Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: James Kirkby, Wealth Editor at the Australian. Welcome aboard everybody.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the problems of being an investor,
Speaker 1: a property investor, in a share markets investor doesn't really matter,
Speaker 1: is that we're so focused on the details sometimes we
Speaker 1: actually lose sight of not so much the big picture.
Speaker 2: Because we're probably across the big picture.
Speaker 1: We know where rates are, we know where settings are
Speaker 1: on the global economy. But some of the things that
Speaker 1: we've always assumed, like when you go and buy a property,
Speaker 1: or you rent a property, or you go to sell
Speaker 1: a property, you'll assume you assume that it's all fair
Speaker 1: and square, and you assume that there are certain rules
Speaker 1: that everybody follows. And that may not be the right
Speaker 1: thing anymore, because we have this sort of avalanche of
Speaker 1: scam and forgelan activity online which I know is taking
Speaker 1: a lot of time for readerstate agents now every day,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about that a bit with
Speaker 1: our guest. Also, the assumption that we assume that everyone
Speaker 1: wants to buy a property. Everybody wants to buy a home,
Speaker 1: they want to own their home. We may not be
Speaker 1: right about that either. I want to look at these things.
Speaker 1: I want to take a quick look at some of
Speaker 1: the issues in the market and some great questions. My
Speaker 1: guest is Kitty Parker. She's from Kitty and Miles Buyers Agents.
Speaker 1: She's a regular on the show, first time this year.
Speaker 2: How are you kidding?
Speaker 3: I'm good, James, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good?
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Nice to have you on. I
Speaker 1: know we're both struggling through fairly warm days in both
Speaker 1: Sydney and Melbourne today, so it's nice to be in
Speaker 1: the studio, in the calm, cool studio. No, I prefer
Speaker 1: to be right now, let's put it that way. Tell me,
Speaker 1: I've come across this mostly from people who are in
Speaker 1: the customers, if you like, our investors. But I did
Speaker 1: talk to your reader state agent recently and they were
Speaker 1: talking about how much time they were spending and worrying
Speaker 1: about the commonplace transactions that they were involved in because
Speaker 1: of online scams and fraud. Tell me what you're seeing
Speaker 1: in your world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, I am seeing sales agents being a lot
Speaker 3: more shrewd when it comes to sending out, say, their
Speaker 3: trust account details for buyers. In particular, to pay their deposit.
Speaker 3: So that's one thing I'm seeing via both email and
Speaker 3: text message. I've had some sales agents say that their
Speaker 3: messages have been intercepted. It's beyond my scope as to
Speaker 3: how the scammers do that, but they intercept an email
Speaker 3: or message and tweak bank details, so an unwitting third part.
Speaker 3: Typically a buyer paying a deposit thinks they're doing the
Speaker 3: right thing. They make their deposit payment, they share a
Speaker 3: transaction receipt. Everyone thinks it's fine, but lo and behold
Speaker 3: a few days later, when the funds are meant to
Speaker 3: show in the bank account, they don't show. So the
Speaker 3: scammers are getting a lot more technical. And it's predominantly
Speaker 3: cyber scams.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and in all is it in all sorts
Speaker 1: of it's actually in sales because that's where they real
Speaker 1: money is at. Presume rentals to that extent would be
Speaker 1: just mediocre as far as the scam is concerned. But
Speaker 1: you got big licks of money going through in proper transactions,
Speaker 1: often from people who are not used to dealing with
Speaker 1: big licks of money. It's in some ways it's like
Speaker 1: a personally hunting ground, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It really is, because typically the buyer is sending a
Speaker 3: deposit to a new bank account, and they're sending a
Speaker 3: large deposit, so you know, this is a six figure
Speaker 3: deposit it and it's usually to someone that's not already
Speaker 3: in their address book, someone that they haven't sent money
Speaker 3: to before. So it's really ripe for these scammers to
Speaker 3: come in and intervene at that stage. Whereas a rent
Speaker 3: payment is usually a direct debit payment, so the agency
Speaker 3: controls the debt, Whereas this can be especially if you're
Speaker 3: doing a bank transfer. I should say it's less when
Speaker 3: it's involving a check or deft payment. But this is
Speaker 3: a traditional bank transfer paying for the deposit for a property.
