Matt Spooner on Reading Sydney's Eastern Suburbs Micro Markets

I think the reality of the eastern suburbs of Sydney is that the number one thing you need to understand is that there are micro markets within micro markets within micro markets within micro markets, right?

And if ever there was a place where market knowledge is crucial and specialty advice is important, I would say it's here. Our motto is buy without regrets and so... If you can buy a property that will serve you for 10 years as opposed to three years, that will serve you well and something...

Buying a great property today, that's not just what it's about. It's also getting something that could be ripe for improvement when the time is right for that investor or for the next buyer. You think about, right, lifestyle, what's important to you? How do you get to work?

What do you need for your family? What amenities like parks and shops? Then you look at the budget.

Welcome to Street Secrets. I'm Chris Bates and my mortgage broadcast is 2013.

And in this podcast, we're going to be interviewing Australia's leading buyers agents, ones with decades of experience, have the local insider knowledge on the street, and can really help you with your buying process, no matter whether you're a first home buyer, upgrade or investor.

In this podcast, you'll get access to Australia's leading buyers agents' minds every week on a Thursday. What's the word on the street?

Welcome to Street Secrets. I'm Chris Bates in the studio today with Matt Spooner from Buyers Market Buyers Agents. How are you doing? Good. Thanks for having me, Chris. Thanks for coming on.

I mean, can we please just start with, I guess, a bit of your background coming into Buyers Agency, what you were doing prior and what made you make the shift?

Yeah, 100%. Thanks, mate. Like yourself, actually, was a mortgage broker for about five years before I became a buyer's agent. I've had my business now for quite some time. Certainly grown a lot since it started, but started off in the sort of financial services space or three hours a lot of

You know, work outside, you know, I did a lot of work with, you know, Surf Life Society and a few other organizations, which I was, you know, super passionate about still and today. But Broking was where it started.

I had a great opportunity to work with lots of different buyers agents in that space, which sort of piqued my interest in it. And then the move was a pretty natural one for me from there.

We haven't had any brokers gone buyer's agents on here yet. What do you think that gives you to your client value proposition and how does that give you a bit of a different feel to say other buyer's agency you haven't come into it from that background?

Brokers are a really good, I suppose, avenue to becoming a buyer's agent, I think, because one thing you get as a broker is you're almost and certainly you'd probably agree with this, Chris, You're almost an unpaid buyer's agent in some ways, right? You know, people often rely on you for advice.

You have a really deep understanding of the transaction. Certainly when, you know, if you really drill into it, you can have a really great understanding of things like risk, valuations, all that sort of jazz, because, you know, you're part of that process.

You also get a deep understanding of how the client's really feeling, I think, because often they'll confide in the broker, certainly more than they would the sales agent, because as you'd no doubt be aware, the sales agent's on the vendor's side, whereas the broker, particularly when I started, when buyer's agency was certainly even more so in its infancy than it is now, there wasn't a common concept.

You know, I'm always been an advocate to buyer's agents, particularly, you know, those that are experienced in a marketplace have been helped guide a client through a transaction.

You know, and I think I had a unique opportunity early on in my career as a broker where I got an opportunity to sort of work with lots of different ones. And I think that I saw some great outcomes. I've seen some, you know, not so great outcomes.

And I think that gave me a unique perspective, which allowed me to really define and build a process and ultimately deliver, you know, a best in class service to our clients.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, right? There's some challenges with broking is we are sort of the leading sort of person they speak to prior to the moves. They obviously share a lot of their anxieties around purchasing and what's motivating them, even when they're getting to the contract stage.

And are they stretching too far or how do they protect themselves? And so you do get a lot of experience around the psychology of people's decisions. That next step, though, when you start becoming a quasi buyer's agent for a client, I think that's where

A lot of brokers need to be a bit careful, I say, because there's a whole gamut of thousands of things that they need to learn. And I think partnering with the best buyer's agent is really the much better move and highlighting a client when they're going down the wrong direction.

So when you think about today, obviously, you've got a bigger team, you've got lots of different buyers agents that work all over Sydney, and you've sort of grown it out to a bigger business.

But if you think about your team within the business, today, we're going to focus a bit more on the eastern suburbs of Sydney. And I mean, that's been your specialty. I mean, how do you think about the eastern suburbs? What do you think about breaking it up into different segments and buyer pools?

And what drives that market? Like, how fundamentally do you sort of break it down?

I think the reality of this in suburbs of Sydney is that the number one thing you need to understand is that there are micro markets within micro markets within micro markets within micro markets, right?

