Beware of Fake Buyer's Agents! Investing Tips with Miriam Sandkuhler

In this episode of "Ten with Ty," host Tyron Hyde sits down with Miriam Sandkuhler, the fearless founder of Property Mavens. Miriam delves into the challenges facing today's property buyers, emphasising the importance of working with experienced, qualified buyer's agents over so-called "fake" agents. Drawing from her 30-year career and personal experiences, she discusses the pitfalls property buyers should avoid and the critical factors to consider when making the biggest investment of their lives.

Miriam shares valuable insights on identifying credible buyer's agents, warning signs of unqualified agents, and the importance of a thorough vetting process. She also talks about her personal journey into property investment, the mistakes she’s learned from, and what makes for a resilient and profitable investment strategy. Through engaging anecdotes and practical advice, Miriam aims to arm both seasoned and novice investors with the knowledge needed to navigate the complex world of real estate.

Watch on YouTube

Key Takeaways:

• Identifying Credible Buyer’s Agents: Learn how to distinguish experienced and qualified buyer's agents from unqualified ones.
• Investment Pitfalls: Miriam Sandkuhler shares common mistakes that investors make and how to avoid them.
• Miriam’s Journey: Gain insights from Miriam's personal experiences in real estate investment, including both successes and learning opportunities.
• Risk Management: The importance of aligning investment choices with one's risk profile and other personal factors.
• Value Over Price: Why it’s crucial to focus on the value delivered by experts rather than just the costs involved.

Notable Quotes:

1. "The problem with these fake buyer agents who buy these courses, they just want to bypass an apprenticeship and start making money." - Miriam Sandkuhler
2. "People make mistakes with what they don't know rather than what they know." - Miriam Sandkuhler
3. "It's always worthwhile engaging the right expert for the right advice." - Miriam Sandkuhler
4. "Pay an expert. Stick to your lane." - Miriam Sandkuhler
5. "Your home is going to be your biggest asset. So the last thing you want to do when you buy your home is buy a lemon." - Miriam Sandkuhler

Resources:

• Property Mavens
• "Property Prosperity: 7 Steps to Investing like an Expert" – Book by Miriam Sandkuhler
• Twitter: @PropertyMavens
• LinkedIn: Miriam Sandkuhler

Watch YouTube

Download Spotify
Apple


Tyron Hyde is the CEO of Washington Brown Quantity Surveyors

Chapters

• 1:42 Miriam Sandkuhler: Expert Property Advocate
• 5:34 The Rise and Rise of Buyer's Agents
• 13:53 Q1: What's your best investment?
• 15:09 Q2: What's your worst investment?
• 17:50 Q3: Most valuable investment advice?
• 23:26 Q4: Ideal portfolio mix?
• 26:17 Fake Buyer's Agents
• 31:03 Q5: Investing $20K at 20
• 34:41 Q6: Investing $500K at 50
• 37:16 Q7: Advice to 20-year-old self
• 39:54 Q8: What legacy do you want to leave?
• 41:17 Q9: Definition of success
• 43:01 Q10: How NOT to lose money
• 47:26 Bonus Q: Is Melbourne a good investment?

Transcript

0:00:00 - (Tyron Hyde): It seems like anyone can be a buyer's agent these days.

0:00:02 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Buying property is going to be the biggest investment you'll ever make. It'll be the riskiest process that you ever go through.

0:00:11 - (Tyron Hyde): Which is why property advocate Miriam Sankula isn't afraid to call out the fakes.

0:00:16 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So the problem with these fake buyer agents who buy these courses, they just want to bypass an apprenticeship and start making money. And they're all about, how quickly can I do that? What shortcuts can I take, what loopholes can I use? And it's like, well, they've got really good social media and they've got a really good marketing spiel, but they have the audacity, the arrogance to call themselves an expert.

0:00:38 - (Tyron Hyde): So how do you find the good amongst the bad?

0:00:40 - (Miriam Sandkuhler):  Run from any buyer's agent who says, I've got a portfolio with 29 properties? Because that has got nothing to do with you. Your risk profile, your age, your stage, your goals.

0:00:52 - (Tyron Hyde): I want you on my side, Miriam. I can tell. I want you in my corner. As a boxer would say.  It's all coming up Ten with Ty. 

Hi, I'm Tyron Hyde, the CEO of Washington Brown, the property depreciation expert. Now, I'm a qualified quantity surveyor and also a best-selling author who's helped hundreds of thousands of property investors over the years, pay less tax through depreciation. I'm also an avid investor, which is why I created the podcast series Ten with Ty, where I ask the smartest people I know the same ten questions to unlock the keys to their success and hopefully leave a playbook for my family and your family too, about investing.