Speaker 2: And that's the most common way.
Speaker 3: Yes, still it still is in Sydney. It is becoming
Speaker 3: a lot more common to use deft payment systems, which
Speaker 3: is like a BP system. The most common one is
Speaker 3: auction pay and it becomes it's safer, it's more encrypted,
Speaker 3: it's a safer method, but that's still regulated and only
Speaker 3: allowed to be used at auction when the buyer is
Speaker 3: there in person. So yeah, so behind the scenes, if
Speaker 3: you're if you've had a pre auction offer accepted and
Speaker 3: you're sitting in your office and wanting to make your
Speaker 3: bank transfer into the sales agency trust account. That's where
Speaker 3: the hackers come in. The scammers come in and they'll
Speaker 3: intercept text messages or more frequently emails. It's also happening
Speaker 3: with conveyancers. Conveyancers are seeing because at settlement, that same
Speaker 3: buyer will be transferring quite a large amount of money
Speaker 3: for settlement into a conveyances trust account. And that's another
Speaker 3: way the scam is a intervening.
Speaker 1: So if I'm buying a property or I'm involved in
Speaker 1: a property transaction, doesn't matter as an investor or a rockypier,
Speaker 1: and you're on my side as an advocate, and it's
Speaker 1: such a responsibility of but you're If I ask you
Speaker 1: what's the best way to a void being scammed in
Speaker 1: real the state, what would you say to me?
Speaker 3: I would say, any bank account details that you're provided
Speaker 3: via either text message or email, give the sender a
Speaker 3: quick call on the phone and reconfirm those digits. It's
Speaker 3: as simple as giving someone a quick call and saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: the BS and B I've got is one, two, three, four,
Speaker 3: five six and the account number and you just confirm
Speaker 3: that the number that you have received via email or
Speaker 3: text is in fact correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, such a good idea, killy, because while you're in
Speaker 1: the middle of property transactions, you're so fed up with
Speaker 1: signing forms you think it will never end in the
Speaker 1: but in fact it's probably just two times the deposit
Speaker 1: and the rest of the money. There's two big moments
Speaker 1: that you're exposed, and it's not that hard to call
Speaker 1: someone and do that. Great advice, Thank you very much, Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that you've come upon in that area that
Speaker 1: our listeners should be aware.
Speaker 3: Of, typically speaking as the real estate industry. As all
Speaker 3: industries become more digitally mastered, what tends to happen is
Speaker 3: the hackers come in. They'll try and intervene with emails
Speaker 3: in particular, So any email that you receive, whether it's
Speaker 3: your offer has been accepted, quickly transfer this amount of
Speaker 3: money to the following bank account before you miss out.
Speaker 3: Things like that. So these scammers are really becoming aware
Speaker 3: of how the real estate space is becoming more digital
Speaker 3: and relying on digital communications and transactions in particular, and
Speaker 3: so they're stepping up and and intervening there. And I
Speaker 3: think the industry is just a little bit as most
Speaker 3: industries are. They're often playing catch up in the cyberspace.
Speaker 3: It takes scams to happen a little bit before then
Speaker 3: they'll come in and they'll say close off that loophole.
Speaker 3: So unfortunately, we're seeing the scams occur first before we
Speaker 3: have anything really done, before.
Speaker 1: The regulators catch up. Yes, nature of the Beast, isn't it? Yes? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: very interesting. That's really interesting and worth hearing, folks. It's
Speaker 1: something that kind of comes up on the show fairly regularly,
Speaker 1: but I happened to herd. It's sort of articulated in
Speaker 1: that fashion before just what's going on. But you can
Speaker 1: see in property investment and property transactions, as we said
Speaker 1: at the start, or all the large amounts of money
Speaker 1: being transferred between people who don't typically transfer large amounts
Speaker 1: of money to each other, the perfect area for scammers
Speaker 1: to move in. Okay, we'll take a short break and
Speaker 1: we'll be back in a moment with another issue that
Speaker 1: we want to bring.