And if ever there was a place where market knowledge is crucial and specialty advice is important, I would say it's here.

You know, like if you talk about a marketplace that I'm super passionate about, say, for example, it's, you know, the Eastern Beaches, you know, you really need to understand why is it that something that's north facing on Hastings Parade in North Bondi is so desirable? Is it because it's a nice house?

No, it's because it's a wide street, it's a flat walk to the beach. And the characteristics that probably exist there are actually out of line with a lot of the ones that are in the area.

You know, you look at something like how the eastern suburbs traditionally has sort of, you know, grown over time. And all you need to do is go and look at a contract of sale and go flip back to, you know, the way that sort of land's been divided historically.

And there's no plan, right? So, you know, your average land size in Paddington versus Queen's Park versus Centennial Park versus, you know, Wallara versus wherever it might be, it is completely different. And that's just due to the nature of how Sydney as a beast has grown over time.

It's not without the same sort of urban planning as other cities in the world. And I think what that lends itself to is really the development of these micro markets. And ultimately, one thing I really pride myself on is the ability to

say it's a house in Bronte, I can tell you what it's worth to the square inch, you know, and I know who's in that house and why they sold and all of those little micro details, which often are the missing link, which a buyer, when they come to, you know, the decision to buy, just simply cannot have the access to.

You know, I had a client recently who was relocated from London. You know, we worked through a process with him where, you know, and he sort of felt that he could spawn into the business market and buy, you know, a $20 million house like that.

You know, I educated him at the point in time that we were looking at that time, there'd be nine houses in history that sold, you know, at that sort of price range, right? So you can understand that market knowledge becomes really crucial, particularly when people are buying a principal place in residence.

And it also comes back to, you know, that conversation that you mentioned earlier around how the first port of call is often the broker.

Well, I actually challenge that in a way that I like to think now that I'm on the other side of the fence and I sort of say, hey, you know, when it comes to in-depth market knowledge, the first port of call actually should be the buyer's agent, because if we can get that client 12 months plus before they want to buy and I can use that time to actually educate them in detail on a marketplace, well, the outcome that I can deliver is far better than what they might be able to do if they walk into it unprepared.

They're not going to know when to act, how rare the asset is, what it's genuinely worth. And I think that's what we need to be able to solve.

I 100% agree with you. I think the challenge we often see, which you would have seen when you're a mortgage broker, is that a client would have big dreams of what they want to achieve.

They would go get pre approved and then they would just have a mismatch on what they think they can achieve and what they can achieve. And that pre approval just getting sort of rolled over and time would go and they're looking for a needle in the haystack.

When you sort of reflect on the value you add to your clients, do you find it's a lot of those initial conversations in making sure that their brief aligns not just to what's a good asset, but is really what's going to give them the life they want?

That's not obviously what they experienced, right? Often a lot of they come in and say, hey, you can find me something off market and you can get me a better deal. They don't understand that the true value is actually the opposite.

Off-market purchasing is something which we do for sure. But if you would ask me, is it the main thing that we provide value in terms of client service? I'd say definitely not. I always explain buyer's agent services, it's a little bit like going to a restaurant and there's a menu of things, right?

And the menu of things can be appealing at different times of day based on how you feel and what you might be seeing outside, whatever, right? It's the same in our world. You know, we talked about what we can provide in terms of yes, off market access is one of them.

Detailed, you know, due diligence on an area or a property, that's another. Negotiation strategy is another. Confidentiality might be another. All these things, right? Now, we always talk about the different personas in terms of who we help.

And the fact of the matter is that when we're in a position where we're dealing with all of these different, you know, characters or personas, those elements that are on the menu are actually weighted differently depending on what their unique circumstances are.

And I think the difference between an average buyer's agent and a great buyer's agent is the ability to interpret that and also the ability to really focus on education with the client and help them understand exactly how they need to go about the strategy to achieve an outcome.

It's not just about, hey, find me something off market and I'll pay you a fee. Then if you're a buyer's agent that does that, you may as well be a sales agent. My role, as I always say, I'm very passionate about this is first and foremost, it's an advisory role.

And our job is to get the client the best outcome and really understand what they're facing in terms of a challenge and apply strategy to that.

Yeah. I mean, so you think about the eastern beaches, right? Like intergenerational wealth. There's easy to list 100 reasons why people want to live in that part of Sydney, let alone the world. If you find that obviously unrealistic expectations and just because everyone's got a limited budget, right?

