answer, but I guess when did we get asked the most jump on the renovate until, you know, ways to add value? That's, that's always, always a big one, especially before sale or some of the, you know, the smarter ways to add value that aren't going to cost you a lot of money before sale. Yeah.

Chris Bates: But I mean, while you're on the renovation there, I mean, have as domain access to the amazing insights, like I would just love to, I've said this on the podcast before what you and REA basically get in terms of what people click on. You can see what really the interest is in property because of the biggest portals of you saying that there's been a massive increase in renovation. We can actually say it on the street. I can say it through the amount of construction loans we're doing now is off the, off the radar. I guess, you know, you say a real demand and a continued demand for people to want to engage in renovating their homes, like in terms of their click-throughs I guess. Yeah.

Daniel Butkovic...: We have seen, you know, in the past, basically since COVID, I guess, a spike in interest in sort of renovating content and it does, you know, come out at different times of year as well, but, you know, that's obviously, yeah. As you said, having on the street, you know, I think there was some data that came out recently. There was showing maybe say this wrong, but about 10% lift in renovating spending over the past a year. So, so, you know, it is actually happening and, but we are, you know, we have seen increased engagement in that kind of content, but, but it is always something that's going to be always be popular. People are always interested in improving their homes. It's not just, you know, this point in time, I guess when you think about it, you know, there's always going to be a home that had its last renovation 20 or 30 or 40 years ago and, and is saying they look tired and that might be sort of happening now as well. I think that when we go back to your notes, the last major building, boom being, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, those sort of properties are getting a bit tired now. So they're kind of coming around for innovations as well. So, but yeah, it is, it is always a topic that's always going to generate quite a bit of interest.

Chris Bates: You take your parent's money, but don't take their advice of one of your articles. Was that from personal experience,

Daniel Butkovic...: You have a cheeky one. But look, we with that, when that was still was a while back, we had some survey data which basically showed for first home buyer specifically the first place that they would go to for property buyers. The, the, the, the biggest source of property advice was, was people's parents. And so kind of stood out as a bit of a bit of an interesting one and that's, that's actually a head of people who do their own research first. So, you know, if someone decides to buy property, the first, according to the data, the first thing they're going to do is go and ask mom and dad, what should do and look, there's, there's nothing necessarily inherently wrong with advice from parents. I just, one thing I wanted to unpack with that one is, you know, why people turn to their parents.

Daniel Butkovic...: And, and is there a problem with that? And, you know, potentially, I mean, if we look at, you know, I'm, I'm thinking about my parents the last time they bought a house was in the early seventies. And I think the property market may have changed a little bit since then. The composition of cities has obviously changed since then as well, you know, that they bought out in the suburbs and, and, you know, back then that it was all about getting away from the gritty inner city. And, you know, what are we for almost 50 years later? You know, the, the sort of inner city areas are always still proving to be popular. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, you know, with advice from parents that may be skewed towards a certain mindset, that there's also the potential for, you know, obviously there's no longer the big four banks is now the big fives or the bank of mum and dad is up there as well.

Daniel Butkovic...: And so there's that potential with, you know, if you're being gifted money from your parents to help buy a house that there's sometimes a disclaimer that, that comes with, you know pressure to follow the, the advice that your parents are giving. So there's a couple of factors at play there that, that I just thought were worth unpacking. And I guess when I would probably want to see more of is, is, is more people who are, you know, when they're coming to make a decision going out there and doing a lot of that research themselves before, you know, starting to yet, you know, all these different sources of information that the might have some, somewhat of a bias coming into it.

Veronica Morgan: We are, we've researched first home buyers too for home buyer academy, because yeah, and we've actually come up with the same thing. It's like almost the first place they go to, if the parents and, you know, smart people will go hang on a minute. Yeah, this is pretty outdated. And what's their sample sizes in terms of how many properties have they bought and then how are they judging success? And I don't want to live like a live and these sort of things come into it, but it's the next thing is the friends and the workmates and all, a whole bunch of people following each other's advice and, and going out to new subdivisions and, and the amount of people I've met that it's almost like they've all heard that, like the pied Piper has led people out just because one person's bought one property, doesn't make them an expert. So in a way, do you suggest people start their research or look

Daniel Butkovic...: Again, it's about exposing yourself to a wide range of sources. So, you know, read as many articles as you can read as many books on the topic. You know, you just have to always keep in mind that that bias that we talked about earlier, that, you know, whoever's writing, it might have a point of view that they're trying to push, keeping that in mind. But I think thinking about it as if you're, you know, you're learning a subject in school or university or whatever, going out there and trying to just absorb as much information as possible before just going to one person and saying, Hey, what should I do here? It's never a good idea to just ask, you know, one person and blindly followed their advice. You want to understand, you know, what are the range of options that are out there that I can use to get ahead or whatever it may be, and understanding all the different terminology, you know, there's, there's so much jargon in the property world. We've actually started a domain dictionary to try and unpack some of these confusing terms that are out there. So getting that kind of broad knowledge and broad understanding and kind of, you know, building up your own education in the property space before just blindly following someone's advice.