Speaker 2: You up to speed with.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm James Kirby, well the edits. You're at The Australian
Speaker 1: talking to Kitty Parker, a Buyer's Advocate operating in Sydney
Speaker 1: but operating nationally for Kitty and Myers Buyer's Advocates, who
Speaker 1: has been on the show many times. Hey, Kitty, the
Speaker 1: other thing you were keen to bring up was that
Speaker 1: issue about whether gen Z even want to be homeowners.
Speaker 1: Do you have some compelling evidence that they don't, You know.
Speaker 3: James, it's funny that you mentioned this. I wrote a
Speaker 3: blog post recently on this topic, and I started this
Speaker 3: blog post with the assumption that gen Z no longer
Speaker 3: want to be homeowners. And I'd spoken to a few
Speaker 3: gen Z and they seemed very disillusioned with the a
Speaker 3: housing affordability, especially in the capital cities.
Speaker 1: Not so much that they believe they can't be Yeah, so.
Speaker 3: They're very much given up on even the idea. So
Speaker 3: I had mistakenly assumed this to be the case. But
Speaker 3: then when you do a deep dive into data and
Speaker 3: you look at ABS data and domain data, it actually
Speaker 3: shows that gen Z that a good two thirds actually
Speaker 3: do still want to own their own home. They're just
Speaker 3: not sure how they're going to go about it and
Speaker 3: whether they will be able to But the dream actually
Speaker 3: is still alive even in that generation. They do want
Speaker 3: the security of being a homeowner and not just a
Speaker 3: rent vestor. It's actually about having their own principal place
Speaker 3: of residence, being able to call their home their home.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, I did it. I did you call it
Speaker 1: a blog? I still like to call it an article
Speaker 1: for The Australian some time ago, but that had been
Speaker 1: some weeks ago. On the bank of mom and Dad,
Speaker 1: always an interesting issue, but there was actually some real
Speaker 1: data which had been put together, and the part that
Speaker 1: caught my eye was the report said that it is
Speaker 1: now common. This is a Richard shellback at UBS Investment Bank,
Speaker 1: so you know, pretty serious operator, pretty serious bank. Global
Speaker 1: Investment Bank did a survey and they found out that
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars was a regular payment from parents
Speaker 1: to their children as opposed to their child right so
Speaker 1: to their offspring in terms of getting into the property market.
Speaker 1: And it was the first of hard numbers i'd seen hon
Speaker 1: it ever, and it just so happens that's a twenty
Speaker 1: percent deposit anyway on many properties in both of the
Speaker 1: larger cities and the other cities increasingly. But that figured
Speaker 1: trouble you would you say that figure is reliable figure.
Speaker 1: Does it sound too high?
Speaker 2: Too low?
Speaker 3: Is that that's really interesting that you say that. I
Speaker 3: a sort of blog will say article, I just finished
Speaker 3: an article a couple of days ago that I'm about
Speaker 3: to publish where I dug into the mortgage space their
Speaker 3: data and found that sixty percent nationwide in Australia, sixty
Speaker 3: percent of first home buyers last year utilized the bank
Speaker 3: of mom and Dad sixty percent.
Speaker 1: This is the majority, Yeah, the majority.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that certainly goes hand in hand with the
Speaker 3: data that you have. It's a substantial amount of first
Speaker 3: home buyers are really needing to leverage the assistance of
Speaker 3: their parents to eat, to get a foot in the door.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things that that work was that
Speaker 1: when they did this survey, they asked several thousand parents
Speaker 1: and whatever you wanted, however you want to call it,
Speaker 1: children of parents, adult children of parents, how much did
Speaker 1: they get from the Bank of moment, Dad and the
Speaker 1: UBS servey. One of the interesting insights, accidentally insights from
Speaker 1: it was that the parents get a bigger figure than
Speaker 1: the adult children gain. Wow, so in general the figure
Speaker 1: was higher. They asked the parents, how much did you
Speaker 1: give Jack or Jill the figure was higher, but if
Speaker 1: they asked Jack or Jill, the figure was lowered. What
Speaker 1: does it tell you was I think it tells me
Speaker 1: that they are they'll take.