Unless you're the billionaires, but it's trying to match realistically what their budget is to the right asset that suits them is one of the biggest challenges within the East, just because it's just so a street can make a 500 grand difference. A 20% bigger block can make a huge difference.

So is it that? like guidance and really trying to speed up their point from, you know, they're getting their brief aligned to the market. And like you said, showing that buyer through different seven properties have sold in the last five years, but that expectations.

For sure. I think that's a big part of it. I also think that you know, like let's talk about Ben Hurston Beach as a marketplace for a moment, right? It's an exceptionally difficult marketplace to work in, particularly when it comes to buying. I occupy it's a principal place of residence, right?

Now, the reason for that is because in my view, it's an exceptionally immature market. So you look at Bellevue Hill, Ball Clues, Doubleday, Rose Bay, something like that. What you've seen is that that area has carried prestige for a long period of time, right?

And through that, there's quite a number of, you know, sales results of particular figures that, you know, make it quite easy sometimes to justify spending money on property.

You know, when you look at the eastern beaches, particularly, you know, those more premium profits, the challenge is that when you reach a particular price point, you're sort of top of the tree, right? Because there hasn't been sales above that figure.

A lot of them is, you know, I personally live in Tamarena, where I live now. There's a development site in front of me, another one there, another one there. these seven development sites and rebuilds happening around my particular property.

And it's super frustrating in the morning trying to get out of my parking spot. But ultimately what that means is that there's an enormous amount of wealth that's flowing into that area.

Probably the best example that I can give you is right now the suburb record in Clovelly is just over $14 million and it's for a house that's sort of on the beachfront on Eastbourne Road. That is a heritage property that required almost a full renovation.

And then directly next door to it on the identical land parcel is almost a brand new, fully done house, right? So while the sales data might point to that house at $14 million being the suburb record, the fact of the matter is it's really not.

Because there's all of these other properties that are out there and it's actually learning how to, at the micro level, interpret that data to be able to make better decisions around, you know, what something's actually worth when it comes to that purchasing conversation.

I mean, you mentioned there our development sites is one of the things I wanted to touch on. I mean, obviously the LMR reform completely shifted places like Rose Bay, Edgecliff, Double Bay, Bondi Junction, et cetera.

How are you sort of finding that that's shifting by preferences, if at all, or desire for people to sell out of certain pockets and maybe move further down the beaches? Or is the next generation wanting a little bit different to what the previous generation wants?

How do you see the eastern suburbs evolving as the city's always evolving?

Yeah, I think it's very interesting. I think there's a lot of trepanation amongst the community around some of these reforms.

Particularly thing is that, you know, for example, there's new sort of development protocols where they're declaring large apartment developments that are outside of the LMR as state significant and therefore basically tearing up the planning.

know, and I think that what that does is it does start to cast doubt in people's minds around where they should be parking their money. Certainly areas where, you know, take Wallara as a great example. So, Wallara is an area where, you know, traditionally there's been a lot of prestige property there.

You look at the average land sizes of houses, you know, for example, Wollongong Road or something like that, which may very well be directly impacted by the means of government's decision to, you know, put a train station there, right?

Now, if you look at that, certainly if I was, you know, say, for example, I was an expat and I've been living in London for the last 15 years and I was coming back and I wanted to make a decision to park my money in a particular pocket,

Would I have question marks about those traditional areas? Certainly I would. Yeah, absolutely. Right.

And I think what you will find and certainly something that I'm noticing at the moment is those buyers in those categories are probably a little bit more discerning and they're focusing on the areas where perhaps there's that element of scarcity.

So, for example, I bought a wonderful property in Malara for applying on recently that We did an enormous amount of due diligence as to the impact of those reforms on that property. We're satisfied with the fact that it's not going to be negatively affected.

But then again, what our developers just put through is state significant application in an area in Bronte, which no one thought would be impacted by these reforms. Because if you put the map on, it's not in there.

I think the reality is, Chris, you know, I think people need to come to terms with the fact that Sydney is fast becoming a global city, right? And ultimately what that means is there is going to be development. I'm sure you've traveled overseas as I have.

And, you know, the fact that we could be so close to the CVD with such low rise development is almost mind-boggling, right? But I think it's about making a decision when you are buying that, you know, primary asset to focus on scarcity.

It's to focus on, you know, things that, you know, may not necessarily be immediately impacted in that, but then it's also to have strategies in place to mitigate that risk.

