In this episode he takes us to Brisbane’s Morningside, just outside of the CBD. He shares all about his latest off market deal which didn’t grab his attention at first, but after a little digging, its impressive qualities shone through. Its price was a standout in prestigious Morningside which was an added bonus, and in typical Loo style its eventual full valuation was a shocker in all the right ways.

Timestamps:
00:49 | Back in Brisbane
03:37 | A Head Start
07:26 | Morningside Prices
11:48 | Maintenance Requests
14:22 | An Incredible Valuation
17:41 | Using Money Wisely
21:45 | Sorting Fact From Fiction
26:31 | Talking Tiers

Resources and Links:

[00:18:17] [It's] so bizarre, it's just a bizarre set of circumstances. And personally, I love it, to know that there's more to the property world than scrolling mindlessly on realestate.com.au and scrolling on Domain and looking at all these fancy pictures and how these properties have been staged, going to these inspections or Saturdays, basically, what 99% of the population does when they go and buy find deals, find properties. 

This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset and strategies.

 

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode of Invest Like A Pro we’re chatting with founder and director of House Finder, Simon Loo. Back in Queensland for a deal he couldn’t pass up, he shares how to turn $150,000 into $300,000 in no time flat and the value of a good tenant. Plus, he delves into the Queensland land tax debacle that gobsmacked investors across the country.

Tyrone Shum:   

Loo has been on a Perth property frenzy lately, but he’s found that some habits just can’t be broken. He recently received a deal back in Queensland for his client that was almost too good to be true. Located along the Brisbane River in the suburb of Morningside sat a deal neither of them could believe.

Simon Loo:   

[00:00:49] This guy is a very long time client of mine, a serious investor. He's bought and sold and owns multiple properties. He heavily invested in other things as well, such as shares and in businesses and things like that. So, for this particular person, it's purely a money making exercise. 

  

[00:01:23] And I think that sounds obvious. But to be honest, most people don't buy property as purely a money making exercise. I think that most people buy property for the feelgood factor, which is fair. It feels good to own property, [it] feels good to feel like you're making money. 

  

[00:01:40] But for some individuals, they wouldn't care if they bought a bottle of water that could make them a lot of money versus if they could they would do it, right? It's just about purely making money. 

 

[00:01:55] So that's this particular client. It was it was kind of opportunistic in the sense that I see a lot of these types of properties just in what we do. And I've got a certain amount of clients that fit a certain profile, where if the deal is good enough, or it ticks some very specific boxes, I know that I can send it to them, and they will be keen. 

  

[00:02:25] On the other hand, I know that there's also a bunch of clients that I have with a profile where if I sent them the same deal, they would not be keen at all. So different people, different expectations. And different risk profiles.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:02:42] Different appetites.

Simon Loo:   

[00:02:46] And also different levels of where they are in the investment journey. So this particular house... like, I'm known for buying properties on the outskirts of cities, in what I consider up and coming areas. I've talked about this in previous episodes and the benefits of doing that. This particular house is about five kilometres from Brisbane CBD in a suburb called Morningside.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:03:11] [It's] very close to the CBD.

Simon Loo:   

[00:03:15] It's quite a premium area. If you know Brisbane, you know Morningside. It's next to Balmoral and two suburbs away from Bulimba, which is like one of the most prestigious areas in all of Brisbane.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:03:27] I've got projects in Bulimba, which is why I know about it. Those properties are very much, very high upper end, $2 million plus properties, and by the water, as well, too.

Simon Loo:   

[00:03:37] So highly sought after. It came to me as an off market deal. When I looked at it initially, I didn't think much of it. It's probably about a 50 [or] 60 year old home. Fibro. When I looked at some of the older pictures, it didn't look any like anything spectacular. 

  

[00:04:02] But then I started digging a little bit deeper, as the agents who presented this property to me started talking about the seller's situation and what's going on with the property, and most importantly, how much I can buy it for. 

 

[00:04:17] So I learnt that it was a tradesperson living in it at the moment, as an owner occupier. He has owned it for about seven years. And during that time, he's just kind of half heartedly been renovating the property progressively to this point. And the renovations that he's done to date are amazing. 

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:04:49] I saw the photos. It's very modern. You wouldn't ever expect it from the front. I saw the frontal pictures, and I went, 'Oh, this looks pretty ordinary', to be honest. Then you look inside [in] the photos and [think], like, 'Wow, this is very nice'.