Speaker 2: The money, but they're uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I can imagine that, especially, you know the stereotype
Speaker 3: with gen Z. You know when you hear from gen
Speaker 3: x's and boomers, gen Z they're lazy. You know, they're bloodging,
Speaker 3: they're entitled, et cetera. I can imagine, you know, your
Speaker 3: pride is hit if you're if you're working twenty something,
Speaker 3: especially early thirty something, I can imagine it's really hard
Speaker 3: concept of of going to your parents and even asking
Speaker 3: for help, let alone accepting the help from your parents
Speaker 3: as a grown adult.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did an exercise in the course of that,
Speaker 1: and I looked at the first house I bought, which
Speaker 1: is still there, more or less unchanged, but it looks
Speaker 1: at things from the outside, and I just made the point.
Speaker 1: I did the numbers on the averages in the city
Speaker 1: and the salary at the time, and then the average
Speaker 1: salaries now, and I mete out there. At the time,
Speaker 1: I was on a salary of fifty thousand a year,
Speaker 1: and I bought this house and today, if either of
Speaker 1: my children wanted to buy that house, they would have
Speaker 1: to be on a salary of three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: one thousand, And I was for ever thirty and there's
Speaker 1: very few thirty year orows on three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: one thousand. I mean the average is one hundred. It's
Speaker 1: three point seven times the average. So you can see
Speaker 1: any way, they shouldn't be embarrassed. Why should they be embarrassed.
Speaker 1: The numbers are gone crazy and they're fortunate. The other
Speaker 1: thing I wonder, I bet you never come across this
Speaker 1: all the advisors and the lawyers say, oh, you should
Speaker 1: have a loan agreement, you know, with your children, and
Speaker 1: there should be stage payments and.
Speaker 2: All this stuff.
Speaker 1: I bet no one does that. I would say, no one.
Speaker 1: I bet it's very rare.
Speaker 3: I've seen that. Yes, I've seen parents while they're dealing
Speaker 3: with their convincing solicitor as part of making the purchase
Speaker 3: kind of together with their offscring, setting up on the
Speaker 3: side that legal agreement regarding the loan and the repayments, etc.
Speaker 3: It's just a lot more lax than you know, obviously
Speaker 3: within an official lender. So the repayments are far less.
Speaker 3: Usually there's no interest, or if there's interest, it's just indexation.
Speaker 3: You know, at the moment in indexation, you know, and
Speaker 3: interests is you know, only a little bit cheaper than interest.
Speaker 3: But usually it's it's very basic. But I have seen
Speaker 3: those documents drawn up.
Speaker 1: I wonder how often if I wonder, even if you
Speaker 1: did it, I sounded terribly facialistic here. I wonder, even
Speaker 1: if you did it, like, how many people would actually
Speaker 1: follow through? H see, so you have all their writing,
Speaker 1: but how many people would actually follow through and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're in breach of the agreement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you basically have to take your child. You'd have
Speaker 3: to go legal. You'd have to get legal advice and
Speaker 3: take your child to court. And I don't think if
Speaker 3: a parent is willing to loan their offspring the funds
Speaker 3: for a property, I highly doubt that same parent would
Speaker 3: troll their child through court.
Speaker 2: It's I think you're the quote.
Speaker 1: I didn't guess you are the quote. I didn't get it.
Speaker 1: That piece very good. Yes, yes, I can see exactly
Speaker 1: where you comes from. And I think it's the case.
Speaker 1: Mind you listeners, if there's anyone out there who says no,
Speaker 1: that's not the case at all. You guys are too soft.
Speaker 1: Knuckle down. Do some agreements. Look the agreement I had to,
Speaker 1: well it worked. If you have had such an experience,
Speaker 1: please let us know the Money Puzzle at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot au. Okay, well take a short break.