Chris Bates: Yeah. I mean, you also did not, a coach was wise, the first property is the most important and your buy. I mean, what were some of the sort of learnings, cause that is, that is really so true. And that's why it's so dangerous of going to parents because yes, they might be helping you financially, but, you know, they're not taking that sort of real understanding of getting to know, you know, your future, what different options you have, different areas, et cetera, you know, in the same vein, one of your other articles is like future-proof purchase like a property that you rent out grows. So, and I had a sort of, that sort of really play in for first-time buyers and getting that so important, that sort of mindset.

Daniel Butkovic...: Yes. It's, it's hard to kind of think really far down the track. Like it's hard to kind of, you know, when you're in the moment, when everyone around you is buying a property, you know, secret renting, you just want to get a place for yourself. Market's going crazy. And you're thinking, oh, I've got to buy now before prices take off, blah, blah, blah, all those kinds of pressures that are out there. It's hard to start thinking, you know, Hey, where do I actually want to be in a decade or what, you know, I might be single now, but you know, it could be married in a couple of years, could have some kids, you know, and I'll be stuck with this, you know, property that can feed the whole family. And, you know, there's, there's, there's all those kinds of considerations that it's hard to sort of think about in the moment.

Daniel Butkovic...: So I guess one thing I kind of like to think about, you know, trying to future-proof that first home, or, you know, placing importance on it, you know, being one of the most potent properties that you buy is planning. So actually kind of, you know, thinking where do I want to be? What are the steps that I sort of need to take to get there and actually actually starting to sort of write that stuff down, you know, it's, it's hard to kind of have a plan that's just in your head, you know, you actually have to kind of put pen to paper, you know, whatever form it may be, you know, it could be, it could be a scrap of paper or it could be a, you know, massive spreadsheet it's I think really important to sort of have a plan, at least some kind of roadmap and okay.

Daniel Butkovic...: Plan that you kind of, you know, revise over time is, is better than having no plan at all. Yeah. So I think when it comes to the first time thinking about it, in terms of, you know, what is, how is this going to help me achieve my next step for some people to that first home might be the place that they live for, you know, decades. But these days it seems more and more unlikely. And, you know, especially in the, in the big cities where people were, you know, might only be able to afford an apartment in, in, in where they want to live. And so you gotta think, you know, how does this apartment helped me get to that next step? You know, is it going to grow in value as much as as much as it could or, you know, am I going to go and sell it in seven years time or whatever it, and you know, hasn't really grown in value in the property that I'm trying to get into has grown in value a lot more. So, yeah. Thinking, you know, find down the track actually saying the plan and writing that stuff down and, you know, tweaking that plan over time, as, as things change.

Chris Bates: It's a really interesting one because maybe the client this week came to me, they went on great incomes saved really hard. And they said, look, we want to buy, you know, an apartment in the lower north shore. And you know, I'm like, okay, I can go spend together. You know, are you thinking about having kids? And, but yeah, in the next couple of years I might go, do you think you might have more than one? Yeah. That's the plan? And I'm like, well, you know, you're thinking about a two bedroom apartment. So they were very like already, so could say the runway was so short on terms of this decision. And, but in their mind they hadn't thought about that at all. And as soon as I started to sort of talk it through and say, well, what would you do after that? You know, do you think you'd have to, what, where would you move?

Chris Bates: Where would you want to move to? And the so appropriate to stay in the area and, and they could potentially go and buy something a bit bigger. It's just that they were mainly a confidence issue. Maybe let's just buy something a bit smaller today. And that's sometimes what people think when they could afford something a bit more. They had white, lots of buffers in terms of the one was also lucid. So they could go in with a much smaller deposit. And we sort of just came up with this strategy and it made a lot more sense to them that they're not going to outgrow words, but you, right. Like a lot of people haven't really thought that through. And as soon as we sort of visualized it and talked through her payments, et cetera, they said, we know what, that actually makes a lot more sense.

