Beware of the new breed of property experts

It seems we have become a nation of “experts.”

Just check your inbox or turn on the television and there they are.

• Experts on politics who have never run a business, let alone a country.
• Experts on football, even though they couldn’t run from one side of the field to the other.
• Experts on celebrities who can’t sing or dance themselves and...
• The new property cycle seems to have brought a whole new generation of property experts

I've joked before that Australia now has about 28 million property experts.

The real question isn't whether you'll come across their opinions, because you will. It's how you work out whose advice is actually worth your time and your money.

Wikipedia defines an expert as someone widely recognised as a reliable source of skill or judgement, whose ability to decide wisely is accorded authority by their peers or the public in a well-defined field.

In other words, an expert has extensive knowledge built on research, experience or occupation in a specific area, not just an opinion they picked up somewhere.

Before I give you my thoughts on finding a genuine property expert, let me explain what prompted this article.

A while back I received an invitation to a webinar promising to show me how to make an extra $100,000 in 36 days. Sounds promising, so naturally I wanted to know who was teaching it. Reading further, the speakers claimed proven results including more than a million dollars in seven days, $1.4 million in 54 minutes, and $23.8 million in under 24 hours.

I've got no particular reason to disbelieve those numbers, but they should make anyone pause.

Around the same time, I received an email spruiking land banking. It's a strategy I've used myself and have recommended to clients for years, so I read on with interest, only to find what I read was a fairly rough imitation of what successful investors actually do.

My version of land banking involves buying the worst house in a good street and holding it for a couple of years until you can afford to develop it. What this email described was buying an option on paddocks that weren't zoned residential and might never be, out in rural Australia.

I remember reading about a scheme selling exactly these kinds of land bank options around Shepparton. The development reportedly went into liquidation, with around two-thirds of the $4.8 million collected in option fees unaccounted for. A year later, the group behind it was taken to court over allegations they'd squandered investors' money.

A new breed of advisors who've barely started

There's an old Norwegian proverb that says experience is the best teacher, but the tuition is expensive.

It applies perfectly to the business of finding and negotiating for investment-grade property.

Good strategic advice makes a real difference to your investment decisions.

Industry figures have long suggested that around half of all property investors sell up within the first five years, and while the exact number varies depending on who's measuring it, the pattern is real and not a coincidence. Much of the time, it comes down to getting the wrong advice in the first place, or no strategic advice at all.

There's a newer version of this problem too.

Over the past year or two, social media feeds have filled up with AI-generated property content, slick videos and posts churned out by accounts with no property history at all, dressed up to look like seasoned commentary.

Some of it is harmless noise. Some of it repeats outdated or simply wrong information with total confidence, because the tool generating it has no idea what it doesn't know.

Treat this content exactly like you'd treat a stranger's opinion at a barbecue. It might be right, but there's no way to know without checking the source.

Look for advisors who've actually been successful investors themselves, and who've held onto that wealth over a long stretch of time and more than one property cycle.

Be wary of anyone making grand promises or offering secret tips and tricks, especially those who claim you can do it with little money down, bypass the banks entirely, or get rich in a hurry.

There are no real shortcuts in property investing. There never have been.

I've also noticed an online school now teaching people to become buyers' agents part-time, using virtual assistants while they keep their day jobs. These graduates are now out there touting for business!

There are plenty of experienced, professional buyers' agents and property strategists doing excellent work, people who've put in the hard yards over many years and offer real value.

But alongside them there's now a wave of enthusiastic amateurs, some who've been in the industry for a few months and others for a couple of years, who simply haven't had time to develop the judgement, negotiation skill or perspective their clients need.

I understand everyone has to start somewhere. But would you really want to risk hundreds of thousands of dollars on someone who's still finding their feet?

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Our team at Metropole runs into these newer operators all the time out in the market. We sometimes have a quiet laugh at the rookie mistakes, but mostly we feel for their clients, who don't realise they're not being properly represented. A buyers' agent fresh out of a course rarely has the negotiation experience of someone who's been doing this for a decade or two, and that gap can cost their clients tens of thousands of dollars.

Some lack the connections or resources to genuinely level the playing field for their clients. Others buy properties interstate sight unseen, which is about as risky as it sounds.

The irony is that the cheapest buyers' agent often ends up costing the client the most, while the agent who charges properly but negotiates well and picks the right property is usually the one who makes their client the most money in the long run.

So who is actually worth listening to?

1. Look for practitioners, not just teachers.

Only take advice from people who've done it themselves, done it well, and held onto their wealth over a long period.

There's a long list of people who ran property seminars over the past couple of decades giving advice that sounded convincing at the time, and most of them aren't around anymore.

Some people can teach well even without a personal track record, but why take that risk when you don't have to?

2. Don't follow anyone blindly.

Read and listen to a range of experts, even ones whose views conflict with each other. Weigh up their track records and their results, not just how persuasively they speak.

Different strategies suit different people depending on income, life stage and appetite for risk, so do your own research and work out what actually fits your situation.

3. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Plenty of people are keen to get into renovations or development and get drawn in by promises of a weekend course that lets them quit their job soon after.

Some spruikers have claimed you can buy property with no money down, or even on lay-by. One of them, who taught buying property for a dollar, was later made bankrupt by his own ASIC fines.

A tiny fraction of people who try these approaches might get lucky. The rest, and that's the vast majority, won't.

4. Ask how they get paid.

This is the question most investors forget to ask, and it matters more than almost anything else on this list.

A buyer's agent who only earns a commission when you buy has a built in incentive to find you a reason to buy something, even if waiting would serve you better.

A property spruiker pushing off the plan apartments is often being paid a developer commission you'll never see disclosed.

Genuine advisors are upfront about how they're remunerated, because transparency around fees is what lets you trust the advice that comes with them. If someone can't or won't give you a straight answer about what's in it for them, that tells you everything you need to know.

Why bother with expert advice at all

Because doing it entirely on your own is genuinely hard.

Most property investors never reach financial independence, or they take far longer than they should, because the first decade of their investing life gets spent working out what actually works. Many don't survive that stage at all.

The smaller group who do make it through then have to make up for the time and money they lost along the way.

Trial and error comes with a steep tuition fee, paid in time, money, effort and plenty of heartache.

Following the systems of people who've already achieved what you're aiming for, and kept their wealth through several cycles, doesn't guarantee your success. But it makes it a great deal more likely.

Wondering how to invest at this point in the cycle?

If you're like many property investors right now, you're probably asking yourself whether to buy, sell, or simply sit tight.

The team at Metropole can give you the direction, guidance and results you need.

Whether you're just starting out or you're a seasoned investor, times like these call for an advisor who takes a genuinely holistic approach to building your wealth, and that's exactly what our multi-award-winning team offers.

We help our clients grow, protect and pass on their wealth through:

• Strategic property advice - we'll build a Strategic Property Plan tailored to you and your family, because planning means bringing the future into the present so you can act on it now.
• Buyer's agency - as Australia's most trusted buyers' agents, we've been involved in more than $4 billion worth of transactions for our clients, with teams on the ground in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane bringing years of experience and perspective that money simply can't buy.
• Property development - become an armchair developer and get all the upside of development without getting your hands dirty, with our team guiding you from concept through to completion
• Finance and Wealth advisory - tailored, strategic planning to complement your property portfolio.
• Property management - stress-free management that keeps vacancy rates well below the market average, with tenants staying an average of three years and properties leasing ten days faster than the market norm.

If you'd like to talk through your options, book a Wealth Discovery Session with the team at Metropole by clicking here.