You know, like for example, we looked at another property in Willara recently for a client, and we went to the extent of having 3D modeling done on, you know, what would happen if this one went up here, this went up here, what would the impact be?

Because ultimately, I think what you're going to find is irrespective of these reforms, people are still going to want to live in these areas because they are ultimately the premium areas which have the benefit of the lifestyle factors that make people want to be there. And so people will still keep buying there.

But I would much prefer people to do so with a view that it's eyes wide open in terms of their risk appetite. And we may do that. Generally, there's enough data, I believe, publicly available for people to make educated decisions.

Obviously, everyone's been shocked with the reforms, not to say we don't agree with them, but I do feel it revalues markets, right? I mean, I think when you'd be exploring some properties you would have absolutely bought a couple of years ago, but maybe wouldn't want to buy it in the shift, right?

Is it... You know, is that becoming a bigger and bigger part of your job? You know, particularly because you're in such a tight market where, you know, like you said with that Bronte one, like, you have to really consider this deeply.

And particularly when you're paying, you know, millions and millions of dollars for these things, it can really reprice your asset if something negatively comes that you weren't expecting.

I agree with that for sure. I think probably the biggest thing which I actually think people over the book is the practical implication of development, right?

So I'm sure you're on the same social media platforms that I am and there's uproar about this and this is not allowed and how dare they and all this sort of stuff, right?

I think that what I sort of encourage, you know, like I'm in Bromley Surf Club, I know the area, like I've grown up there my whole life. Do I want a big development going on in Bromley? No, I don't.

But I think that one thing is crucial and that is to actually understand facts. And if you're going to argue against reform to actually put yourself in a position where you're not coming across as a NIMBY for the sake of it. It needs to be educated reform.

Now, I think some of these development propositions, and there was a great article in the Financial Review, I think maybe about three months ago, where they had a map up of Rose Bay and they indicated all the current submitted development applications and all of the properties that were currently for sale.

Now, I don't know the last time we went to Rose Bay, Chris, if you live around that area or anything like that, but the infrastructure in Rose Bay is not designed to support that population.

You go down there in the morning now, probably one of the number one complaints that I get from some of my clients that live in that area or perhaps commute to that area because they have kids in Kincopo, Kambala, Cranbro, wherever it might be, is that the traffic as it currently stands is horrendous.

So you're in a position whereby you've got these developers, a lot of reform, et cetera. Building more property is not the problem, in my view. It's the sustainability around population in that particular pocket and what that's actually going to mean in terms of the implication on lifestyle.

Because, you know, as I said, people need to come to terms with my view with Sydney's fast becoming a global city. Are we going to see more high rise development? Yes, we will. But when I talk to my clients about the negative implications of these sorts of things, it's more around

Okay, right now you might like this property in X location because of the lifestyle that it presents. You could walk to this, you can have this cafe, it's quiet here in the morning, this traffic is okay, you can get your kids to school, et cetera.

I think that's definitely a part that needs to be thought about. What does the practical implication of this mean if in five years time there is X amount of apartments in this area, what's going to be like to live there? And I think that's something which people sometimes underrate in terms of this.

And I think the reason for that is because the first sort of port of call is anger. And then they think, okay, well, that looks horrible. It's going to ruin the skyline. Well, sure, it might. But I think that there are actually better ways to argue against it than what it looks like.

It's more about those practical applications of infrastructure, transport, all those sort of things.

Yeah, I mean, I used to live near the regatta at sort of Rose Bay for three years. So I know that area very well. And I mean, you're right.

It's a sort of bottleneck in terms of getting everyone from Volcluse and Dover Heights and Watson's Bay all the way into the city and let alone and schools in there make it pretty awful to get in and out as well because people are having to come into those to drop their kids off.

So I think you're right. It's not a great place to be building a lot of density, but that's what's happening. Right now, people can't envisage it because they just hasn't. But as they start coming out of the ground and people start to see, actually, these are affecting lifestyle. Lifestyle drives prices, right?

Like the livability of a property and the lifestyle benefit is what people are buying. Do you imagine that that's going to drive a lot of people to want to go into, you know, more further down the beaches where typically they wouldn't.

You know, I go down towards sort of Malabar, Maroubra and, you know, and explore a bit more than the quintessential. I just want to be around sort of Bondi and Watson's Bay.

Yeah, possibly I do. Yeah, I think that there's, you know, we have a saying where we talk about, you know, particularly when it comes to beachside market, like wealth flows south. So, yeah, you might say the pinnacle of the Eastern Beaches as a marketplace could be something like Ben Buckler.