Chris Bates: And then they're out in the market. And the difference in that decision is huge because, you know, three or four years time, yes, the apartment is probably a good apartment, but you know, the problem is that their property that they want to upgrade into is going to be a lot more expensive. And they're not going to be able to afford to keep their first property as an investment just because of capacity. So I know you did an article on that as well, in terms of the challenges in keeping your first property as an investment property, when you want to upgrade, what were some of the major learnings you found in that?

Daniel Butkovic...: I guess from that one, one of the major learnings was that a lot of people want to do it, but a lot of people find they just can't. And I guess, yeah, it comes down to that borrowing capacity issue, even an apartment in the capital cities are still going to be fairly expensive. And then when you think, oh, okay, when it's time to upgrade the property, you're upgrading to might be worth double what that apartment is worth. So that means significantly larger mortgage. You know, when you get to that sort of, I guess, upgraded market, it gets really competitive. So it needs sort of every cent you can get. And if, if your, your borrowing capacity is sort of tied up in that first property, your hands are tied, you know, it's, it's difficult to, to actually compete. So I guess a learning with that was a challenge on holding onto that one, again, that comes to that idea of, you know, so many people have that idea in their mind of, you know, building a property portfolio over time, you know, the buy and hold strategy, just, just, just holding onto properties and letting them grow in value.

Daniel Butkovic...: But if that property is holding you back from, from taking that next step, then it's not really a great outcome, I guess. Yeah. The other thing that came through with that one was, you know, a first home buyer buying an apartment, for example, is that really going to be the best investment possible? Is that going to be the best way to spend that money? Is that the best way to grow that grow your, grow your wealth? I'm not sure how many first time buyers out there expert investors and whether they're the, you know, when it comes to the asset selection, whether they're really making that decision within an investment frame of mind, or is it that they want to live near their friends or, or near the park or near is near the cafes or whatever it may be. You know, so I guess trying to kind of decouple that idea of wanting to build that portfolio with kind of what are the real sort of goals in your life and your personal life, you know, having, having a house, are you, do you want to live in?

Daniel Butkovic...: So yeah, it's a lot of factors that play in that one, but I think one of the things that came through was it is difficult to do it, but it might not be the best property to deal with. And, you know, if you do have to sell that original property to, to upgrade, you know, it doesn't rule out the idea of buying an investment later down the track. And so there, there are options and it's not, it's not kind of, you know, do I become an investor and grow a portfolio or do I become a homeowner? You know, you're not closing off one option. I guess,

Veronica Morgan: If you like, what you're hearing here, please share this episode with others, you feel would benefit. And while you're at it, why not leave us an iTunes review five stars, please, every review helps make it easier for other people to find us and hear what our amazing guests have to say. We love hearing your questions and we're planning more listener Q and a episodes. Please send your questions in. You can send them via the website, which is the elephant in the room.com today. You or directly via email two questions@theelephantintheroom.com. Did I, you,

Veronica Morgan: Really talking about here is myth-busting, you know, that there are so many of these sort of often false beliefs. I talked earlier about, you know, opinions in property. Everyone's got one at seams and, and lots of free advice out there, and there's all these beliefs around you. Can't sell your first property. You've always got a buy and hold that you're a failure. If you, if you have to sell your first property potentially. I mean, and the idea that just got to get in the market, that's a, that's another false belief. There's also this idea about I've, you know, they're just so focused on the milestone or the goal of actually buying the first property that they haven't thought beyond that they haven't lifted their eyes and looked at the horizon and all of those things. And I, I guess that the core of what you're doing is, is trying to sort of cut hot, hot knife through butter. And cut-through all those, those beliefs to get to the core of really what makes good decisions

Chris Bates: Owner occupier appeal. How does that sort of play into, I know you've done an article on that before, and I mean, that's sort of in the same vein as that sort of tightly suburbs. I mean, why do you think that matters so much?