Simon Loo:   

[00:05:02] New bathroom, new kitchen, living areas, bedrooms, all that kind of stuff. Now, the particular seller is going overseas very urgently. He's moving to Canada, apparently. And he wanted to sell the house quickly so that he can do so with the funds. I think he needed to transfer the money to overseas where you can buy stuff, I guess. 

 

[00:05:02] I guess the sticking points about this particular house was that the renos were about 80% complete. So there were parts of the house where it needed a little bit of extra work. 

  

[00:05:56] So the house is what we call a... not a high set house, but a mid set. And mid set house is kind of like [where] you've got the main living part upstairs. And then the lowest end is definitely not high enough to be legal height to be lived in. But typically high enough to be, like, a laundry and storage and things like that. 

  

[00:06:19] And [on] this particular property, the block sloped gently backwards. So the further back of the house that you go, the more room there is underneath. 

  

[00:06:29] Now, what this seller has done is he's completely renovated the top bit, the living area's fine. Three beds, the bathroom, the kitchen, living area, all that kind of stuff. It's all good, great. But the bottom bit is half finished.  

  

[00:06:42] His plan was to build out the bottom bit as, like, an extra rumpus room or maybe, like, an extra room just to— not legally to be lived in— but as an extra space. You see this very, very commonly in Brisbane properties, in Queensland properties actually. 

  

[00:06:57] So from my perspective, and for the client's perspective, it kinda doesn't really matter, because you advertise it as a three bedroom house anyway, as a rental. And you can't live underneath anyway, legally. So underneath would just be storage, whether it's part renovated or not, it is what it is. I guess I would consider that the downside. 

Simon Loo:  

[00:07:26] The upside was definitely the price. Now, the property hasn't settled yet. I don't know when this episode airs, but I won't reveal the exact price, but it was below $700,000. Below $700,000 for a three bedroom property— house— in Morningside is so cheap.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:07:49] What's the average? What's an average price point in Morningside?

Simon Loo:   

[00:07:54] It varies. It depends on block sizes, it depends on... I mean, this block size was around about close to 600 square metres anywhere. So it's not like one of those tiny 300 [or] 200 square metre blocks. 

  

[00:08:05] If you look at some of the very nicely renovated houses in in Morningside at the moment, they're around $1.5 million. Some of the ones are a little bit in fact, probably. I mean, we're recording this in October. 

  

[00:08:22] The entire year in Morningside, to date, there hasn't been an actual house that sold for less than $750,000. And this includes, like, really old properties that are completely unrenovated on main roads and all that kind of stuff.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:08:44] The reason why this the price was at this point, under $700,000, was because of situation, not because of the market demand. It's actually because of the situation this particular vendor was in that he needed his money quickly.

Simon Loo:   

[00:08:55] He needed his money quickly. He knew the house was unfinished. And rightly or wrongly, he probably didn't really realise what it was worth, to be honest. So it was a situation where we were presented with this deal, and we knew what we would get it for, so it was a no brainer. 

  

[00:09:24] From a numbers perspective, it's a no brainer. Because there's another element to this, which I'll talk about soon, which was, like, ridiculous. But for most buyers, for most investors, and even my clients, if I were to send this property to them, a lot of them would look at it and say no. Even with the purchase price in mind, regardless of how cheap it was, because it's not a very presentable house. If you look at the front of it, you can tell it's a little bit like an older property. 

 

[00:09:59] And as much as we like to talk about investing in property is about business, it's about making money, it's about cash flow, it's about below market value, all that kind of stuff. Most people still can't. Especially when you're starting out, you still have in the back of your mind, you need a house that's presentable [and] low maintenance. And then you start talking to yourself, as in if you have an older house, you're gonna get really crappy tenants. And it's gonna be headaches and so on. Which I can tell you right now is completely untrue.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:10:31] Yeah, it's untrue. Especially when you've got a renovated inside house, it's going to attract a very good tenant. 

Simon Loo:   

[00:10:37] Even some of the houses that I owned that are super old and they do need work, I've got some of the best tenants in there. They're rented at a certain price point. Obviously, not top dollar. But the type of tenants that live in these types of properties are usually ones that are...

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:10:57] Pays rent on time.

Simon Loo:   

[00:10:58] Pays rent on time, they're grateful for having a roof over their heads. They know they're compromising, like, the absolute cream of the physical condition of a property for paying a much lower market than the market rents. 