0:01:31 - (Tyron Hyde): Now, this podcast is general in nature and not specific to your financial circumstances. We always recommend you sit down with an accountant or financial planner before making any investment decisions. Now let's get on with the show. Hello and welcome to ten with Ty. Today I've got Miriam Sandkuhler. She owns an award-winning buyer's agency called Property Mavens. She's got 30 years experience under her belt, and she's written an award-winning book called Property Prosperity. Seven Steps to investing like an expert. Welcome to Ten with Ty, Miriam.

0:02:07 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Thanks, Ty. It's lovely to be here.

0:02:09 - (Tyron Hyde): Now, I read your book and I really enjoyed it.

0:02:11 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Great.

0:02:12 - (Tyron Hyde): I particularly like this chapter about marketing puffery. I'm going to read an excerpt from it. In short, beware of the following types of statements which are designed to play to buyers' emotions. So this is what you should look out for when you see ads that say "pay wholesale, not retail prices for property access, property wholesale before the general public, secret strategies to know where to make a fortune in property and keep it, the fastest-growing region in the state, get paid to invest in property".

0:02:38 - (Tyron Hyde): Now, Miriam, you're pretty passionate about property. What made you so passionate about warning people about the pitfalls of property investment?

0:02:44 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, look, I grew up in an immigrant family. My parents weren't overly educated from an investment point of view. They'd made some bad investments and been conned themselves. I remember as a young girl growing up. So when it started for me to look to buy real estate, and I started quite young, I was 24 at the time. I didn't know anything about it. I mistakenly trusted my friend, the selling agent, consequently didn't necessarily help me with my first property.

0:03:10 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And whilst I did negotiate on that, I didn't know enough to know that that wasn't the best investment because I was buying an apartment in St. Kilda and the same money at the time would have gotten me a house in Port Melbourne. So I didn't understand the distinction between land value, land size and so forth. But then I consequently did invest incredibly well after that. When I separated with my partner, who was an accountant, he should have said, keep it, it's a good asset. He didn't do that.

0:03:37 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): My buddy, the selling agent, was more than happy to put me into another property, which meant he got me to sell a really strong asset and buy an apartment instead. And it was just over the years I ended up working in the financial planning sector. I became accredited in that field and I ultimately learned a lot more about property. I started working with a very successful bio advocacy firm in WA and really got to see and understand the fundamentals around property investing.

0:04:10 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And prior to that I'd worked in real estate selling what we call managed investment scheme property. And I got to see how that type of asset didn't perform compared to, say, residential property. So it was just a whole series of no one mentoring me, no one protecting me, no one helping with the education. I naively at a young age said, well, I've got one property now, I won't get another one until I've got a partner. I'll just wait to do it with someone else, which was stupid because that just delayed my opportunity to invest for a very long time by the time I got married.

0:04:41 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And yeah, just people really needing someone with integrity to guide them to make smart decisions rather than them being naive or them making emotional decisions, which is highly dangerous.

0:04:54 - (Tyron Hyde): And so when did you become a buyer's agency? Start Property Mavens?

0:04:57 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, look, the business has been going for over eleven years and we know that we've had a few cycles that we've ridden in that timeframe. So just after the global financial crisis is when I began the business and when I wrote the book. And then obviously we've had Covid and all sorts of things happening between black swan events, market cycles, interest rate interference with the government. So it's been an interesting journey. I think one of the things, if you're going to work with an advocate, you want to work with someone who's experienced. They haven't just had two years real estate experience, but they've worked through cycles and they understand the implications and the effect of those.

0:05:34 - (Tyron Hyde): Now I'm playing devil's advocate. You wrote this book ten years ago, or before the rise and the rise of the buyer's agency that I see in my Facebook feed these days being devil's advocate, it seems to me you can just do a two-week online course and be really good at social media. Having just bought two properties and become an expert buyer's agency. What, am I being too harsh on this industry?

0:05:53 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): No, not at all. I mean, we used to be a respected industry. Now we become commoditised because somebody out there has created this online course, convinced people to part with 8-10 thousand dollars, lied by saying that anyone can be a buyer's agent. And that's the equivalent of saying anyone can be a real estate agent. But we all know that probably 30% of people who enter the industry will only stay and only succeed.

0:06:17 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So they're all being told that anyone can be an advocate. And I'm the only person in the country to have franchised the buyer advocacy model. I profile future or potential franchisees for the attributes that they need to be an advocate. And you have to have a broad number of attributes and you have to be highly emotionally intelligent. So the problem is when you've got an engineer going, well, hey, I love property, I'm going to become a buyer's agent. Sure, they might be good on the analysis, but they've not got no idea how to work with a client who's suffering anxiety and emotionally distressed and doesn't know how to work through an issue and move forward.