Daniel Butkovic...: I think you and I have maybe spoken about this before in the past, Chris, in terms of who owns property in Australia, roughly two thirds, you know owner-occupiers and a third investors of all the properties in Australia. So who's the bigger market there as to owner-occupiers. You've also got a couple of factors at play there. You know, if you're looking at kind of, you're probably growing in value hung that appeals to a family they're more established sort of buyer potentially have two incomes, you know, there's, there's a, there's a lot of that emotional attachment. So that, that sort of property seems to have more of a potential to grow in value then then a property that would sort of appeal to investor, which might be sort of on a more potentially sort of lower budget or limited, limited budget maybe more about the rental income and that kind of thing. Whereas I think one of the sort of big effects is, is how much that property can grow in value and what can push it up is the future buyers, I guess, ability to pay more for it, which often comes down to, you know, how much what's their income, what's their borrowing capacity and how much do they fall in love with that property? Emotion has went to, they're prepared to spend, you know, above and beyond their budget. It's

Veronica Morgan: Funny. I mean, particularly when I was filming the show and I would just because the very first series of the show we did was relocation relocation, right? So, and quite we had 10 couples and each one was buying an investment property and, or a sort of second home and the home and the ones buying the investment property was quite funny. They'd sort of say, all right, well then I need to go away and run the numbers. And quite often they'd say this, I look at them, what number is he going to run? It sounds like the thing to say, because, well, this must be a numbers based decision. I'm not going to be emotional about this. I'm going to run them, run watt, but, you know, fundamentally it's like, yeah, well, someone else get excited about this property in the future and compete for it. And that's, that's sort of at the core of it, but it doesn't sound as scientific. It's true, but not as scientific as running numbers. So what I'm wondering though, if when your own property journey, you know, I have you, have, you actually had to take your own advice or you actually, you know, think or change the way you view the whole property market and decisions around property. Has it helped you?

Daniel Butkovic...: I think, I think if you look back on the, all the articles that I've written, if you can probably trace my property journey through some of the topics that I've written about, I must admit some of the, sort of what I write about is very much very self-serving. And then if I want a question answered for myself, I'll go out there and I'll, I'll do the research and write the article to, to do it. I guess, one thing that yeah, I sort of was, was kind of drawn to the property space was, was on that way to create wealth through its, or building a portfolio and whatnot. And, and then, yeah, probably did come into it with a bit of the buy and hold sort of mentality, but then that's sort of, I guess, changed in, in terms of, you know, what is sort of most important in life?

Daniel Butkovic...: Is it holding onto these various, you know, investment properties that, you know don't necessarily bring you joy or is it, you know, getting into the, getting into a home in an area that you want to live in, which you can personalize and make your own and blah, blah, blah. And, and sort of, I guess what sort of maybe changing my mindset is, you know, prioritizing what is, is more important for myself and for my family and, you know, how, how can I kind of I guess engineer my property journey to, to, to achieve those goals rather than just, you know, trying to own the most properties or, or, or whatever it may be,

Veronica Morgan: Because that's what it's all about. Really, isn't it, it's a home at the core of it. That's what, you know, a property or a house or an apartment is meant to be, but we've turned it into a, an investment vehicle, which is one of the, I guess is a bit of a social argument going on about this at the moment. Yeah. So I'm curious also, just from the readers, I mean, what sort of feedback do you get? Cool.

Daniel Butkovic...: I guess the main sort of way that we get feedback is, is looking at, you know, the numbers and looking at the data and, you know, what kind of topics I guess, resonate the most. I'd have to troll, troll back through the numbers to find out. But I think generally, like some of the topics that do resonate most, we hinted at them before sort of myth-busting topics to, you know or, or, or sort of challenging you know, a sort of a long held belief. You know, I guess when we talked about the, the, the parents giving advice, that's a good example. Some of these topics are kind of, I guess yeah. Challenge challenges, sort of a long held belief. They seem to resonate quite well as well, anything that you, I guess, appeals to first home buyers as well, because they, yeah. For information, yeah. They're there, they're there, they're starting out there. They obviously they're the most inexperienced of buyers out there in the market. They've never done it before. They're the ones that I guess would respond more towards the kind of educational pieces that are, that are sort of unpacking a concept, explaining terminology, those kinds of things. Yeah. So I think that, that, that's, that's a real focus point.

Chris Bates: Yeah. Did one recently or no, it wasn't recently, but you did one on buying a unique property. And I think that's a, that's an interesting topic because, you know, sometimes we'll get clients say, ah, we're falling in love with this property and you know, they're in love with it. Right. And I sort of look at it and go, I know you love it in my head, but that is not going to appeal to a lot of people. Maybe it's a weird block or it's a weird looking house. I

Veronica Morgan: Got two that come to my mind. When you say that Chris one is up in Queensland, I think it's north Brisbane, north Brisbane. It looks like a cluster of eyeballs, horrible looking thing. And the other one is in Perth, I, the it's not the market at the moment. It looks like a Besser block, Taj.