So very closely followed by the other side of Bondi and Tamarim at that point there where Kenneth Street. where you've seen some incredible sales and there's some fantastic properties.

But the reality of, you know, the mechanism where those properties are going up and, you know, you've got places trading for whatever they're trading for at the moment, which is, you know, pretty impressive sort of prices.

I think what that does is it encourages people who want similar lifestyle benefits to look elsewhere and, you know, If you look at some of the sale prices recently in a pocket like Clovelly, I think that's a good testament to that. I grew up in Clovelly.

When I grew up there, it was like blue collar. The fact that there is a house around the corner from the house I grew up in now selling for double digits. I think my granddad was literally rise from the dead and you'd be astounded, right?

And it's interesting also, like, you know, there's another pocket that I work very closely in, which is, you know, a little tiny pocket, we call it North Randwick, which is literally about three or four streets.

I remember in 2022, there was one particular sale on, I think from memory, it was Fairweather Street in Bellevue Hill. And at that time, it kind of reset the market. I think from memory, it sold for about $5 million more than what expectations were all those sorts of things.

And it actually shifted a large portion of buyers from that marketplace into North Randwick, because ultimately what North Randwick offered was great amenity. It had access to Centennial Park. Access to the city was okay. School access was still good. You could get to the beach as well. And then

It wasn't long before, I recall the sale, Ben Collier sold property on, I think from memory, it was Govert Street for $10 million. And that was the first time that a house in Randwick had ever traded at that level.

And I think what you do see increasing is that as marketplaces shift and change and prices reach a particular point, it does have a knock on and flow on effect to other marketplaces because those buyers who were initially focused on that area are almost forced to relocate.

And then they go and find something with similar characteristics.

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, right?

Like if people are looking for a certain lifestyle and X market is now too unaffordable, it's not as desirable at that price, then they'll look for viable alternatives and interchangeable, the style of property, the lifestyle, they want a flat block or they want something with a view, they'll look at that.

But you are still working with a really contained market, right? Once you take out the busy roads and the rat runs and the poorer blocks and the south facing rears, do you find that that's where sometimes people get it wrong?

They pivot from a market that maybe they know quite well to a market they don't know and they overlook the characteristics of a new market that they buy on the wrong side of Anzac Parade, for example, and they maybe buy something that's got council housing around.

They just haven't got that same element of discretion as they may have had in that other premium market.

know, while using that example of North Randwick, right? I remember at the time I had a client who was looking in that marketplace and then where we were at one point in the driver's seat to probably be the best buyer in that marketplace.

As soon as you sort of started to see, you know, these buyers who were Belvedere Hill buyers move into that market, well, they were stuffed, right? Because yeah, almost resetting the demographic of buyer in terms of budget. And what that does is it forces people to look elsewhere.

So yes, I think that there is definitely an element of that. I also think that there's probably two factors at play here in terms of your question. And the primary one, I think, is people making concessions on elements of the property that are unchangeable, right?

So I would always encourage a client to concede on perhaps, you know, the quality of, you know, say something is not brand new when that's what they want, that still has, you know, a north facing block versus the south.

I would always encourage your client to buy on the A plus grade street versus the C grade street. And sometimes, to be honest, I've got my work cut out for me.

My probably least favorite client to work with is always the one that says, it's not about the area, it's about the house, because that's a really difficult buyer to work with, because ultimately

you know, they're much more reactive in terms of what's up there and what's being listed rather than focusing on what they should be focusing on, which is, yes, I understand that lifestyle factors do play a big part, but ultimately the fact of the matter is this is your biggest asset and it is, particularly when it's an under occupied place exempt from capital gains and it's exempt from land tax and all of the other factors, right?

So we do need to focus on that being an A-grade asset. And I think that that's probably the biggest thing. And sometimes where I see buyers get really led astray by sales agents because sometimes the best sales agents and by the way, this is not a criticism of them.

I think they're excellent at what they do when they do this. But they get a buyer who might be just at the precipice of the top of their budget in one particular area.

What they do is they take them and they cross sell them into another opportunity that's in a B grade position with the house ticks all the boxes.

Now, I, as a buyer's agent, would always discourage a client from doing that because what's going to happen is that in five years time, that house, which my book knew is going to look the same as this one. And ultimately, I think that that's where I see buyers sort of be

No, no, taking advantage of is probably the wrong word. They're just doing their job when they do that. And I think they do it well, but I think they need to, I think that's where actually the advisory part of what we do comes into the fold, right?