  

[00:11:18] And from an ownership perspective, a landlord's perspective, the amount of requests to upgrade this or fix that and fix this is actually a lot lower than you think. [That's] because the houses have been standing around for 20 [or] 30 years. Anything that's gone wrong with them to date that's major has probably happened already. And the stuff that comes up, like leaking taps and things like that, you're gonna get that [done anyway].

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:11:48] That's the usual maintenance things. Yes. 

Simon Loo:   

[00:11:50] What I actually find, now that we're on this topic, is that the newer properties, the fancier ones, you get some silly requests from time to time. 'This tile is slightly chipped', or, did we want to install security shutters? Things like when I say security, I mean the fly screen, like the ones that come down. Or they want an extra air conditioner in, like, bedroom three. Because the expectation is higher. 

  

[00:12:23] Living in a nicer house, everything is nicer around you, and they're paying high rent. So the tenant has an expectation that that level of quality needs to be maintained, and also they're paying premium dollar for it. So they're entitled to ask for more, basically.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:12:47] I think that's pretty normal, not just in property, but in general.

Simon Loo:   

[00:12:52] So coming back to this house. The main and biggest reason why this particular client has jumped at it within two seconds was the valuation. 

  

[00:13:05] So for people that know about valuations and people that don't know about valuations, there's generally two types. There's a desktop valuation from a bank, which is computer generated. And there's a curbside valuation, which is basically someone going out with a pad and a pen and valuing it in person.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:13:28] And when you say curbside, you're talking about full valuation where they go into the house. 

Simon Loo:   

[00:13:33] Yeah, a full valuation.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:13:34] So they go into the house, to the property, and then write a full report. 

Simon Loo:   

[00:13:39] Now with some banks, the desktop valuation, within a certain scenario, can be used to pull out equity immediately. Almost immediately, not like immediately as in the next day, or very close to when you buy property and when you settle the property. This only applies to a certain number of banks. I'm not going to expand on that too much because I'm not a mortgage broker. I'm not an expert.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:14:07] We don't give financial advice.

Simon Loo:   

[00:14:08] We don't give financial advice. If you want to find out more, speak to a good broker, or speak to any broker, plus you need to speak to a good broker that's very investment savvy. But anyway. 

Coming up after the break, he reveals the staggering number the property came in at…

[00:14:22] Bizarrely, the desktop valuation for this particular property came back at a figure.

How and why his client’s risk appetite factors in…

[00:20:33] I guess in many ways you can say he controls the level of risk that he wants to expose himself to.

He lets us in on one of his trade secrets.

[00:23:12] We've done at least 1,000 plus properties at this point in time over the years. So I like to say we've got a bit of a knack for how we negotiate. 

And that’s next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

Loo and his client utilised their combined investment savvy to acquire the Morningside property under market value, yet still found a surprise waiting for them at the valuation.

Simon Loo:   

[00:14:22] Bizarrely, the desktop valuation for this particular property came back at a figure, which is $1.045 million.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:14:32] That's substantial.

Simon Loo:   

[00:14:34] Just think about the scenario for a second. We paid less than $700,000 for this property, where a desktop valuation from the bank came back at over $1 million, over $300,000 more. Over a third— is that over 30%? More than 30% of what we paid. And this was even before the property settled. 

 

[00:15:04] Obviously, this particular client [is] very experienced, very investment savvy, so he knew what to do with it. He knew which bank to go with, he knew how to pull this equity out pretty much immediately. And the goal was to buy the house, pull out hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity, and use that equity. I don't know what he's going to do with it, I won't get into that, but he's going to reinvest it, whether it's in property or shares or whatever.

  

[00:15:35] So if you look at it purely from a black and white perspective, we bought this house genuinely below market value, but even in real dollar terms, not just this desktop valuation. But he's actually— because he only put 20% down— he's actually getting more money from the property than what he's putting in to buy it.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:15:58] It's almost like 100% ROI.

Simon Loo:   

[00:16:02] Basically I'm gonna give you $120,000 [or] $150,000, whatever it is to buy the property. Just to buy anything. Not even to buy anything. I want to give you $150,000, and you're gonna give me back $300,000. 