0:06:57 - (Tyron Hyde): Is there a difference between an advocate and a buyer's agency or is it just marketing?

0:07:00 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Buyer's agent. Buyer's advocate. They just call them different things in different states. Fundamentally, I see the role more as being a financial planner for property than being a real estate agent. That's the other problem you get ex-selling agents decide to be a buyer's agent. They're accustomed to turnover, being transactional, and that doesn't work with advocacy because you can't bully someone into buying a property if it's not right for them, which some of them actually are used to doing on the sale side of it.

0:07:28 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And while there are those who genuinely want to help buyers, if they haven't unlearned how to be a selling agent and then learn how to be an advocate, they're still operating out of unconscious patterns that don't do their clients any favours.

0:07:40 - (Tyron Hyde): How can I do an online course for two weeks and then advise someone on a million-dollar purchase as opposed to by selling a $1 share? I have to go through all the rigmarole with ASIC, et cetera. How does buyers actually escape this kind of loophole, if you ask me?

0:07:54 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Well, number one, the property advice sector isn't governed by ASIC. There are no regulations around the qualifications that you need to have to give property advice. Unless you're a financial advisor giving advice on an REIT or a property-related product, that's a bit different. But if it's just residential property, you'd still have to be a licensed real estate agent. And now, fortunately, the loopholes have been shut down and most people will need to work a minimum of a year with an agent's rep certificate, being mentored within an agency.

0:08:30 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And then after one or two years, depending on where they are, you know, WA is two years, Victoria's one year, then they can apply for a license. So there is now, these people are now being forced to have to get the right qualifications on the job, being mentored, make the commitment to learning the business and the job, certainly not a part-time gig. Anyone who does it part-time, in addition to their full-time job, steer clear.

0:08:55 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And that's another topic. But so now the regulations are such that they have to have an agent's rep certificate working under a licensed buyer's agency firm, or they have to be fully licensed in their own right. But it doesn't negate the fact that they need industry experience. And I would suggest a minimum of two years working as a real estate agent because these people who do this online course, and I think it's maybe six or eight weeks, these people who are conned into being told that anyone can be a buyer's agent and you can earn ridiculous amounts of money, often they reach out to me and I say to them, do you want to be a selling agent? Do you want to be a real estate agent? They will go, no, I'm like, well, what do you think you are? Do you not actually understand that if you're a buyer's agent, you're a real estate agent?

0:09:36 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And do you not understand that the complexity of a buyer agent is far more significant than being a selling agent? And you're highly likely to get sued because if you're advising someone on how to spend money and you give them the wrong advice, well then you set yourself up to be sued and you set yourself up to ruin someone's life. That's a very different role to helping someone sell a property for price and terms that the vendor's agreeable to.

0:10:00 - (Tyron Hyde): And I just worry that they don't have an all-round investment experience. Like I've never, I don't think the words a diversified portfolio has ever come out of a buyer's agency buyer's agent's mouth where he's saying you should get some shares as well as probably I know some buyers agency and they're literally waiting for that investment property to go up so they can access those funds and put them into another one so they can get another fee.

0:10:20 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Well, I talk about diversification within. I do because of my financial planning background. If you read my whole book, you would see my approach throughout the book that talks about what people need to be aware of. So the puffery is basically from selling agents and property developers trying to flog whatever stock that they've got, whether it's right for you or not. Their agenda is to make money at your expense. Often whether it's off the plan or house or land package, whatever the case may be. So one of the riskiest things any buyer can do is buy anything that's off the plan or house or land because you're buying the concept of something, not the tangible something. And there are many things that can happen between the time you sign the contract to when it's ready, that can cause problems for people. And we've seen shocking building practices and lots of people in Sydney, buildings are collapsing and towers are collapsing because they bought it off the plan to start with and then they finished with a problem that's just become about, well, who can we sue and who do we pass the buck to? And it's unbelievably sad and distressing seeing people go through that.

0:11:26 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So I think consumers need to understand that buying property is going to be the biggest investment you'll ever make. It'll be the riskiest process that you ever go through. And if you're going to spend 5 hours or 2 hours analysing which telephone you want to buy, then absolutely, you need to spend an enormous amount of time knowing and understanding the process of buying property, how to ascertain whether or not it's a good property, and then understanding negotiation. Because when people go, no, I'll do it myself, I can do what you do, it's like, well, no, I'm sorry, you can't. You can put your name to a contract and you can bid at an auction, but you absolutely not, do not have my 30 years of practical, hands-on experience, having worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients and thousands of selling agents to know and understand the nuances of what to look for throughout that process, and more importantly, the questions to ask so that you don't show your hand or have it blow up in your face.