Because they need someone who is a voice of reason to say, guys, you know, this is the mission that we need to stay focused on this. And the reasons for that are because we are looking to achieve X, Y, and Z. And the best way to do that is by following the strategy.

I mean, agents are appointed by vendors to sell properties and to get the maximum sale price. They are looking after their vendors here. They're not looking after the buyer, right? That's not their obligation. That's your job, right? But you're right.

They're looking for that emotional driver, the wounded bull that's absolutely over searching and is willing to look past certain things just to get a deal done. And the emotion element of sometimes properties that are presented well, sort of don't hide the sort of the investment fundamentals that will drive its price.

And I think absolutely that's a value of great buyers. And I think you've put an extra focus on the investment quality element is actually making your job harder. And not to say that's the wrong thing to do. It's the opposite. But actually being patient, persistence and waiting for and discounting properties.

And it's really hard because I imagine obviously you've been doing it for a while. It's getting harder and harder to buy the better stuff because it's harder and harder to move. It's harder to go from a great property to an even better property. How are you sort of dealing with that?

Is it just the realities of trying to scale and you've just got to be really careful on who you take on and just making sure that you can achieve what they want to achieve?

It actually comes back to a real fundamental fair. And by the way, like, you know, probably 80% of my clients are owner occupiers, right? So it's a different sort of, you know, lens almost than an investment style buyer's agent.

But I always talk about the two sort of, you know, types of client, right? Now, Client number one, and I do a lot of work, for example, with expats and those sorts of people, right?

So my number one thing that I want whenever I deal with a client is that I want access to them as early as possible, right? Because in the best case scenario, I would love to be an advisor to them the second they make the decision to do something.

Now, I don't need them to sign an agency agreement or whatever that might be. Whatever that comes down the track. Okay.

But if I can get a climb early on in their journey where they're in a position where perhaps they are yet to form a view on the market, they're not exactly sure where they want to be.

All of those other sort of question marks where they're at dinner, they've got a napkin out, husband, wife, and then drawing out the strategy on the back of the napkin over a glass of wine. But that's not when I want them.

Because the other side of this coin is the other target client, which is the people who are two years down the track or a year down the track. The best popular they ever saw was actually the very first one that they're interested in. They really burnt out in the market.

They hate all the agents. They're jaded. They are not enjoying this process, which frankly they should be. Now that's really hard, right? Because ultimately when we get to that sort of client, we've got course correction around behavior. And we also need to generally, you know, untitch them a whole lot of stuff, right?

That's that part. And I feel really sorry for those buyers because usually what's happened is they have come into this process by way of some sort of reaction, right? And that sort of set off a chain reaction. So they might be in a semi, for example, and they've seen a property come up.

They like it and they go, love that house. I want to buy it. They walk and look at it and they miss it. And that sort of triggers this, hey, now we're a buyer in the market and that sort of stuff. And they start looking around. That's usually how that occurs.

So what we want to try and do is get as many buyers as we possibly can in this sort of first category, which is as soon as you feel like your house is not big enough, as soon as you think about moving back to Australia, as soon as you're considering downsizing, as soon as you're doing whatever, we want to talk to you now because

The challenge that I've got with these clients is I have to be able to get them to a position. If you think about it like it's an aircraft going down a runway, it's a shortcut way to get them to be able to compete with these guys. Okay.

Because if we don't get them quite quickly and ready to compete with these guys, they're in a position where they're going to become one of those guys eventually, right? Because what will happen is there'll be someone there who has been in the market, who's taking the time to develop their own market knowledge.

And these guys will say, well, look, I want to spend time learning before I'm ready to act. And unfortunately, then the market passes them by, right? When we deal with clients in the sort of, you know, first category, the biggest part of our job there, in my view, is actually education.

So it's education on market conditions, education on, you know, what's actually available. You know, a good example of buying a house for a client at the moment in Fuji. We actually went and assessed, using some software, how many opportunities actually exist in that market. How many of them are there, right? Period.

And then we did a study based on, you know, the last few years worth of sales and how likely it is that they transact and when they typically transact.

that sort of stuff you know it's not necessarily gospel in terms of accuracy but it's a good guide right and ultimately what we're trying to do is really focus on getting as many people and from us it's an education by doing things like this podcast for example of really the benefit of that right because if i can get someone there i compare them on the market i can get them you know to solve any problems around finance they're not going to be in a position where they're

They're reacting out based on pure pressure and therefore making a bad decision. But it's also like people that go in and they rush and they buy something and then all of a sudden they need to sell when they end up selling for less because they're in this category.