Chris Bates: I mean, that's someone who is obviously got a bit of land and a bit of money and they're just capitalism, but selling those is usually a tough thing. But if you've fallen in love with that sort of unique property. Yeah, definitely. But some of those clients falling in love with properties that they don't appear to be that unique. But when you sort of look at lots of properties, you can easily say that, you know, maybe the floor plan is really weird. You know, bedrooms is split, you know, three levels apart or

Veronica Morgan: Bad, unique, not good, unique

Chris Bates: Things where it's just on the tin. It still looks like a house in a sort of good Saba, but ultimately it's a turn off a lot of buyers, maybe, you know, in your article, you mentioned a lot of stairs, for example, Daniel, I mean, what are some of the learnings you found out of that article? Because I do think it's, you know, some people don't understand the problems with selling that property. And one of your other articles actually that's one of your titles is that, you know, thinking about the saleability of your property, when you, before you purchase it, which is an amazing mindset. So what were some of the learnings you found just doing that sort of research. Awesome.

Daniel Butkovic...: I guess on, on the unique point of view, it is all about the eventual future by Ava. If it's not going to be the home that you live in for forever, it's about thinking about, you know, what the market in this, in this particular area once, and, and, and is this property of what that market wants. I'm trying to think of one that another unique one, I had a, had a tree growing in the center of it. It had a giant gum tree growing in it. And you just know that the neighbor's property, this was like, this was in the middle of their house. Like they'd built the house around this. It might have been recently sold. Oh, I did. Okay. Right. If it's

Veronica Morgan: The one night, if it's the same one, that's actually a funny one. If it's that same one, because I had a client come to me that really, really loved that property. And it really got some full on drawbacks. Like for instance, the garage, isn't actually big enough to fit a car in. And it's got a wine cellar with a big glass door at the end of it. So even if, and it's on a fairly steep driveway, so even if you could fit the car in it, maybe you got a smart Carney can gun it up the driveway. You gotta be very careful. You don't sort of go a bit too far and smash your wines, you know, wheelie weird things like that. And then there's tree growing in the middle of it. And it's like a fish bowl it's like really expose your you've even got glass walkway.

Veronica Morgan: So if you walk from the bedroom to the bathroom, you really want to have some clothes on because anyone underneath can look up and really get a bit of an Eyeful and some really odd things like that. And so we, you know, really labored the point with this client that was keen on buying it. And look, as it turned out, she didn't buy it and it sold for, and it did struggle to sell and it, but the market was not as hot as it is now. And, you know, and then it sold again. And I wonder if it's sold because it's really quite unlivable Ben, but they did make some money. Now I compared their game to others that have sold over the same period. It was not as good percentage wise, but there'll be happy that they made a gain. I think they didn't do too badly, you know, but the market actually, they lucked it with the market. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, if it's the same property of,

Daniel Butkovic...: I think it might be when, when you, I guess when the, when the market's rising, you can kind of forgive these, these sort of mistakes that people might make. But I guess, you know, you're talking about a unique property. That, that one, it sounds like someone, you know, crafted that as, as their dream home where, you know, or maybe, maybe they are not going to, I don't know,

Veronica Morgan: Built to sell in the first place. Yeah. It's, you know, and it was apparently an Eastern suburbs architect or design or something and, and, you know, the first foray into the west, it was just, and originally had a decent size agent as well second time round with a local agent. But anyway, it was just one of those houses that photograph quite well. But yeah, this whopping great tree in the middle of it, and that's the least of the problems, but to go on. Hmm.

Daniel Butkovic...: I guess, I guess the way I think about it is, you know, if you were to sell this property in seven years' time, who, who can you see competing for it? Is it, is it the, is it the family? Absolutely. You know, with the two incomes is it the, is it the retired couple you know, looking to downsize? Is it, is it the, the single person who wants to perfect, you know, architectural design, dream home, you know, what is it and what sort of budgets probably have, how many people are going to be competing for it? What sort of competition is it going to have and how does it compare with the properties around here? You know, what kind of buyers are coming through with inspection? Does it have, you know, the, the queue of 60 people out of the door, does it have, you know, five people going, oh, that's a bit weird. It's got a tree growing in the middle of it, you know? Yeah. I guess

Veronica Morgan: The curiosity value, they're not realized they just want to say what the hell.

Daniel Butkovic...: Yeah. So I guess you've got to think of, yeah. Who is your eventual buyer and, and is it going to create the competition that's going to be in line or, you know, exceed, you know, what the market's doing in the area, but I guess there's, there's also unique. Good. We should, we should talking

Chris Bates: About that for sure.