0:12:20 - (Tyron Hyde): What are the questions I should ask a buyer's agency to choose a good one versus a bad one then yeah?

0:12:24 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So if they're giving you investment advice, you want to know what their formal property investing qualifications are. So I'm an accredited property investment advisor. My colleague Anjay, who's got a bachelor of property, my other colleague Michael is a qualified mortgage broker as well as having worked in the investment space, as well as having worked in the sales space. So long as someone within the organisation has got formal property investing qualifications and others are trained accordingly, that's who you want to work with. Everyone else who's like, we just use research and we'll use analytics and all the rest of it. Well, that's part of it. But it doesn't mean they're formally qualified to give advice on investment.

0:13:05 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So that's number one. If they're helping buy you a home, well then they still have to have an understanding of investing because your home is going to be your biggest asset. So the last thing you want to do when you buy your home is buy a lemon because that has implications down the track for an upgrading point of view from leveraging the equity to use investment and so forth. And more importantly, just because someone likes real estate and likes property doesn't mean they should be a buyer's agent. Just because you're a teacher one minute doesn't mean you're going to be a good buyer's agent the next, or an Uber driver or an engineer or whatever, because you might like certain elements of it and you might excel in one or two of those elements. But if you can't do the whole thing from beginning to end for a client, then that's a problem and that's where you open yourself up for, you know, legal action.

0:13:52 - (Tyron Hyde): Good advice. 

Do you own an investment property, Washington Brown has helped over 250,000 thousand property investors pay less tax with the depreciation schedule. Visit washingtonbrown.com.au to pay less tax today. 

All right, you ready to play ten with Ty, Miriam?

0:14:14 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, sure.

0:14:16 - (Tyron Hyde): All right, question number one Miriam, what has been your best investment?

0:14:20 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Well, based on what I was just saying, it's always been my principal place of residence because too many people fail to understand the investment principles that you need to consider when you're buying your own home. So yes, it's about, well, what do I want, what do I need? But it's also about future capital growth and resale opportunity and who's the likely market, who's going to want to buy it and are there enough attributes within the property to ensure that it's got enough appeal so that others will pay an emotional premium for it?

0:14:51 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So, you know, we have a lot of clients that come back and work with us 2,3,4,5 times because it makes an incredible difference around the type of property that you buy for them in the very first instance as their home.

0:15:03 - (Tyron Hyde): It's pretty hard to beat that capital gains tax-free that we have in Australia, that's for sure. All right, number two, what has been your worst investment?

0:15:11 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Ironically, sometimes not buying the properties I've bought for my clients because I've been so busy at times that I haven't put myself in a position to buy and I look back and I see the amount of money they've made over the years. But probably before I became a buyer's agent and when I was in real estate sales and I was selling managed investments scheme real estate, which I'll call short stay, I actually did buy one. I bought it at a bargain.

0:15:35 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): But I guess I probably failed to understand that a poor property at a discount is still a poor property. And of course, then there are implications from a zoning point of view and the capacity to resell it readily down the track. So look, part of what's in my book is it's a whole lot of case studies around some mistakes I've made and mistakes I've seen clients make over the years and there's actually a lot of them in there. So the idea of the book that I wrote, Property Prosperity, was to educate people around the things that they need to take into consideration because most people don't make mistakes with what they know. They make mistakes with what they don't know. And if you don't know what you don't know, well, therein lies the problem.

0:16:12 - (Tyron Hyde): True. What's the common mistake you see investors make?

0:16:16 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): I spoke with a gentleman recently whose sole agenda was to buy under market value at the exclusion of understanding whether that was a high-performing property or what we call an A grade property. So whilst he'd built a portfolio and he had a lot of properties in there, because he was driven from the ego position of wanting a lot of property and buying it all at a discount, he didn't grasp that a bad property at a discount is still a bad property and he had a very fixed way of seeing it. So look, that's just one of the things. I think people are too overconfident in their ability. They're overconfident in their ability, particularly if they're smart.

0:16:55 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And this gentleman was a surgeon. So I think one of the biggest challenges is when people are smart and they're qualified in some other field, often they make bad decisions because they make the mistake of thinking their intellect in their profession will carry across to buying real estate. And if they have a superior opinion of themselves and that intellect, they end up getting basically dragged down the river by someone who's highly skilled in selling and manipulating and extracting information out of them and getting a deal done and they don't even know that they've been ripped off.

