Insights & Resources
Expert analysis, market trends, and practical advice for property investors
Ordered and grouped by the latest substantive update. Original publication dates remain visible inside each article.
Everyone asks about the 'popular' suburbs. But popularity and profitability are two very different things. Here's what the data actually says about Point Cook, Clyde, and Camberwell.
Someone asked me about 'Kilsyth' and spelt it with four letters in the wrong position. The suburb is better than the spelling. Here is a rapid-fire breakdown of the suburbs people keep asking about — what works for investment, what works for lifestyle, and where the numbers say you should put your capital.
Not every cheap suburb is a bargain. Some are cheap because the market has weighed them and found them wanting. Here are five Melbourne suburbs I actively steer every client away from.
Every buyers agent has a list of suburbs they love. Nobody talks about the ones they hate. Today I name five — Werribee, Clyde North, Clyde, Laverton and Kalkallo — where vacancy runs as high as 8.9%. With data.
Everywhere I look online, someone's mocking the middle class for wanting a better life. Upgrade your house? Irresponsible. Partner stays home? Reckless. Private school? You deserve what's coming. Since when did wanting a decent life become a character flaw?
I'm not being dramatic when I say the middle class is splitting in two. The data from the ABS is brutal. If you own property, your net worth grew by $320,000 on average over the last five years. If you don't, it grew by $8,000. Same country. Same economy. Wildly different outcomes.
Port Hedland: $900-$1,200 per week rent on a $500K house. Sounds like a dream. Until you realise the same houses sold for $1.5M in 2012 and lost two-thirds of their value in three years. Mining town property is a high-yield weapon — brilliant for experienced operators, catastrophic for everyone else.
Thirty-million dollar question for bargain hunters: what's the difference between a $300K house yielding 6% in a mining town and a $300K house yielding 6% in a regional hub? About twenty years of heavy metal soil contamination and a population that could fit in a cricket ground.
I drove past the site last week. The landscaping is in, the tenants have moved into the granny flat, and the first rent payment has landed. This is the point where the spreadsheet becomes reality and the numbers either hold up or they do not. They held up.
The Mercedes parked in the driveway tells you something about the type of tenant who rents a property configured for dual occupancy. It's not the profile most people imagine.
Every election cycle, someone floats killing negative gearing. The media runs with it. Investors panic. And then nothing happens. There's a very specific historical reason for that — and it hasn't changed.
The debate about scrapping negative gearing is framed as taxing the rich. The data tells a very different story about who actually claims it and who would actually suffer.
Your accountant told you negative gearing saves tax. That's Level One. What they probably didn't mention is that the ATO wants some of it back when you sell. That's Level Two. Level Three is where the real money is.
I've started calling them the 'high-net-worth poor'. On paper, millionaires. In practice, one unexpected car repair away from a margin call on their life. If that sounds dramatic, wait until I show you the balance sheet.
I used to think off-market meant gold. Then I went through three years and hundreds of off-market listings. Now I know better. Let me save you from the same expensive education.
There's a single data point that predicted Glen Waverley's stagnation, Box Hill's decline, and Hampton Park's outperformance. It takes three minutes to calculate.
A Sydney-based investor with holdings across Australia came to us with one gap in his portfolio: Melbourne. No time to fly down every weekend. Needed a team that could find, buy, renovate, and manage—end to end. We delivered three properties across three suburbs in under 90 days.
A subscriber asked me to analyse a Point Cook property — 620 square metres, four bedrooms, $930K. On the surface, it looks solid. Beneath the surface, the numbers tell a different story.
The era of buying any property and watching it appreciate 20% in twelve months is done. What replaces it is harder, more disciplined, and infinitely more profitable for the people who treat property like a business instead of a punt.
I've watched 50,000+ followers make the same offer mistake: blindly increasing their price when the agent says it's too low. One question changes the entire negotiation.
I keep hearing people say they'll buy when rates come down. The historical data says that's one of the most expensive mistakes you can make. Let me show you the charts.
Every property commentator has an opinion on whether the RBA will cut or hold. Most of them are guessing. There is a free website that aggregates the actual bets of professional money market traders and converts those bets into a probability of the next move.
The rental yield looks incredible. Six percent, sometimes seven. The entry price is low enough that your deposit covers it. And some YouTuber is telling you it's the next big thing. Before you wire that deposit, let me show you what actually happens when the mines close, the workers leave, and you're stuck with a house nobody wants to rent.
I have spent more than most people's house deposit on renovating a single property. Along the way I made two mistakes that added tens of thousands to the budget, and I did two things right that I now recommend to every client.
Page 20 of 22 · 511 articles total
Want a new feature?
Tell us what to build next — get free Beta access.
Share an idea →