Daniel Butkovic...: Yeah. Maybe you guys can talk about some of the aspects that makes it probably unique. Good.

Chris Bates: He's going to say, I mean, that is ultimately an amazing mindset to go to, but it's hard to do that. So when you go to a property, you're thinking about what are you need? You know, what sort of your family dynamics, or now maybe you've got a parent that maybe have to live with you, let's say. And so you've got a special need that may be not a big portion of the market need. And so you're going, and you're looking for this property, that's going to suit your needs. But ultimately when you go on sell it, then you've got to find those people who have those same needs as you. And ideally you want as many different buyer pools as possible. And it's a really good sense check is when you're walking around that open home or you're at the auction and say like one of this demographic of all these other people really wanting it, and they're really emotional about it and really keen.

Chris Bates: And so if it's such a small subset, you won't know when you purchase it, it's just when you guys sell it, six years later, it sits on the market for six months because it's really doesn't suit many people and you can get really punished in down markets if you have to sell it, those points because you know, people know that they can look online. They say it's been on the market for four months. You know, they know there's no rush the real estate agents desperate to sell it. He's telling you he, or she telling you way more than you need to know. They'll tell you anything, you know, those sorts of it's a bog and those sort of you know, FOMO tactics. But yeah, I mean, on the unique side, in terms of the property, you've written a lot about this Daniel as well. I mean, you've, we're interviewing you here. I mean, you've sort of talked a lot about period homes, you know, really being a great investment. I mean, that drives in the same vein. What's your thoughts around that?

Daniel Butkovic...: Yes. I think, I think you touched on before Vernon with the scarcity aspect, obviously period homes, you know, then they're not building, not doing that anymore. You know, unless we talk about, you know, properties that are eventually becoming period homes, you know, maybe something from the sixties might end up being a bit more desired, couple of decades time, wasn't

Chris Bates: Everything doesn't go into fashion. Now, high rise apartments around the airport or the house and land packages in the outer city in 300 square meter box is going to be a really what everyone wants in 30, 40 years time. You know, I think there's a bit of a danger in sort of that philosophy. You throw out a really cool article. So it's called the mullet house, which is something I try to explain, honestly. So I read that that title is, is so true, right? I mean the business at the front of the house, the bedrooms that, you know, there's bathrooms, those sort of things. And then the potty at the back. I mean, what was sort of something you learned through that?

Daniel Butkovic...: That's exactly right there. I think there'd be, you know, the classic sort of terrace comes to mind that has been opened up to the back with a, with a structural renovation. So I guess, yeah, yeah. As you mentioned, th th th the kind of the nice preserved facade, the front and that, and that open sort of space of the Baxter for entertaining kind of sounds like a mullet. Yeah. Look, I guess that you're getting the best of both worlds there. You're getting that, that the scarcity would that, that period facade or, or the kind of the something that can't be replicated, but you're also getting w with a, with a, you know, a home that's sort of been structurally renovated opened up, you know, you've got natural light coming in, you've got modern amenities, you've got, you know, heating and cooling and fancy kitchen and plenty of bathrooms and all that kind of stuff.

Daniel Butkovic...: So you've created a really great family home. And at the same time you maintain that scarcity. So you can just see in sort of auction results or or, you know, the sales results probably like that that's, you know, been finished to a higher standard. That's always going to have huge amounts of competition, and it might be, you know, a big undertaking to do a renovation like that. You know, it's obviously gonna consume someone's life at some point, but I think you'd find that a lot of the time, people who do that, you know, in the right area it'll pay off,

Chris Bates: He has where the north facing versus the south facing really sort of drills home, I guess, with clients is they say, well, you know where you're going to spend most of your time. What's at the back of the property. You know, that's where we're going to have our kitchen or our bathroom or our pool. I mean, okay, well, where's the sun going to hit that? Well, it's not, it's going to hit the front of that property pretty much all day. And so it's kind of the opposite you want that morning sun, ideally. So that's why it's sort of east at the front west at the back. Is that sorta what you like as well, Veronica in terms of your next best aspect would be, well, it depends where

Veronica Morgan: You are, because I'll tell you why, if you're in Brisbane, you do not want to

Chris Bates: Waste. Yeah. Yeah. We,

Veronica Morgan: We, I mean, the ideal is north facing rear or Northeast facing rear, right? That's, that's the ideal. But I mean, the thing is that if the fall of the land is important, you know, you could be on the higher side of the street with north facing rear, but it actually, the slope is away and the, or it goes up and the house behind you, which has a south facing rebid. It actually still over, over looks your gut. I mean, you know what I mean, this there's, the actual individual blocks can have different problems. And so south facing rear with the sloping away from, from the front of the house is like the double whammy. But some, some properties I've seen with a slightly raised elevated south facing RI actually gets lots of sun. So I think you just got to, and then you've got, gotta be mindful of what your neighbors can do.

