Property investing has been around for a long time. Since the beginning of time really. Kingdoms have been built on property and even the term ‘real estate’ comes from the origin of ‘royal estate’, and the Latin root ‘res’ as in matters of things, meaning land and its improvements or resources upon it.
And, owning and increasing the value of land has been occupying the minds of man (and woman) at the heart of investing for centuries. Which, right through to today, has folks everywhere vying to know just what to buy and where in the hope to gain wealth by having bought right.
That is to say, that most property investors would love the idea of turning back the clock and buying up big where they now know prices have gone up. The next best thing to time travel is having a glance into the ominous crystal ball and seeing the future – since we can unfortunately not time-travel.
How many times have you heard people say, ‘I should have bought there back then’ but hindsight is as such, right. You may even have ushered these words yourself and then still not bought.
But how can we, or better, who – can predict the future so we can base our investing decisions reliably upon them, you might ask. Well, banks for one, spend copious amounts of money on highly skilled researchers, data scientists and economists in order to predict the future and ensure their financial wellbeing. That is withunder why they are so wealthy.
But for us, ordinary folk, mums and dads, budding investors on the street trying to buy right and secure our futures to one day afford a worry-free retirement, where do we go?
Well, there are ample of opinions on property from almost everyone who has ever bought a home and especially those who by chance bought well; to your uncle who rents; to property spruikers, and right through to the Uber driver who knows just where it is going to go big, but has actually never bought a property in their life.
Truth be told, opinions are easily formed when you either ignore real data or you simply follow hear-say.
In Australia, we only have around 2000 qualified Actuaries. You might wonder what that is. Well, an Actuary is a highly qualified specialised data-scientist who uses endless amounts of data to work out and predict trends and futures related to finances. They work in the largest insurance companies, financial institutions and are worth their weight in gold, if you ask me.
One such Actuary, and a very good one at that, is Lianna Pan (pictured below). Sydney-based Pan has not only made a name for herself in the industry itself, but has predicted high-growth locations for property investing – time and time again over the past decade and a half.
Not surprising, Lianna has built a property portfolio of 26 properties in the last ten years, but more importantly co-founded Freedom Property Investors in order to help more people to invest in property based on hard data-based research and nit-picking due diligence, rather than opinion or hear-say.
Take 2016 for an example, when she identified Everton Park as the perfect spot to invest in and sure enough values have risen by $60 000 – $80 000. Or when she picked Eynesbury in Melbourne in 2017 and those who followed her advice made $60 000 – $90 000 in capital growth in a matter of 18 months.
Then in early 2018 she pin-pointed Cannon Hills in Brisbane and by the end of 2019 (just before Corona hit) prices had already jumped to give investors an extra $60 000 – $80 000 in added value. Enough equity to buy another investment property, really.
And, now, ever since the pandemic, while most everyone else spruiked doom and gloom and sited a dying real estate market, she has predicted that prices will only slump slightly and then burst into a 10%-15% growth spurt by 2023. And, while some people have taken action, many have shunted her words for being idealistic or simply a sales tactic of sorts.
Now, all the big banks are predicting that property prices will climb considerably over the next 2 years after having only fallen by 5%, but Lianna was already onto this months ago. Long before the banks did, Lianna heralded the growth we are destined to have and are already seeing indicators of.
The thing is this, if you follow hear-say, follow the masses or buy based on median house price indicators, you are at best aiming in the general direction of what might be termed investing. But, if you are serious about investing for the very purpose of maximising the increase of value of your piece of ‘royal’ estate – land and its improvements thereupon – and put your hard-earned money on the line, wouldn’t you want to do so by following advice from an actuary – which I guess is the next closest thing to a crystal ball?
Success leaves clues, goes the saying. You just have to firstly, notice the clues, and secondly act upon them. Best Scott.
By Scott Kuru, Freedom Property Investors
