If that's really true, then why isn't everyone who buys into the 'location' successful?
But, if 'location' isn't the key to successful purchases . . then what is?
It was this question that led me to the development of a powerful NEW selection process . . .
The ONLY selection process that delivers high performing property for every budget level . . .
It also protects buyers from purchases that will be a financial drain or that will impede financial independence, and helps them avoid the buying traps that are embedded in the usual property acquisition process.
It's really the way purchases should be made so that buyers save time and will be in a better financial position after the purchase.
And it works no matter what you're buying including your home, residential investment or commercial properties.
For most Australians, property is their biggest source of wealth whether it's through buying their home, residential investments or commercial property.
Research conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that buyers with at least one property were 96% financially better off in retirement off than similar aged counterparts who didn't buy property.
But, not everyone wins when they buy.
A robust selection process is the pivotal difference.
Buy well, and you will build that nest egg sooner. Buyers using the new selection process will achieve financial independence 60% quicker than the average Australian property buyer.
The process has helped people recover from bad purchases, kick-start their property portfolio and rapidly build a nest egg which delivers an income stream that continues long after the needs of the owner have been met.
This means you can build an asset that can be passed on to family and friends after you no longer need it.
When your income is taken care of, you can decide whether to keep working in a role you love or stop working in a job you hate and start doing what makes you happy.
No matter what budget you're starting with, the system will help you achieve your targets efficiently, while minimising risk and maximising the control you have over your future.
And I'm not talking about using negative gearing or depreciation as 'strategies'.
Why? Because there's a much more straightforward way to be successful.
I was chatting with Michelle, a work colleague, who was studying a 'hot suburbs' list in preparation for her first property purchase.
When I asked why she was doing this, she replied "Well . . because property is all about location, location, location."
I smiled, but my heart sank for her. I knew she was destined to get on that heavily marketed treadmill that would lead her to purchase an overpriced, underperforming property. Which is exactly what happened.
It was clear Michelle was part of a rapidly growing number of people who were buying property using outdated 'rules'.
At the time, all I could do was hope she would avoid being caught by the 'duplex dupes', 'off the plan' or 'house and land' cons.
That exchange was the tipping point for me to develop a system that would help people like Michelle.
A client of ours had referred a friend, Justin, to me. Justin was about to sign a contract for a 'house and land' package for a purchase price of $499,999.
The property was in a new development and was a three bedroom, two bathroom, one garage design on a 350 sqm block of land.
Let's set aside the fact that it would be 12 months before the property would be built, but the purchase also came with a rental guarantee of 24 months at $400 per week.
In Justin's mind this was a no brainer, sure thing deal.
We found him a property in a neighbouring established suburb with an asking price of $400,000, and tenants already in place paying $450 per week.
The property's features included 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, three garages with an easy potential conversion into a granny flat, on 1,000 sqm of land within 1 km to the local train station.
Justin and Michelle were purchasing investment properties, but the process delivers superior results when purchasing homes so you're sure to be the successful neighbour in my earlier example (where one neighbour triples their results while the other hits trouble).
That's because all other purchasing approaches are either based on sales price data or are just designed to put money in everyone else's pocket but yours.
This is a major problem in Australia, as one of our main pastimes is to check suburb sales performance on a regular basis.
Given this collective obsession, there's quite a few service providers who hype the 'location, location' decision making approach, and then sell location sales history reports.
This is because the data is drawn from each State and Territory's Revenue Office and a sale has to be settled and registered before the data is finalised.
Most sales have a six to eight week settlement period, so by the time the sale hits any database, the suburb prices are outdated.
This is because within each suburb there are multiple markets. At best, you'll see the price for houses and units, but this is basically useless information.
Why? Because you need details on how four bedroom houses are performing over two bedroom houses, or which street is undergoing a development phase and has tonnes of opportunity in it.
This is a major point many buyers miss . . . buyers need to purchase property that matches their property type.
For example, my idea of a hot suburb with be a suburb that has plenty of properties needing renovation or sub-division.
But many clients I work with need properties that don't need anything done to them because my clients are busy with their full time roles.
And there's one more absolute kicker as to why sales prices and 'hot' suburb lists don't work . . .