0:17:28 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So smart people make bad decisions because of that. And it's really interesting, people with a lot of money often make bad decisions because they think that, again, they've made all this money. That automatically makes them superior when it comes to dealing with real estate agents, you know, there are lots of ways people make money.

0:17:45 - (Tyron Hyde): Stick to your lane sometimes is best.

0:17:46 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Well, stick to your lane and yeah, pay an expert.

0:17:50 - (Tyron Hyde): Number three, what's the most valuable investment advice you've ever received? Miriam?

0:17:54 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Well, on that note, probably the best advice is it's always worthwhile engaging the right expert for the right advice. Yeah, it's about risk mitigation and maximising your investment opportunity. And look, life is such that you get what you pay for. And what I say to people, unfortunately, these, I call them fake buyer agents, they're out there, they're desperate for work, they've given up their job or they've invested and wasted money in this course, you know, they want to get their ten grand back, they've been told get a deal and then you can start, you know, growing your business from there.

0:18:25 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And so they're slashing prices. But at the end of the day, you get what you pay for. So price is what you pay. Cost is the consequence, good or bad, of that advice or the service that you receive. So I can absolutely guarantee when people make the decision to go with a cheap advocate, they will be on the receiving end of appalling advice that they will pay for multiple times over down the track, and they won't even know it until it's too late.

0:18:51 - (Tyron Hyde): Okay, what is the price range? I had a friend quoted recently at $27,000, which I was a bit surprised at. I thought it was about 15. What's the cheap price range for a buyer's agent? What's mid-range? What's high-range?

0:19:01 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, look, I think different buyer agents work differently. Some charge fixed fees, some charge percentages. There's no one way to do it. And a little bit like on the sales side, you know, selling agents have fees depending on the state you're in. I mean, in WA, they charge 4% for selling agent fee. In Victoria, it's probably closer to around the 2% mark. So the same thing applies on the advocacy side. And there are different levels of service as well. So an advocate could do a full process for you. They can just do an assess and negotiate. You find the property.

0:19:31 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): I would suggest find the advocate you're interested in working with. They'll talk to you about what they can offer you and they'll talk about prices. But remember, it's not so much the price you pay, but the value delivery. So I can demonstrate time and time again, regardless of the price that I pay, that I can absolutely deliver value in either savings or negotiation on the price or making sure it's a high-performing asset or getting it off-market with no competition so they get that particular asset. So people should really not focus on price. They should focus on value delivery expertise. And remember, you get what you pay for. You're not going to get someone like me for peanuts because some clown down the road with actually no experience is charging half the price. And if you're fool enough to want to go with them, well, then suffer the consequences and don't complain about it when it turns to shit.

0:20:18 - (Tyron Hyde): Say what you really mean, Miriam.

0:20:20 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Never.

0:20:21 - (Tyron Hyde): One thing that's always shat me, though, I've got to be honest with you. I think it's the same with buyer's agency. But when a real estate agent quotes 2% on a million dollar property, right, and they quote 2% on a $2 million property, how on earth is there $20,000 difference in value that they're going to, I'm going to receive on a $2 million property that I'm selling as opposed to $1 million property?

0:20:39 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Look, I think what you need to realise, because I do vendor advocacy as well. So I'm not selling property, but I've dealt with 2000 agents, certainly as an advocate in the last decade. I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. There's plenty of ugly. There's a lot of bad. And when it comes to the good, they're the ones with the skillset who absolutely will make a difference at auction. And whether you're paying them 2% on two mil or one mil becomes irrelevant.

0:21:04 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): It's the results that they will generate and how they work on the day that will generate the extra revenue for the client. And in some instances, when I do vendor advocacy for clients. So they want to sell, but they don't know which agent to use. You know, the agents that I recommend are the ones where, if you've got one buyer and one person interested, you need an agent who absolutely knows how to deal with that buyer and how to get it over the line. So you're paying for expertise that's built up over years and decades. It's like any profession. 

0:21:36 - (Tyron Hyde): I get that. But I'm still thinking, if I'm paying someone $20,000 on a $2 million property, they're still going to do the same. They're still going to give me the same value. They're still on that 20 grand, right?

0:21:45 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, but the thing is, you're talking about a different property in a different market with different clientele and different considerations around it. You're not comparing an apple with an apple or because you've got very different calibre property. What I can tell you is the cheaper properties are the ones that are harder to sell. You know, someone with a $300,000 lemon that they bought, that they've had for 14 years that has not grown in value and is what we call a C grade property is an absolute nightmare for an agent.