Speaker 1: We have some very good questions and we'll be back
Speaker 1: with you in a moment. Hello and welcome back to
Speaker 1: The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby talking to
Speaker 1: Kitty Parker. Now question here, Katy from Nathan. I'm considering
Speaker 1: moving abroad this year and if I do, I need
Speaker 1: to rent out my one bedroom apartment. I know everything
Speaker 1: you say on the podcast is general information, not advice.
Speaker 1: Thank you for reminding me of that, Nathan. Everything we
Speaker 1: say it's general information not advice. But are you or
Speaker 1: your guest able to speak about the pros and cons
Speaker 1: of paying a property management company to look after this
Speaker 1: as opposed to doing it yourself. I'm aware of the
Speaker 1: added cost of using a property manager and recall you
Speaker 1: saying from experience that the one you can be given
Speaker 1: can at times be very Okay, thank you, Nathan.
Speaker 2: With all sorts of property managers.
Speaker 1: I had to fire property managers here.
Speaker 2: And there along the line.
Speaker 1: They're wildly different in their abilities. It's a tough job.
Speaker 1: Not everyone wants to do. Is there's an argument that
Speaker 1: they don't get very well rewarded for what is there really?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a tough gig property management, especially at
Speaker 1: that sort of where we say the lower end of
Speaker 1: the residential ladder in one bedroom apartment. That's you know,
Speaker 1: that's the typical tot of thing that probably not many
Speaker 1: people want to manage, Nathan, compared to shall we say
Speaker 1: a fourteen million dollar you know, a luxury property on
Speaker 1: Sydney Harbor.
Speaker 2: So kitty.
Speaker 1: First of all, on property management, very roughly, what would
Speaker 1: the people expect to pay? It used to be something
Speaker 1: like seven to nine percent of the income. Is that
Speaker 1: more or less there?
Speaker 3: It depends on the shape. Different states have different norms.
Speaker 3: So if you're in let's say you're in Sydney, you
Speaker 3: may get you may be able to negotiate around five
Speaker 3: percent five point five percent including GST. If you have
Speaker 3: more than one property, it might be even less than that.
Speaker 3: And then you go to areas such as say the Act.
Speaker 3: So in Canberra it can be eleven percent, fourteen percent,
Speaker 3: South Australia eight percent, eight point eight percent, and Queensland
Speaker 3: tends to be if you do if you get a
Speaker 3: good negotiated deal, seven percent, So it does. It varies
Speaker 3: widely the management fee, but you can also negotiate not
Speaker 3: just the management fee, but all the say, the monthly
Speaker 3: incidental fees, things like an an monthly administration fee or
Speaker 3: an end of year report fee, or all the generic
Speaker 3: fees that they'll often tack into a managing agency agreement.
Speaker 3: It's really handy to negotiate those because every bit that
Speaker 3: you can reduce remove completely, that's saving you over the
Speaker 3: life of your property investment.
Speaker 1: Okay, why on earth would Cameron be twice a year
Speaker 1: as Melbourne, the same people on the around in the
Speaker 1: same sort of city, with the same sort of numbers.
Speaker 2: What said about it?
Speaker 3: I'm actually not sure. And quite ironically, the rental yield
Speaker 3: in Canberra tends to be quite good. So not only
Speaker 3: they making more money purely because the weekly rental is higher,
Speaker 3: but they're taking a higher percentage.
Speaker 1: So maybe it just competitive up there for a long time.
Speaker 1: Possibly competitive these days, that's for sure, the prices they
Speaker 1: have there now. But specifically to Nathan's question about are
Speaker 1: they worth it? Nathan, I couldn't see how else you
Speaker 1: could do it. To be honest, this isn't against no advice.
Speaker 1: Didn't mean this to be individual. All the Nathan's in
Speaker 1: the world, flying overseas to all the countries in the world,
Speaker 1: I would say, how on earth could you do it
Speaker 1: with that one? Unless you've got some awfully good could
Speaker 1: probably want to be paid anyways.