And that's kind of why I feel like I'm on my sort of mission to solve because I really do feel that there's so much benefit in that transform fight versus this one. And when it gets to this one, we've also got strategies to fix those behaviors, but it's much, much harder.

Yeah, I mean, there's often the one that got away. They should have went harder on that. All these sort of buyer regrets and they've come to you and they're sort of fixated on a reality that's just not possible anymore. And you're sort of having to rewire that.

And they're pissed because the agent lied to them and they said this and they thought they could afford this when they started the process. And now should we even buy anymore? And now they're like completely losing the fact of what they were trying to achieve. you've sort of having to work with.

And I absolutely agree. It's getting in there early. I think that sometimes there's a needle in the haystack, sort of this wishful thinking, I think is, you know, and it's not until that property comes on the market.

I find that that's one of the ironies of a tight market is though, is less good properties come on that entice people to enter the market. And so it's just, sort of self fulfilling prophecy is that I'm not going to move till a better property comes on.

And it's this kind of Mexican standoff effect. Is that something also that's just quite challenging? And so you've got to come up with creative ideas to create opportunities.

I believe you bought things directly from vendors and you've got to really have strong relationships with agents to know that they can actually hunt for you as well. Is that becoming more and more a part of your role?

The main thing I would say about our role is that a traditional buyer is reactive in their approach, right?

So what they do is they have the apps, they wait for something to be listed, they wait for an agent to call them, and then they go on to an open home and then they're part of the process.

You know, in our marketplace, which is unique in the world, but in our marketplace, I don't believe reactivity is good enough. What they require is proactivity, right? And proactivity can be multifaceted. It can be proactively, you know, like, for example, you know,

I understand how many properties exist in the marketplace, proactively targeting those, try and get access to them, whatever. That's one part of it, yes. But then it's also things like, you know, proactively around what does the conversation look like if I did find that property?

How am I going to tidy up the back end? Like, do I have enough of a risk tolerance that I should be able to hold this asset and then buy and then sell after? Do I need to sell first in a long settlement?

Those are the sort of conversations that we want to have with clients. And frankly, I think when you get a really good buyer's agent, they first and foremost are in a position where they view themselves more than anything else as an advisor.

You know, recently I had a client of mine who missed out on two properties. They were both perfect for them. Both of those properties I actually had access to off market. And in both cases, we could have bought it cheaper than what it eventually in trading for after a process was run, right?

And unfortunately for our client, you know, because of the fact that they hadn't sold their existing asset, they just didn't have the confidence to move forward, you know, with the number they needed to at that point in time.

and I actually made the call to stop the search and get them to sell their asset because I just couldn't see them go through that heartbreak again in BC out or something without that confidence and you know what we ended up doing was making recommendation to them to sell their company which they did they saw a look with a long settlement period which had the ability to you know move that settlement so if I found something for them quickly I could do that move the settlements together all that sort of stuff now think about

the psychology of that client in those first two scenarios versus where they are now. Now they're much more, I suppose, engaged in the process. They're much more confident around the numbers they're putting down.

They're also not going to have the most stressful six to eight weeks of their life after they exchange on an upgrade property because then they're worried about tidying up the back end, which actually, in my view, should be six to eight weeks the best time of your life where you've signed about living up to that next category of asset, right?

And I think that that's where we need to start educating buyers. And when I say buyers, it's not buyers, it's actually people. It's anyone that owns an asset, right? It's a single planning process.

And I think people really need the support of good advisors around them, be it a mortgage broker like yourself, a buyer's agent or property buyers like myself, a good solicitor. They should have a good sales agent. They might have a wealth manager or a financial planner.

Once you get that team in place and everyone's aligned and talking to each other, The outcome, in my view, is so much better.

Absolutely. I think whatever industry, you can have a choice of doing a transaction or you can work on yourself, work on your knowledge, work on your skill set and perfect it over time of actually getting really good at adding value to whatever that might be. I mean, the upgrade challenge is enormous.

emotional, it's finance, it's assets, do you sell first, et cetera. And you've got to really try to stress test that really early, right? Because the last thing you want to do is, oh, I can spend X, but you could have spent Y and that means you could have buy now.

And then you're sort of on the back foot. I mean, we're often doing that as well with those clients. It's just really stress testing their budget and giving them multiple scenarios because Yeah, you're actually at the mercy of the market.

