341 | How To Pivot Your Investment Strategy When Affordability Changes

Folks, it’s no secret that property prices have seen a significant uptick – so what does this mean for your investment strategy if you can no longer afford to buy investment grade locations that are close to the city?

See, if you’ve read our book The Armchair Guide To Property Investing, or heard any of our earlier episodes, you might have heard us quote particular price points that now seem, well, a bit ridiculous.

You might’ve thought, “A $650,000 property in inner city Melbourne… what? They’re now over a mill, guys…?”

Or, “Where on earth can I buy a property for $450,000 in this market!?!”

 Or, “You said to aim for inner city properties with owner-occupier appeal, but now you’re talking about regional markets… what’s the deal?”

We hear you. And we get it.

That’s why today we’re doing a deep dive on how to pivot your investment strategy when affordability changes!

Make no mistake – the fundamentals DON’T change… but you need to be both smart AND realistic about the locations that are available to you, whatever your price point may be.

This is a Q&A episode you don’t want to miss – we tick off A LOT of key property investment questions that we’re confident will allow you to find success no matter what your price point is! Plus, we’ve got some new frameworks on how to navigate land tax, learn when it’s time to SELL (yep) and best practices to manage your money without dedicating your life to managing a spreadsheet….

Tune in now – and let us know what you think!

 

P.S. Yes, Ben is actually in his CAR when we’re recording this episode… find out why in the first five minutes 🤣

 

Free Stuff Mentioned

• Get The Recap Of The First 20 Episodes Your Binge Guide to the Foundations of Property, Finance and Money Management
• Leave us a SpeakPipe message
• SRP – Location Research Tools
• Free Sell or Hold Sample Report
• Free Book — The Armchair Guide To Property Investing – How To Retire On $2K A Week
• Free eBook — Make Money Simple Again – Financial Peace In LESS Than 10 Minutes A Month

 

The Questions

Question From Valarie on Tips For Money Management

I bought a course and really love I’m also through the Make Money Simple Again book. I have one question: How do you apply the Money SMARTS system to a couple? At the moment we have separate accounts, something like 12 accounts between the 2 of us. How do you change that to fit into the system? Do you go with one family account and 2 debit cards account and 2 credit cards account or is there another configuration that you recommend? Many thanks in advance for your feedback Tips and Have a Great weekend. Thank you!

 

Question from Kiran on Land Tax and Different Entities

Good day Bryce, Ben, Stiggy and the team. My name is Kiran, I’m from Melbourne. I was listening to your podcast a week or two ago and you spoke about an active, investor Bruce in this episode who had land tax issues because he was investing in the same state. All investments are in the same state. I understand the active investor issues but from what I understand, all these investments were possibly in his personal name. What if Bruce was able to invest in different entities for examples companies or trusts? Each entity would then be completely separate and hence reset the amount of land tax he had to pay. Can you unpack the issues as to whether this is a worthwhile strategy and other differences with finance? I understand that commercial finance is required for companies which results in less favourable LVRs. Are there any further issues that someone looking to invest using companies or trusts to reduce their land tax bill may encounter?

 

Question From Mathew Monty on How To Buy Assets Closer In On Combined $100k Income

Hi Guys, I love the Podcasts. I just got a couple of questions regarding investment grade/investment stock – more for people like me that don’t earn that much money. Can you buy with an income of $100,000? So I’ve got a property that’s got good equity and we went out and we bought another property for investment, probably just investment stock in Truganina. So 20-something kilometres from the city, I know it’s not investment grade like you just talked about. However, I wonder how people on say $100,000 a year in combined income could afford to get into those inner-city areas? I don’t know if that’s possible. Given our situation that we’ve bought a new investment stock property, where do we go from here?

 

Question from Dimitra on The 6-Part Framework That Reveals It’s Time To SELL!

Hi guys, Love your podcast. I listen regularly on the drive to and from work, and recently purchased your audio book which has been super informative. You always share a lot of knowledge when it comes to finding and purchasing an investment, but would love more information on what to do if you’ve bought a lemon! Most of the things you tell us to avoid applies to my investment property. The apartment was purchased off the plan in an area where supply exceeds demand and the property price hasn’t increased since it was purchased back in 2017. And to make matters worse, since Covid and the bad publicity new apartments have been getting, the property has gone down in value. There are tenants in the property currently and I have to contribute an extra $50 per week towards the mortgage (principle and interest)

The positive is that the property is in Sydney, 12km from the CBD and a 10 minute walk to public transport. This purchase obviously happened before I discovered your podcast, but what should I do?

Should I hold the property in the hope that it will eventually increase in value, or is there no other option but to sell and cop a loss?

Any advice you can give would be much appreciated. Many thanks.