0:22:10 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And so if you bought a problem and you bought a lemon, don't expect an agent to be giving you some cheap fee because it's going to be damn hard work and it may take a very long time, 

0:22:20 - (Tyron Hyde): Which is why I think that the scale of the bottom should be high. It should be like 4% at the bottom and 1% when you get to two.

0:22:25 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Why doesn't it have to be a percentage? Like, I know, for example, when I helped a client try and get rid of this lemon that they bought, because all they're doing is paying a mortgage and getting nothing out of it. You know, the agent said my minimum fee is ten grand, which, let's call it roughly 3%. It's like, well, fair enough because he's not going to put all that effort in to get 2% on a $300,000 property, and then half of it goes to the agency. So I think people need to take a step back from the percentage thing that, it's like in the stock market. You know, if a stockbroker buys you a million dollars worth of shares versus $2 million worth of shares, I don't think they necessarily change their fee.

0:23:02 - (Tyron Hyde): No, they do.

0:23:03 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Oh, do they? Okay, well, then I'm naive because I don't do shares.

0:23:06 - (Tyron Hyde): The rate goes down, the higher the value.

0:23:07 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): There are agents who do do that. There are agents who will drop their fee for a higher price point, particularly as you're getting to your three, four, five mil, that kind of stuff. But again, don't focus on a fee that you're not going to have to pay if you've got a crap agent who won't get you the result. Like, that's just really short-sighted.

0:23:24 - (Tyron Hyde): Yeah. Yeah. Good. All right, moving on. Question number four. Now, you said you've got a financial planning background, so this one, I'm looking forward to your answer. What's your ideal portfolio mix?

0:23:33 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Okay, so it's always dependent upon the age and stage of the person and their risk profile and their goals and objectives and timeframes. Yeah. So it varies depending on if you're younger, you're in an accumulation phase, you start getting into the market, you're working towards creating the portfolio that you want to fulfil your financial goals. And that might be to financially retire at a certain age.

0:23:56 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): It might be to pay for kids school fees, it might be to have holidays every year, whatever. So it's kind of like getting there and reverse engineering backwards. And then eventually they'll come to maybe a retirement phase where they might be looking at selling out of property, for example. I'm heading towards that and I can't access my super for another three years. But I'm also prepping now around. Right, what do I need to do now, three years out to set myself up so that when I can access my super, I've got the right mixture of properties within my self-managed super fund.

0:24:33 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And then what am I doing now outside of that, to maximise that as well? So the best advice really is done in conjunction with, say, an investment-qualified buyer's agent like me, as well as your financial planner. So, you know, in my book, I've talked about which experts you see at which stage, and if I have a client who comes to me and they're not ready, there's stuff up in the air. I'll usually do an advice session with them. I'll give them homework, and then they need to go and talk to their accountant and the financial planner about that because it could be, do I sell this property? Do I not sell it? Let's do the analysis on it. Let's look at the big picture. And they're the clients who do really well because they've got a solid foundation, they've seen the right expert at the right time.

0:25:14 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): When their structure is set, when their advice is ready to go, that's when they come back to me and then I'll fulfil the brief for them.

0:25:20 - (Tyron Hyde): I think that's the best answer to that question I've had. Most people have been, if they're property, they've always said, I've just done property. That's all I know. That's all my shtick, that's all I ever do. But you're the first one that's kind of given that advice, which is great. Thank you.

0:25:31 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): What people need to understand, first and foremost, is property is an asset class. So just like shares are an asset class, gold is an asset class, real estate is an asset class. So it's really important that people understand that they take an approach to it that's a holistic approach and not just an ad hoc, oh, look, I'll buy one here or buy one there, or some fake buyer agent who churns through people sitting on their butt in New South Wales, but buys interstate without ever having seen property because the analysis tells.

0:25:59 - (Tyron Hyde): They do AI. Right? Everyone's using AI these days, aren't they?

0:26:04 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, that's risky. And yeah, you might make some money on it, but how much money have you lost as a result of it not being a strategy that factors in your whole financial position and where you're wanting to go? And this is a problem with ASIC, and not being governed by ASIC.

0:26:17 - (Tyron Hyde): What is a fake buyer's agent?

0:26:19 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Okay, so by my definition, these are these people who are coming in and doing that course that you're talking about. They're either people who don't generally prefer.

0:26:28 - (Tyron Hyde): There's a couple of courses now I've started to see. So we don't want to name one, but there are a couple of courses.