Those lists are just a record of history . . .NOT a predictor of where prices will go next.
Sales prices are a lagging indicator of future property performance. To determine where prices are heading, you need to use completely different information.
And this is the reason the breakthrough approach you're about to see is totally different . . .
The reason why so many buyers make bad purchases is the huge number of bad advisors in the market.
The main type of operator trapping buyers are those who are lured by huge commissions paid by developers, and they spend large amounts of money to dress up the properties they're pushing.
Incredibly, they can be successful in selling a dream by using beautiful brochures and live mock ups but in most cases the property will never look as good in real life as it did on those brochures.
Perhaps you recall the news about the decaying Mascot and Opal Towers in Sydney? The problems are occurring throughout Australia and aren't limited to high rise . . there's extensive issues with house and land constructions as well.
If you haven't heard this story check out this link where the ABC Four Corners investigated the issues.
This includes shonky advisors who masquerade as buyers agents, when they're actually just selling from a list.
They will say they've shortlisted the best properties, but will surprisingly only be able to present you with new property where they're receiving huge commissions.
It's not unheard of for these people to receive more than $100,000 in commission per property so it's definitely worth the effort they go to in order to convince buyers they're getting a bargain.
These operators will do everything in their power to deflect you from considering other better quality and more reasonably priced properties that might even be right next door.
While nowhere near as bad as the 'pretend' buyers agents, a buyers agent who can't help you acquire property in the best suburb for your needs from the 15,000+ suburbs in Australia is limiting your opportunity for financial success.
Not because they have bad intentions, they just won't know better opportunities are available to you.
This area of the industry is becoming increasingly more professional and reliable. But, good or bad (and let's admit it . .there's still plenty of bad agents), a real estate agent's job is NOT to help a buyer.
They're employed to get the best possible price for the owner of the property they're selling.
So, while the good ones will be as helpful as possible to you when you're making a purchase, it's the agent's responsibility to use the full range of their skills and tactics to entice you into paying the highest possible price for each property.
Of course, the bad agents will do whatever it takes to minimise any problem issues with a property and pressure you into making decisions you would otherwise not make.
Rest assured, with this band of 'helpers' you will have a very limited chance of being the most successful property owner in the neighbourhood.
But the reality is that buyers who wait on the sidelines for the 'best' time to buy either regret waiting and then jump in when the market is scorching hot, or continue to wait while losing huge amounts of money and opportunities.
This is even a bigger lose v lose situation at the moment because interest rates have never been lower, so one of the few ways to make money is through good property purchases.
They're using sales data and suburb performance information . . which, as we have discussed earlier . . is a useless indicator for predicting where the market is heading.
The reality is the quicker you take action, the quicker you will achieve your goals.
You don't need to time the market with the system we use, because our process identifies properties that will perform in any market.
So you can either act now and start securing your financial future, or continue to let the years tick by leaving you with a shorter window for building that nest egg.
Buyers were given sales information by the agents, but I'm betting you can guess how reliable that information was.
So I had to use other information to help me decide when, what, where, and which property to buy.
I already knew why I was buying . . partly just because I loved property, but also because I learned early that property could deliver massive financial benefits.
At the time, I was working in a corporate role for a major global law firm. The role demanded killer hours, but I loved the work.
Geoff was also working long hours so whenever we had some down time we preferred to enjoy ourselves by going to restaurants, catching up with friends and getting to the beach as often as possible.
We had recently returned to my home base after living in Brisbane for a little over 10 years and I loved being back in Sydney.
We were both really busy, so I started looking to find someone who could do the heavy lifting to help us make our next purchases.
In my mind it should have been easy enough. Buyers agents were starting to become a little more prevalent, so I thought it would have just been a matter of finding someone we could build a good rapport with and that would be it.
I covered every, single, service provider, company and 'property expert' I could find – Australia-wide.
I've lived in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney so I knew I didn't need to limit myself to where the buyers agent was based.
I still remember that feeling of sinking despair and shock realising that no one could provide the type of service I wanted and needed.
Plenty of people would talk up their game, but it wouldn't take me long to see they didn't have the experience or knowledge to select high performing property.