  

[00:16:19] I think from his perspective, it's kind of like, 'Cool, I get to own this house which is genuinely below market value. And now I've got all these extra funds that I pay interest on, bank interest, which is not that high'. If you know anything about getting any loans, you know that a bank is basically the least that you can pay. And he's gonna use this money to maybe reinvest into another area or another property or another shares that's going to bring him even more return. So it's kind of just like a tool just to get some free cash, really. 

  

[00:16:58] I don't want all the listeners to go out and start just calling brokers and trying to do this. Because it does take a certain level of risk appetite, a certain level of experience, a really solid team of people around you to be able to do this effectively. 

  

[00:17:25] And to be completely honest, there is a bit of an element of risk, because even though we bought it for below $700,000, we know that it's not truly worth $1.045 million.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:17:40] Not right now.

Simon Loo:   

[00:17:41] It's probably worth around about $800,000 ish to $850,000 ish, but [we] still got a great deal. But if your purpose is to use this desktop valuation to try and get equity out, and you actually successfully do so, you have to be very careful with how you use that money. 

  

[00:18:01] Because if you use it on non investment reasons, or maybe very risky investments, you're putting yourself in a massively risky position, because you now owe more money, you're over leveraged on this property. 

  

[00:18:17] [It's] so bizarre, it's just a bizarre set of circumstances. And personally, I love it, to know that there's more to the property world than scrolling mindlessly on realestate.com.au and scrolling on Domain and looking at all these fancy pictures and how these properties have been staged, going to these inspections or Saturdays, basically, what 99% of the population does when they go and buy find deals, find properties. 

  

[00:18:52] When there's these really weird situations, odd situations, if you know how to spot them, if you know how to analyse them, if you know how the the finance system works, like it's so much more out there.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:19:14] And this is the key thing is knowledge. We've kind of pretty much mentioned it too. It's not something that just for the beginner to start off with, it's it's actually more for someone who's sophisticated, who has experience in this realm, has been doing it before and plus also is looking to use these funds to reinvest. And he's obviously going to try and make money on top of the money that he's actually going to draw out. 

  

[00:19:35] So it's not for everyone. And obviously as Simon has said, you've said to me that these type of deals [are] not for everyone because everyone has different risk appetites. 

Simon Loo:   

[00:19:43] They're not for everyone, but watch me get bombarded with calls, going, 'Hey, Simon, $300,000 worth of equity. I don't care if it's real or fake'.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:19:58] I want my cake and eat it too, please.

Simon Loo:   

[00:20:04] I think the kicker is this. Assuming he doesn't use this equity. Let's just say he bought it without even pulling out the equity. He could sell it, literally on the day of settlement, on market property, proper marketing campaign, maybe even spend the money to finish the reno and still make a huge chunk of cash. 

  

[00:20:33] I guess in many ways you can say he controls the level of risk that he wants to expose himself to. So that's important. And I think this property will rent for about $600 a week, as is. Which isn't mind blowing cash flow. But for Morningside and close to the city, if you do research, you'll see that it's not bad yield, either.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:20:58] I mean, ultimately, this seems like an interesting play is that if he holds his property on for long enough, especially in the up and coming suburbs around there, as I mentioned Bulimba, I know they area well, because I've got development sites I've worked with, they're averaging about $2 million to $2.5 million properties there. 

  

[00:21:15] And Morningside being so close to it, it is sort of the rollover kind of property. And if you hold on for, like, 5 [or] 10 years or so, there's a good chance that those properties will probably rise to those levels. 

  

[00:21:25] And we've seen across in multiple different areas. Not saying that this is guaranteed to happen. But it happens quite frequently across metro cities as well. And I think that's the thing that Simon seems to pick really, really good areas and very much undervalue, which I really, really admire, because these are amazing case studies to be able to share with listeners.

Simon Loo:   

[00:21:45] I think a lot of people associate distressed sellers [and] below market value properties, to really bad locations. And I think this is an example of that's just simply not true. 

  

[00:21:57] You've got people in distressed situations in the most prestigious suburbs, anywhere in Australia. People are in positions where they have to sell. People are going bankrupt, people are losing their jobs, people are getting divorces, people are maybe struggling somewhere else, and they have to let go of some assets to pay off debts or deceased estates, whatever it is. It's not about... you know, we never take advantage of a person's situation. We never say, 'Oh, they're losing their job. Let's go in with a $100,000 offer' or whatever.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:22:37] You've got to look at it from a point that you're helping them because at least it helps their situation.