0:26:33 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So the fake buyer agents are the ones who've never worked in real estate. They've come across a Facebook ad. They've been told anyone can be a buyer's agent. They pay ten grand or whatever for a course. They're told they can do it part-time they're told how they can do high volume business with low staff costs, and it's all to their financial benefit. And those are the people who are attracted. Unfortunately, their highest value is money, because the marketing is all about how much money you can make. And they're the sort of toxic profiles that come in because they will sell their mother or their grandmother to do a deal at the expense of the client.

0:27:09 - (Tyron Hyde): Very good.

0:27:10 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): I know this because I'll profile hundreds of them, like, I've profiled hundreds of applicants for my opportunity and 90% of them don't even get a conversation with me. So I know exactly what the psyche of them is of a buyer agent compared to a selling agent. There are similarities, but there are significant differences. But look, a fake buyer agent could be a company where they don't provide genuine and unbiased advice.

0:27:32 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): They might actually be a property spruiker, but they charge you a management fee, which they then say is a buyer marketing fee, or a buyer agent fee, which it isn't. So people are misled thinking they're getting a genuine independent buyer's agency. They will charge you a fee directly, but then they're also getting kickbacks from third parties, like developers. That's not a genuine buyer's agent, that's a fake buyer agent. They would usually have a single in-depth area of expertise, so they might focus on buyer advocacy or vendor advocacy, or they might have experience in both.

0:28:04 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And if they've been around a long time, like me in the sector, 30 years, you build up a good experience and a bank in both. Have they worked in the industry for a minimum of two years? And by that, I mean, have they worked as a selling agent or have they worked as a property manager? So they're familiar with property and processes on legal documents and compliance, because that's an apprenticeship.

0:28:23 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So the problem with these fake buyer agents who buy these courses, they just want to bypass an apprenticeship and start making money. And they're all about, how quickly can I do that? What shortcuts can I take, what loopholes can I use? And it's like, well, you know me, I wouldn't use a hairdresser that hasn't served an apprenticeship in hairdressing because you know what my hair normally looks like.

0:28:44 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And equally, why would you use a buyer's agent who's ever bought property? They've only ever bought one for themselves. They've never worked in the industry. But, hey, they've got really good social media and they've got a really good marketing spiel, but they have the audacity, the arrogance, to call themselves an expert. You know, and I think some of them, I'm sorry, but some of these buyer agents are so naive that they don't even understand that the word expert is generated from experience.

0:29:12 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And that's how you develop expertise. Yet they have none, but they're happy to sprout themselves as being an expert. So that drives me nuts. You want to make sure you're checking their LinkedIn profiles to see that they've got real estate experience. And if they're invisible on LinkedIn, if their name is Fred J or Susan S, and there's no photo run, they're a fake buyer's agent, they've got a full-time job, and they're not going to be servicing you or looking after you while they're working for their boss.

0:29:54 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Well, it's not even. You bought 100 properties. It's like, so what have you bought shit? Have you got 99% lVR on it? And this is the puffery that I was talking about, run from any buyer's agent who says, I've got a portfolio with 29 properties, because that has got nothing to do with you. Your risk profile, your rate, your stage, your goals. Yeah. So when people say to me, how many properties have you got? I said, well, respectfully, that's irrelevant because we're not talking about me at my age and stage, we're talking about you. And my job is to help you make a really good decision based on your goals.

0:30:29 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Does it mean I don't own property? No, of course I do. I'd be stupid not to. But all these people who sprout, you only ever hear about how many properties they own. You never hear that they've got an lVR of 95% and they can't feed themselves because they're not making the mortgage. You know, it's always presented in this fantastic way, but you get a half-truth out of it. So I run a mile when you hear that as well.

0:30:50 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So you want someone who's 100% full-time, working as an advocate, not a part-time gig.

0:30:55 - (Tyron Hyde): Good advice. Number five. Miriam, how would you invest $20,000 as a 20-year-old?

0:31:07 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, that's an interesting one, because it depends on, obviously, your circumstances. But look, if you wanted to do property, you might pull together with friends to put in a deposit, if you've all got a good income and the capacity to borrow money and buy something. And you can start with a little regional property at 350K, but you got to have the friends or family to do that with. You've got to have a partnership agreement in place so that if someone wants out, you've got a legally binding document that everyone's agreed to under various circumstances, what you're going to do. So I wrote about that in my book. If you're low-risk, got a low-risk profile, you might look at a high-interest term deposit. If you've got a moderate to risk, high-risk profile, you know, you might look at blue chip shares, you might look at a term deposit mix, you might look at green chip shares, and, you know, if you're high risk, you might look at crypto, but be careful. Now, I can't give advice on any of that.