Speaker 3: I would say the same thing James, that when the
Speaker 3: going is good and your tenant is there and they're
Speaker 3: paying rent, I absolutely understand considering why would you pay
Speaker 3: an agent to manage it, But really you pay an
Speaker 3: agent to manage for when stuff goes hairy. So it's
Speaker 3: when the rent is in arrears, when you need to
Speaker 3: evictim or when a tenant decides they're leaving and you
Speaker 3: need to release a property and have open inspections and
Speaker 3: things like that. So if you have a long term
Speaker 3: tenant in place, that's fine, as I say, but it's
Speaker 3: when things go a bit hairy or there's a change
Speaker 3: in circumstances. That's when if you're located overseas, you'd be
Speaker 3: really grateful to have a professional on the ground to
Speaker 3: be able to undertake all the necessary dirty work for you,
Speaker 3: so to speak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but even not necessarily even dramatic, but just the
Speaker 1: sheer routine nature of so many things. If you're overseas
Speaker 1: and time difference and everything else, I.
Speaker 2: Think will be very difficult.
Speaker 1: I think it will be very difficult to try and
Speaker 1: run things from another country. And in my experience, there's
Speaker 1: something you can't really put money on. But I have
Speaker 1: come across people who had investment properties and they were
Speaker 1: perfectly good investment properties, and they basically they gave it up.
Speaker 1: They packed it in and you say to them what happened,
Speaker 1: and they said it was too much work, just too
Speaker 1: much trouble, all that hassle.
Speaker 2: Well that's the.
Speaker 1: Idea of the outsourced property agent, that they are in
Speaker 1: charge of the hassle. By the way, One thing, listener
Speaker 1: is if you've never done it, it's not as simple
Speaker 1: as it's not as simple as you pay them and
Speaker 1: they never call you. Unfortunately they want you to make decisions,
Speaker 1: but at least it all comes through the one call,
Speaker 1: so you don't have different people calling you. And some
Speaker 1: people have a practical thing where they just say to
Speaker 1: the property agent look, any item under X pick a number,
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars, one thousand dollars, doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Don't bother calling me.
Speaker 1: So if someone says, oh, you know, the tap fell
Speaker 1: off the sink or something, we have to put it
Speaker 1: back on. It's going to cost two hundred dollars, you
Speaker 1: need to call me. Some people have arrangements like that,
Speaker 1: and they're probably very practical a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: unless you're really tight and you need to watch every penny. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: the final question talking about you mentioned you.
Speaker 2: See different states with different norms.
Speaker 1: Here's a we'll call it a question, though it is
Speaker 1: something of a complaint as well. Hey, folks, the prize
Speaker 1: regular listeners will not be surprised to know that this
Speaker 1: is to do with Victoria. Here we go, real question
Speaker 1: from Jane. All questions you read, obviously, but this is
Speaker 1: so hard evidence from the ground about what it's like
Speaker 1: to invest at the moment in Victoria, and one of
Speaker 1: the reasons perhaps that it's the state with the worst figures.
Speaker 1: My brother owns a two bedroom house in Inner Melbourne,
Speaker 1: which was originally his home, has been rented out for
Speaker 1: a few years due to Victorian landlord rules. He recently
Speaker 1: had to pay two hundred and seventy dollars for a
Speaker 1: minimum standards ordit of the property. The report deemed his
Speaker 1: property to be non compliance based on the following issues
Speaker 1: see attached photos. This is a very thorough letter, folks
Speaker 1: from Jane.
Speaker 2: Bathroom, bedroom, deck, arranda.
Speaker 1: Various problems, mold in, silicone and grouse. You see that
Speaker 1: this is what we call getting down to brass tacks
Speaker 1: here in the money puzzle. So Jane says, he is
Speaker 1: being required to immediately rember these issues in order to comply.
Speaker 1: I consider these to be minor home maintenance issues which
Speaker 1: could be fixed with a lick of paint. She says.
Speaker 1: I appreciate these rules are intended to ensure quality rental housing,
Speaker 1: but none of the issues were ever raised by tenants.