Simon Loo:   

[00:22:43] Maybe helping is not the right word. Because they're obviously needing to sell.

  

[00:22:49] It's kind of like, 'You're in this situation. I'm ready to go. I'm gonna do it with as little fuss, as within whatever timeframe you need, to your circumstances. Let's make a deal happen at this price'. And that's how a lot of these deals come about.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:23:08] Strong negotiation from your part, too. Don't forget.

Simon Loo:   

[00:23:12] We've done at least 1,000 plus properties at this point in time over the years. So I like to say we've got a bit of a knack for how we negotiate. We actually did get a further price reduction on his house off the building and pest inspection, which we are known known for now, I guess. And yeah, it was just a good deal.

 

[00:23:40] And I think timing was very, very good as well, because as I'm sure all the listeners have heard, there's been a huge faff with the whole Queensland land tax debacle, the debate. And at the time of recording now, recently, it was revoked. So they decided not to proceed with this land tax, that they were going to tax investors to own property from other states and all that kind of stuff. 

  

[00:24:12] And this evoking happened right in the midst of us putting this deal together. So I think at that point in time, and I was telling my own clients this, 'Don't panic. Don't make any rash decisions'. Because there was a lot of panic for people that owned property in Queensland, to be, like, 'This is it. This is what's going to cause mayhem and the market to go to spiral down' and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of people sold as a result, urgently.

  

[00:24:49] And I was telling them, 'Don't do that'. Because you can just see it was never going to be viable. We're digressing a bit into this land testing, but it was never going to be viable. There was no way could be consistently implemented. 

  

[00:25:05] So anyway, lo and behold, it turned around and suddenly there was a boosted interest in the Brisbane market again, in the Queensland market. So anyway, I think that that helped us during the sort of transition, or the knowledge that this land tax wasn't going to go through. I think that could be part of the reason why the seller ended up deciding to sell pretty quickly, pretty urgently.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:25:40] There was urgency behind it, and the situation as well. But what's also interesting is that the impact of rates. I know we're digressing here, but it's actually just wanting to sort of point this out is that it's also had people in the market concerned. 

  

[00:25:53] And especially with rates are going up, even though it's not a large portion, because I mean, I've lived through rates where it's been 8% [or] 9% [or] 10%. And it's gone up to about 5% to 6% at the moment, depending on which bank or which lender you're with at the moment. 

 

[00:26:08] But the thing is to put a lot of fear into the market, and therefore prices apparently dropping quite substantially. So I think it's still probably a little bit more early stages to see what's going to happen. But I can sort of see that the Reserve Bank is just trying to slow things down to reduce the transactions that are happening, but from your point of view, Simon, what are you seeing on ground?

Simon Loo:   

[00:26:31] It's two tiers minimum. The what I call the 'Keep up with the Jones' tier' is really taking a hit. When I say 'Keep up with the Jones' tier', you've got a lot of average income earners, times two. So you've got a household of, like, your mum and dad, maybe both earning $100,000 a year in their jobs. 

  

[00:26:58] Before this whole interest rate rising inflation thing was happening, these families had no problems leveraging as much as they [could] to buy a property that they deemed to be acceptable from a suburb quality perspective. Basically, they wanted the best. And they didn't have any issues with borrowing as much as they could to do it. 

  

[00:27:30] Those buyers now are not only getting spooked by the fact that interest rates are rising, and they're actually realising that they can't afford to borrow that much. But the borrowing capacity has been impacted as well. They actually can't. 

  

[00:27:48] So that kind of middle tier, I would say around the $1.5 million plus [to] $2 million ish to $3 million market in major capital cities is experiencing a bit of a shock wave, a bit of a slowdown. And in some areas, even going backwards quite noticeably. 

  

[00:28:17] However, during times like this— and this is literally history repeating itself— housing at the end of the day is a necessity. For people like myself and yourself and even our listeners, people consider housing, and looking at it from an investment perspective. 

 

[00:28:37] But for most people, they're looking for houses to live in, especially in major capital cities. So what's happening is people are just looking at cheaper options. They're looking at more affordable options, they're looking at options where they don't have to borrow as much but without making too much of a compromise in terms of lifestyle, and the suburb quality, being close to X, Y, Z, all that kind of stuff. 

  

[00:29:03] And the markets that I operate heavily in, affordable housing markets, they're actually... I don't want to say demand is increasing. But it's at the very least extremely consistent. Any houses that get listed are selling within days with a lot of demand a lot of interest. 