Chris Bates: Yeah, that's right. I'll even if you've got a north facing, you could have a huge conglomerate of trees. I mean, we had this conversation downloading yet client facing backyard. I might. Yeah. But we've done the satellite. Have you sort of looked out the back is like, yeah, there's a lot of trees. He's like, ah, yeah, right. And I said, well, you know, you've got to really suss that out. Cause they, you know, that north facing might not be as sunny as you thought. Daniel, we've got a property Dumbo for us

Daniel Butkovic...: Or I I've, I've got one. I don't actually know the, the, the person. So but it's, it's a it's someone I know it's a couple of years back, I was looking at a property for sale. It was in a fairly desirable in a city suburb. It was a little, two bedroom Victorian terrorists had a, you know, a period facade. It was, you know, sort of tired needed a bit of work, but it was, it was a bit of a weird position. It was sort of on a semi main road. It was it was, you know, right in the village near the shops and everything, but it was actually wedged between two different shops. So, you know, it was sort of sitting there.

Daniel Butkovic...: It sounds unique, not scarce. Yeah, exactly. It was, it was very unique. The, the thing that sort of turned me off in the end w a number of things, but the main thing was, it was ha industrial zoning, which was quite weirdly area, but it was, you know, a couple of the surrounding properties also had that. But you know, I was a bit concerned or, you know, you might not be able to do the kind of renovations that you want to do potentially. You know, so, you know, inquire with council and, and, and the conveyancer and, and, you know, and end up being, you know, a bit, bit of a risky option, not really the best option probably wouldn't have a pool of buyers, you know, if you got to resell, but anyway, it looks, someone did buy the property and probably got a fairly decent price.

Daniel Butkovic...: But I noticed a couple of months later that the, the, that were doing some work on the property and, you know, a couple of months after that, there was, it was up for sale. And so, you know, the person's gone to, to try and flip the thing. So I went online, went on domain, how to look at the listing and sure enough, they'd done, you know, fairly extensive renovation of the property that they'd added a bedroom into the attic space, that another bathroom, they made her open plan and open up to the rib sort of kept it within the, the envelope of the building. And I thought, oh, that's, that's great. You know that, that probably is looking, looking a lot better, but it didn't sell very quickly. It was, it was, it was sort of on the market for a while.

Daniel Butkovic...: And I was lingering. I was lingering lingering. And then, and then all of a sudden it went off the market and it didn't sell. And I thought, oh, well, why is no one willing to buy this? Probably is, is it the zoning? What is it? And so I was just curious, I, I stay, I kind of followed the property and did a bit more digging and over time I, what I sort of found out was that I think what's happened is someone's gone to, to buy that property that they've done their due diligence of they've gone to the council and, you know, asked him about the zoning and things like that. And and the, the council have then gone. Okay, so this, this probably, you know, it looked like this, you know, I think it was 2016 or 2017 or whatever, and it looks like this now, hang on, we don't have a record of any development application for this property.

Daniel Butkovic...: So the owner has then the counselors in gone, you know, Hey, on what's, what's going on here, that the ping the owner and the owner had to take the property off the market with a work order to correct various number one, you know, what, why have you done this without, without any kind of approval? Number two, I think that there was something wrong with the staircase, you know, I think they had to replace the whole staircase. So it was, it was, you know, they had to redo all this expensive renovation. They would have lost, you know, the marketing costs associated with that. And eventually they, they, they, they redid all the, all these things and they put the property on the market again, and eventually it did actually sell. And so I was trying to do the numbers and I was thinking, okay, I think they made something like they did add a bedroom.