Speaker 1: My brother is now considering selling the property as he
Speaker 1: could make better use of the money elsewhere. Perhaps disincentivizing
Speaker 1: investment properties is the outcome the Victorian government seeking what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on these rental rules? Yes, and she
Speaker 1: makes the point that my brother might have shocked around
Speaker 1: for a more lax assessor. Yeah, okay, Well, I don't
Speaker 1: want to get into the particular details of that case
Speaker 1: or any case, but it would seem to be indisputable
Speaker 1: now that Victoria is the weakest property market in the country.
Speaker 1: It has the worst price performance, it has the worst defaults,
Speaker 1: it has the lowest investor activity, and it does coincide
Speaker 1: with a lot of taxes. There is now ten state taxes,
Speaker 1: two new ones come in on January the first, and
Speaker 1: a lot of regulation. And it would seem that a
Speaker 1: real problem around the country is this lack of standardization.
Speaker 1: I mean, Kitty just talked about that you can pay
Speaker 1: twice as much for a property manager in Canberra as Sydney. Similarly,
Speaker 1: you could hit a whole pilot rules in Victoria that
Speaker 1: you don't get hit within other states and people. I think, Kitty,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you arvertisee that that's the most natural thing
Speaker 1: in the world, you would think for investors to do.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. If you're looking to purchase an investment
Speaker 3: property or hold an investment property, wouldn't you look for
Speaker 3: the state or the area where you're not only looking
Speaker 3: for growth and all those figures, but you want ease
Speaker 3: of holding and you want to minimize your you want
Speaker 3: to maximize your tax deductions and minimize your tax liabilities.
Speaker 3: But I also I also understand flipping the coin. I
Speaker 3: understand that, as you mentioned, the lack of regulation, the
Speaker 3: standardized regulation in the country. Once you have the housing
Speaker 3: prices move where they've moved and we have a very
Speaker 3: tight rental market. I think it's highlighted the difficulties also
Speaker 3: for tenants. That tenants always had little quips here and there,
Speaker 3: but you definitely hear more so in the last few
Speaker 3: years that I feel there are times tenants are taken
Speaker 3: advantage of, and so I think in the nicest way,
Speaker 3: some regulation does enable a bit of a fairer playing field.
Speaker 3: But I absolutely agree that having something standardized nationwide would
Speaker 3: make a lot more sense than having it divided between states.
Speaker 1: It really would, Yeah, it really would. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you think about something like superannuation, it's so difficult anyway.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if it was states, if every state
Speaker 1: had different rules and regulations. And that's what's going on now,
Speaker 1: and investors are shopping between the states, and they are
Speaker 1: voting with their wallets basically, and that they are exiting
Speaker 1: Victoria and they really have been in the last year
Speaker 1: or two when we been covering that. And this is
Speaker 1: just another example of it I expect from Jane there,
Speaker 1: because the key line there obviously is she says that
Speaker 1: her brother is now thinking of selling the property. You
Speaker 1: set the property into a market, that speaker, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: choose to sell a property just now in the state
Speaker 1: that has falling prices because you know, they have the
Speaker 1: whole sort of a spiral that can occur there if
Speaker 1: we don't have sort of sensible, standardized approach to property investing,
Speaker 1: which is I.
Speaker 2: Think fair to all sides.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, that would seem to be it for today.
Speaker 1: Kitty Parker, thank you very much for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Great to talk to you again, first time this year.
Speaker 1: We'll have you again hopefully.
Speaker 2: Through the year.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: James, lovely to have you as always. That was Kitty Parker,
Speaker 1: folks Buyer's advocate in Sydney, but operation operating nationwide. Let's
Speaker 1: have sport emails and by the way, correspondence like that
Speaker 1: from Jane that really good gives us an insight into
Speaker 1: what's going on.
Speaker 2: They don't have to.
Speaker 1: Be questions, obviously, questions are the main thing, but observations, comments,
Speaker 1: et cetera are genuinely welcome.
Speaker 2: So let's have them.
Speaker 1: The email is the money puzzle Atiaustralian dot com dot Au.
Speaker 1: Today's show was produced, as always very well, by Leah
Speaker 1: Samuel Glou Don't You Soon