  

[00:29:27] Mostly from owner occupiers. For me, that's a really good sign as an investor. I love it when most of the people around the properties that are buying or the properties that I own as investments are bought by emotional first time buyers, owner occupiers, and young families. Because that tells me growth is coming.

  

[00:29:48] Not only just the monetary growth as in, like, the prices of houses, but also the quality of the suburb.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:29:57] It improves.

Simon Loo:   

[00:29:58] When you get these influx of young families and you start to see the cafes, you start to see the houses getting cleaned up, maybe older and cars on lawns and things like that.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:30:15] Because people want to take care of their home. And I guess ultimately when they take care of their home, it makes the whole suburb look better. I mean, you can definitely see a huge trend that's changed in the past. I remember Redfern was an example. A lot of those homes there were very rundown, due to Housing Commission and so forth, but as soon as a lot of private owner occupiers bought it, they did quite substantial renovations to them. And now they're very popular and very in high demand.

Simon Loo:   

[00:30:40] Same thing with [the] inner west, all of the inner west, I mean, I guess people call it character now. Before, they called it graffiti.

  

[00:30:55] So it's interesting how an area can change over time due to gentrification. So I'm noticing these sort of more affordable housing areas may tend to [inaudible], and also from a rental perspective as well. We've all heard about the rental crisis. I personally think that it sucks if you're a renter, it's going up. 

  

[00:31:17] But I also feel like it's something that everyone kind of should have seen seen coming. And if we use Sydney as an example, the property prices have increased exponentially, whereas rents have stayed relatively flat over that same period. So it's only going to be a matter of time before it starts catching up. Not like for like, not one to one. But the increase is to be expected.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:31:17] And that's across the board with anything. I mean, with inflation, with the cost of living, everything's increased. Unfortunately, wages haven't increase, which needs to [happen].

Simon Loo:   

[00:32:00] That could be coming soon. I have no crystal ball. But I guess time will tell. But yeah, I mean, these areas, these affordable housing areas, the rents are increasing. 

  

[00:32:14] We bought this house. I was thinking maybe we should talk about this on another episode. But this house we bought in WA, in a suburb called Erskine, which is south of Perth. 

  

[00:32:30] It's a four bed, two bath, two garage about 15 year old brick house. Single storey. Very standard. Very, very, very standard house. We paid $395,000. We anticipated the rent to be about $450 a week. That would have been amazing. 

  

[00:32:48] Three days after buying it, after it's settled, it rented for $520 per week. And that's just purely because of the amount of people that [are] moving to Perth at the moment. I mean, $395,000.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:33:07] That is very affordable. It's the same as what happened when in Sydney, prices went up so much that people started moving up the coast, moving up to Brisbane, and hence that all started to push those prices up as well.

Simon Loo:   

[00:33:20] That's 77% yield off the bat. I think if you're an investor, and a lot of people are umming and ahhing at the moment, 'Should I buy now, should I wait?' 

  

[00:33:35] What's gotten me to a point, especially in my early days, when I was buying my properties, to get my initial chunk of passive income, I was paying about 6% [or] 7% interest rates. So anyone will be thinking that will be a terrible time to be buying. 

  

[00:33:51] But only because I was consistently moving forward at that point did I expose myself to the impending boom that happened. To the point where it enabled me to make a lot of equity and all that kind of stuff. 

  

[00:34:06] So I would say it is always a good time to buy, irrespective of what's happening in the world. But you just need to be selective about what and where you buy. And most importantly, especially in this day and age, during these times, your number one priority is to get bargains, is to get a good deal, because they are definitely definitely out there. 

  

[00:34:31] Now is not the time to get emotional and fall in love with the house and overpay, because that is extremely risky. Focus on the numbers, focus on the areas that [are] affordable that people need to live in, focus on areas that are next to gentrify, focus on the cash flow. Cash flow is so important. And I think over over time, you'll do well.

Thank you to buyer’s agent Simon Loo, our guest on this special episode of Invest Like A Pro presented by House Finder. 

Also, for being a loyal listener of the podcast, I’ve asked Simon to offer a free 1 hour strategy session normally valued at $500 to help you put together an actionable property plan.

To get your free strategy session, simply visit housefinder.com.au and fill out the contact form, or call Simon directly on 0415 626 342 and quote “Property Investory”.