How it works
What you're actually paying a buyer's agent to do.
Most people have no idea what happens between "I want an investment property" and "here are the keys". Fair enough too, the industry likes a bit of mystery. Here's the whole thing anyway, start to finish.
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Strategy call
A free 15 minute chat about where you're at and what you want the portfolio to actually do for you. If you're not ready to buy yet, I'll say so on the call. Taking your money to buy the wrong thing at the wrong time is not a service.
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Brief and numbers
We lock in a written brief. Budget, target yield, how much risk you can stomach, and whether it's going in your own name, a trust or the SMSF. Then you talk to your broker, or one I rate, so we're working with the real borrowing number instead of the hopeful one.
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Suburb selection
Everyone says data-driven. Here's what mine actually means. How many houses sell in a year and how fast they move. Vacancy rates and where rents are heading. Whether the local economy has real depth or one employer holding the whole town up. And the one almost nobody checks: what's being built that isn't housing. Warehouses, hospitals, logistics sheds. That's jobs, jobs bring people, and people need somewhere to live. Most suburbs fail the filter. The few that pass are where we hunt.
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The hunt
I inspect, shortlist and reject so you don't have to. On market, off market, and the stock agents send me before it hits the internet, which is where years of relationship building starts paying you back. Every serious contender gets a comparative market analysis. We decide what it's worth from the sold data, not from what the agent reckons.
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Due diligence
Building and pest, flood and bushfire overlays, zoning, easements, rental appraisal, body corporate records if there are any. Boring? Absolutely. Boring is how you avoid buying a lemon.
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Negotiation
I negotiate against selling agents every week, and better yet, I'm not in love with the house. No dream kitchen clouding the judgement, just a walk-away number built from the comparables. You'd be amazed what that combination does to a price.
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Contract to settlement
I run the conveyancer, the broker, the inspector and the property manager, and I chase the deadlines. You get updates in plain English, and you hear about problems while they're still small.
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Handover and beyond
Property manager appointed, tenant in, rent landing in your account. Then we talk about the next one. One property was never the plan.
The obvious question
"Couldn't I just do this myself?"
Honestly? Yes. There's no secret licence for buying property. I taught myself, and you could too.
Here's what teaching myself actually looked like though. A few years of weekends. A couple of mistakes that cost real money. A long stretch of learning to tell a genuine growth suburb from a nice brochure. I was single, obsessed and thinking about property all day on the tools. That was my apprenticeship.
If you're running a business or pulling long weeks on site, the question isn't whether you could learn this. It's whether learning a second trade is the best use of your next two years. You've seen what happens when a homeowner watches three YouTube videos and has a crack at their own switchboard. This is that, with more zeroes.
What DIY usually costs
- Buying in your own suburb because it feels safe. The data rarely agrees with that feeling
- Paying the emotional premium at auction because you'd already mentally moved the tenant in
- Missing the off market stock because no agent knows your name
- Two years of "waiting for the right time" while the market moves without you
One overpay at auction can cost more than my fee. Twice.
Want the process pointed at your situation?
Book the strategy call. Worst case, you leave with a clearer picture of where you stand and it costs you nothing but 15 minutes.