Why Victims Never Succeed in Property Investment

Key takeaways

“Victim mentality” is the real trap—not interest rates, policy shifts, or market cycles. Once you adopt it, you give away agency and stall progress.

Repeated setbacks can hardwire learned helplessness—the belief that nothing you do will matter. That belief, not the market, kills results.

Property outcomes flow from decisions and execution, not from waiting for perfect conditions or government fixes.

Markets will always move, policies will change, surprises will happen. Your edge is the ability to act with a plan despite uncertainty.

You’re not a passenger—you’re the driver. Taking ownership restores power and reveals opportunities others can’t see.

Have you noticed how some people always seem to carry around a sense of bad luck?

They’ll tell you the government’s against them, the banks are unfair, interest rates are too high, or the property market is rigged in favour of someone else – usually the baby boomers.

That’s what I call a victim mentality.

And here’s the thing - yes, life isn’t always fair.

Interest rates rise. Property prices don’t always move in straight lines. Tenants sometimes do the wrong thing. Governments change policies. Unexpected events happen.

We’ve all been hit with setbacks we didn’t see coming.

But there’s a huge difference between being a victim of circumstances in a moment and adopting victimhood as part of your identity.

Once you slip into that mindset, you start giving away your power.

You believe the system is stacked against you.

You tell yourself, “What’s the point? Property investing doesn’t work anymore.”

And you stop making decisions, stop taking action, and stop moving forward.

Psychologists call this learned helplessness—the idea that once you’ve felt powerless a few times, you condition yourself into believing you’ll always be powerless.

And here’s why that’s so damaging: in property investment, your results come from your decisions -not from waiting for perfect conditions.

The investors who succeed aren’t the ones who sit around hoping the government fixes affordability or that the Reserve Bank drops rates.

The successful investors are the ones who ask, “What can I control right now?”

They focus on things like:

• Building a long-term investment strategy.
• Buying the right property in the right location.
• Managing their cash flow intelligently.
• Surrounding themselves with experts rather than listening to the media noise.

In other words, they take ownership.

Now, here are three ways to shift out of victim mode and into success mode - especially as a property investor:

1. Stop feeding the negativity. If you spend your time reading headlines about a “housing crisis” or “property doom,” you’ll start believing that success is impossible. But if you turn down that noise and focus on fundamentals, your perspective changes.
2. Shift your focus to what you can You can’t control interest rates or elections, but you can control your mindset, your due diligence, your savings rate, and the advice you choose to follow.
3. Stack small wins. Every step you take, whether that’s tightening your budget to increase borrowing capacity, learning more about property markets, or securing your next A-grade investment property, builds momentum. Those small wins prove to you that you’re in the driver’s seat.

The truth is this: optimists succeed in property investment because they believe their actions make a difference. Victims fail because they’ve convinced themselves they don’t have a choice.

So my challenge to you today is simple: take back the wheel.

Don’t wait for perfect conditions or for someone else to make property investing easier.

You already have the power to create wealth.

You’re not a passenger—you’re the driver. And once you leave victimhood behind, you’ll start seeing opportunities where others only see obstacles.

About Michael Yardney Michael is the founder of Metropole Property Strategists who help their clients grow, protect and pass on their wealth through independent, unbiased property advice and advocacy. He's once again been voted Australia's leading property investment adviser and one of Australia's 50 most influential Thought Leaders. His opinions are regularly featured in the media.