Daniel Butkovic...: So the property went up in value. I think it was, they sold it for $250,000 more than they paid for it, which, which doesn't sound like much of a, but but you know, that renovation would have cost 150,000, you know, Stanford and 60,000 agent fees would have been 20 to 25. You know, the da would have cost him a couple of grand, you know, fine or anything like that. So, so by the end of it, I think it took them two years in total. They would've maybe scraped by with, with a couple of grand or they may maybe were in the hole. I don't know that they might've been a builder themself and you're able to do it a bit cheaper. So, but, but for two years of work and stress and heartache it doesn't sound like, I think they would've been a bit more successful. How do they have, you know, got approved in the first place and tried to go by the book? I can't, I just couldn't believe someone would try and do a structural renovation of a property, you know, adding rooms, you know, changing the layout and putting new doors and windows and things in without any kind of approval. It's it just blows the mind. So, yeah,

Veronica Morgan: That's going on there? Great Dumbo. And there are, there's a certain, you know, school of people or school of thought who think that asking for forgiveness is way better than asking for permission. And it sounds like that's one of them, oh my God. Well, great Dumbo and great stories around, you know, what's led you to write the articles that you've written, I should say. And, you know, really, I guess how you sought out good advice from bad advice, which is very interesting, but I also think, you know, the way that your mind works has helped you to be quite honest. You've obviously got an inquisitive mind and you've obviously want, hang on a minute, that doesn't make sense. And off you go digging. And I tell you what so many buyers will benefit from just a little bit of that inquisitive nutty when they're doing their research.

Chris Bates: Absolutely curiosity is the most important thing. I think, especially when you're starting your journey, because if you don't have that, then you know, you'll get burned pretty easily in property. You know, there's so many people out there pitching so many different strategies. You had a call with client you're standing, you literally just went through and said all up and spoke to this person. They said, this, I spoke to this person. They said that, you know, I'm just confused. What does it all mean? And what was amazing is you hadn't made any major decisions. He was just sort of fact checking and finding, speaking to all these different people. And then they finally, and later with us, I might go somewhere else after us, but it was a, it was an interesting sort of learning process. And I really encourage people to do that more and more, just keep on getting good sources of information. So thank you, Daniel, appreciate your articles. Thanks for coming and sharing your time with us. No worries. Thanks for having me. We want to make you a better elephant rider and this week's elephant rider training is

Veronica Morgan: Just want to elaborate a little bit more on that concept of owner occupier appeal and the importance of it. I mean, it's one of those things that investors feel like they shouldn't buy with emotion, you know, but the reality is that you need to have a lot of understanding around the emotion around buying property in order to be successful at it. Because the fact is that people do buy with their emotions and even investors, if they're fearful. And therefore, they're trying to allay that fear by, you know, in remedies here doing the numbers that's fee and fear is an emotion, right? So that, that emotion is driving them to try to find research and try to find data to actually support a decision. But the reality is that understanding what dynamics are in a local market. And we talk about this all the time about understanding the micro details, you know, drilling down into a market, understand the local dynamics and understanding what it is about different types of property in any given suburb that local buyers and owner occupies want and what they will actually pay a premium for.

Veronica Morgan: So I might be repeating myself. Who've probably done this sort of bootcamp many, many, many, many times, but the reality is that understanding what the majority of buyers in a particular area, because it will change from suburb to suburb. You know, you're looking for a scarce property and this is where this sort of dichotomy of scarcity and uniqueness and that sort of stuff comes into it. People think it's scarce. Then that means that they can't be many of them around. But like if you go to Balmain for instance, and look for a period home, well, there's lots of period homes there. It's just that the ones who are really good floor plans and great renovations and a good aspect, for instance, they don't change hands very often. And that's where the scarcity comes in. Doesn't doesn't come in because they don't exist. It becomes in because they don't change hands and it comes in. And because when they do change hands, there's always lots of people that want them. And so that's really fundamentally the, the secret of capital growth and the secret of success when it comes to investing.

Chris Bates: And I think you'll find it just different points in time. There'll be lots of terraces for sale in Balmain, for example, on darling street or on Mullins road or on certain roads in certain suburbs that, you know, if you don't have that local knowledge, you just don't know what it's like and what the locals don't want to live on those roads or, or very close to those roads. So yeah, you could get a terrorist in that suburban. Yeah. Got, I mean, that's, how would I get that suburbs growth? And you may get the suburbs growth if you buy it really well in a depressed market and you sell it like, you know, 20, 21, like it is now arguably you may do just as well as the good properties. But so even if you think you've got scarcity, it's the more DB go the better really. And it's sort of just having that real, not perfectionist mindsets, that's impossible, but it's really saying no to most properties because some things you just don't want to compromise on.

Veronica Morgan: Yeah. And it's hard, particularly in a rising market where there's loads of FOMO, people feel the pool to compromise and look, you're always going to have to compromise. You know, there is no actual perfect property, but it's what you compromise on that, that matters.

Chris BatesAugust 16, 2021de-index

Episodes

Episode 189 | Property Advice: Who do you Trust? | Daniel Butkovich, Domain