But at the time, I had zero time to moan about my situation apart from the few minutes I would have while waiting for those 2am corporate global meetings to get started.
In the end, I gave up and just chose a guy referred to us by one of Geoff's work mates.
Big mistake. The guy – Greg - wore us down and we purchased three properties which were presented as great cash flow opportunities.
Ugh.
He hadn't actually searched for us - with our specific criteria in mind.
I should have known, because he spent so much time hyping up the purchases he didn't have time to put any effort into searching.
There's so much more to this story, but the great outcome was I developed my own system for selecting property and have now been in business successfully using this system for our clients for more than seven years.
And there's still no other company that can do what we do.
I know because our clients tell me . . .and also because I monitor the market : - ).
But most buyers become so overwhelmed with the choices, they become trapped by bad advisors and are funnelled into thinking they have only one or two options.
Part of this, of course, is wishful thinking because most buyers have very limited time to devote to property research so it's easier to believe whatever marketing hype is getting the loudest airtime.
So time poor buyers end up paying too much for properties that won't deliver maximum results.
Or worse.
These poor buyers end up purchasing properties that become a major financial burden and many never buy another property again.
Your future depends on the choices you make, so wouldn't you want to ensure you're selecting from the full range of properties that match your requirements?
The system we use will help you select the best property type and strategy that will deliver on your goals, so you'll save time by focussing on purchases that will work best for you.
This is absolutely crucial and one of the pivotal mistakes buyers make.
For example, if I hear there's termite damage in a property, that property gets a gold star on my list. However many clients I work with simply don't have the time for renovations so they need property that will deliver from day one.
Buyers will often find themselves following what their friends or family have purchased, or they'll read about one strategy, such as 'house and land', that's spruiked by a guru.
From this point we can identify properties that will outperform the market, so clients can securely leverage their financial position.
Using this approach, clients are in a position of control so they aren't pushed by the market or 'the media' . . . or outdated sales information (ha!).
They can buy when it's the optimum time for them or when the best opportunity arises.
You saw how people using my system have been able to recover from a bad purchase, kick-start their property portfolio and then rapidly build a nest egg which delivers an income stream that continues long after the needs of the owner have been met.
Think about that. Our system delivers an income stream that will outlive you.
This means you would be building an asset that can be passed on to family and friends after you no longer need it.
When your income is taken care of, you can decide whether to keep working in a role you love or stop working in a job you hate and then start doing what makes you happy.
No matter what budget you're starting with, our system will help you achieve your targets efficiently, while minimising risk and maximising the control you have on your future.
The way I see it you have three options...
Option #1: Do absolutely nothing and continue on as you have been until now.
If you already have enough to retire on and you're not worried about running out of money during your fun future years . . .
Then maybe you don't need to use our system.
But if you'd like to speed up control over your financial future, that leaves you with two other options . . .
You can try to stay ahead of economic changes and leading indicators of the property market . . .
Then use the same methods most people use and continue to compete for property that will be a bit of a gamble.
You can hope you've done the right thing and that you might be lucky. . .
If you're willing to work hard and spend hours in front of your computer, then more hours on the phone chasing real estate agents and even more hours in the field viewing properties in person, you might be able to pull it off.
I'll put my proven selection process to work for you.
I'll do the legwork and we can discuss the collated shortlist we've prepared for you that meets your criteria as well as our property agility matrix.
All you need to do is participate in a 30 minute meeting once a week.
Go and enjoy your weekend . . .
Then watch your bank balance and equity grow.
Of these three options, ask yourself . . .
What's going to be easier and more enjoyable for you?
That most people will say they want to retire rich, but that very few will actually make it happen.
It's a natural law of financial wealth and classic tale of the wilful and the wishful.
Most people will keep dreaming . . .
While the few who are actually serious about their financial future and know they want to avoid pitfalls and road bumps will seek out proven, expert support.
As you've made it to this part of the story, I think you're one of the few who are looking for the best way to move forward.
If I'm right and you're still with me . . .I'm ready to offer you a 30 minute strategy call where we can discuss your targets and see whether we're a fit for one another.
Only you can decide.