I think people have an idea of what they want to achieve, but what they actually achieve is often not that. But by having those thoughts up front, if you think about just the eastern suburbs just generally, is there any pockets that

you really try to avoid with clients or do you think that it's really the whole area is, I guess, worth considering? It just suits different buy pools if you understand the compromises you're making.

Or when you're thinking about the owner occupied market, is there some pockets that you just think I'm a bit nervous about?

Okay, and I'm very respectful of, you know, everyone and anyone that might be listening to my own assets in that area. So I won't say one area is particularly bad. I think that there are certainly pockets that are probably less desirable.

And I think that one of the biggest question marks in my mind right now is the LMR reforms. And I think that it really requires a specialist level of due diligence to be undertaken to really ascertain those risk profiles. So I don't necessarily think that there's one particular pocket that is bad.

I think that I would just encourage people to go in eyes wide open around those particular items.

And then also, I think that the main thing that I always try and prioritise to clients is that sort of broad scope in terms of buyer appeal if they're needing to liquidate the asset down the track, right?

So I always talk to my clients and go, hey, look, if you buy this house in Bronte, for argument's sake, or in Centennial Park, whatever it is, and you say to me, Nat, I've got some real problems. I need to liquidate this. I want to be able to like

get an agent or find a buyer and walk one person through it, they'd buy it, right?

And those are the things where I think if I look at my clients historically, I'm fortunate enough now where a large portion of my business is actually coming from repeat clients now, people that might have bought an apartment in 2021 that are coming back and going, hey, I'm ready to go to the semi or whatever it might be.

Granted, while that would be a client of mine, I remember I bought her an apartment in Bralty. She didn't want to buy it. She was like, it's ugly, blah, blah, blah. And I said, Sarah was like, please just buy it. It's a block of eight. It's top floor. It's north facing.

It has lock up guards. It'll be two seconds away from the beach. I think for memory board, it's something like 1.2 million. The other day it sold for 1.8. And it had those fundamentals ticked, right? The lifestyle element of it was excellent. It was quiet. It was all these sorts of things, right?

And I think that's what you want to focus on. It's just about how do we make sure that this property has the least amount of boards on it as possible?

Because I can tell you right now Chris, like we're in an interesting market at the moment and I'm certainly in a position where I'm really excited about this market because I see it as a really great opportunity for us to have fantastic sort of buying opportunities for our clients.

I also think that this is more than ever a marketplace where you actually need, I think you're actually mad if you don't have a buyer's agent buying an owner-occupied asset in this market because you don't know what something's worth.

You're going to have agents telling you all sorts of things to try and get a transaction across the line, right? But I think the way I sort of see it, you know, you're in a position where you focus on those fundamentals. You've got an A-grade property.

I've been the underbidder on far more properties than I can have mentioned in the last eight weeks. Okay. And every single one of those has been a property where the fundamentals are A or A plus, right? So Great Thorpe Land, Wood Street, you know, one of them was, you know,

the block of units on Ben Buckler, they had probably the best view of Bondi I've ever seen in my life. And it just traded for so much more than what we were in a position to pay for it. And unfortunately, that's the case with those sort of assets.

And I think if whatever scale we're looking to replicate this purchase on, be it a first home or a prestige home or anything in between, the fundamentals of that conversation don't change. And those properties now, like we're seeing apartments that sell really well. Geez, that one sold for a lot. Why?

Okay, because the size of it, the aspect, the location, those things.

Focus on those and oblige your bearer and I think you'll be okay.

Absolutely. I think start with the end in mind, right? And what you want is great, but who wants it in the marketplace? How desirable? How much money have they got? How much can they borrow? How much are they willing to sort of stretch for that emotional benefit or with that property you're purchasing?

you know, if that buy pool is not as big as you think it is, and it just suits what you are like, that's a huge red flag. And I think absolutely, that's great advice, right? It's challenging that thinking. Matt, it's been a good chat today.

Thanks for in the show notes for anyone who's looking to buy some beaches. I think you're obviously in safe hands. So I appreciate your chat today. Thanks so much, Chris. Appreciate your time. Thanks, mate.

Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you got lots of value out of it. If you'd like to speak to our guests today, there's links in the show notes on how you can get in contact.

And if you're buying your first home, upgrading, renovating, or need any finance-related queries, obviously we'd love to help. There's links in the show notes to us as a mortgage broker, and we look forward to next week's episode.