0:32:00 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): I don't know enough about crypto, even though I understand the benefits of it and I like the concept of it for me, you know, because I haven't put the time and it doesn't interest me. I would need to engage an advisor to give me advice on that formally, if I were to go down the path of building a share portfolio or getting involved in crypto. And I know financial advisors can't advise on it because it's not one of their products, but it doesn't mean that you can't have an off-the-record conversation around their understanding around it.

0:32:28 - (Tyron Hyde): That's how I. The shared property portfolio thing, or buying a property with friends, that's actually how I bought my first two properties, because I didn't have any money and it worked out really well, but I didn't have any partnership agreements. In hindsight, I wish I should have. And so I'd highly recommend you doing that because things can go pear-shaped. They didn't for me, Lucky, but they certainly can.

0:32:48 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Well, particularly with family, because you might buy in with a family member when you're younger, and then ten years later someone wants to marry, settle down, have kids, they need their share of the equity out. And then what are you going to do? Say no and stop them moving on with their life? So you always consider it a business arrangement. You have to have the documentation in place to make sure that the rules are clear, everyone agrees. And what happens when it needs to happens.

0:33:11 - (Tyron Hyde): And there are those other funds now where you can buy bricks in companies like a little 100th of a property. What do you think of those?

0:33:18 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): I don't know enough about them to comment. Look, I've seen a concept recently where a company will give you the deposit you need to buy a property that you otherwise couldn't afford, but when you come to sell it, they're going to keep 30% of the capital growth, and I find that horrific because if they're keeping 30% of the capital growth and you're selling to upgrade, you'll never be able to upgrade, you'll probably never get back in the market.

0:33:42 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So things may look good on the surface, but you always have to ask questions and look in the background and understand the implications and the complexity. So all of these buy a brick here or we'll give you the money for your deposit there or whatever isn't always great. And I've sadly seen parents help their kids to buy a property that they otherwise couldn't afford. Kid gets accustomed to the lifestyle in the suburb that they otherwise would never have been in.

0:34:08 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Then mum and dad want to retire, they want to sell the property, but kid's not happy and kid can't buy them out. So tantrum ensues and it turns to muck. So even when parents are wanting to help their kids, they need to have a clear arrangement in place there or get it done by a third party, like a lawyer or an advisor. Because I've seen parents suffer and struggle financially because their kids don't want to give up what they've become accustomed to, that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to live and experience were it not for their parents in the first place.

0:34:41 - (Tyron Hyde): All right, that's a good lead into question number six. Say you've just turned 50 and you've got no money, but you've recently inherited $500,000. How would you invest that $500,000? 

0:34:52 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, well, if they're 50 and they don't own their own home, I'd suggest get a home straight away, because we have massive issues with homelessness in this country, particularly women over the age of 50. So if you've got a roof over your head, no one can take it from you. If you've got no debt on it, no one can take it from you. So, first and foremost, at that age, if you do not have the security of your own residence by one, you might need to be flexible, you might need to compromise on the location, whatever the case may be.

0:35:18 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): You may even buy an investment property instead and rent vest. So you're investing where you're going to get great return. Could be a regional area that's got a combination of capital growth and cash flow that may enable you to keep renting where you're living. But if things don't work out, you've always got somewhere to fall back on. So that's number one. And I come from that position because I left home at 17, and the most important thing for me was having security.

0:35:44 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So as a young girl, I'd spent some time in a foster home that pulled the rug out from under me. When I left at 17, it was all about having a roof over my head, having security so that I was in control. So I tend to lean towards that. Otherwise, if you've got your own home, then again, it might be wise to talk to a financial advisor with some future planning around some sort of superannuation. Otherwise, if you want to invest in property again, find an investment-qualified buyer's agent to assist you.

0:36:11 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Don't buy off the plan stuff. Don't do your house and land packages. Don't talk to a property spruiker or a developer. Very high risk, and too many heartbreaking stories around that.

0:36:21 - (Tyron Hyde): If I gave you $500,000 today, what would you do with it?

0:36:23 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Miriam well, depending on your portfolio mix, what was already in there, whether it was capital growth, cash flow, combination of the two, which state it was in, I'd look at that. I'd look at where you've got diversification. I'd look at where you need diversification. I'd take into account your age. What do you want this property to do for you? All things being equal, if you want future income down the track and you want a combination of capital growth and cash flow, but you're going to rely on the income, then maybe, depending on your risk profile, maybe a regional property generating a five, 6% yield. If you had a high-risk profile, you might look at a regional commercial property generating a single similar yield. But obviously that's a net yield because you're not paying for maintenance and repairs. So every single time it needs to be on a case-by-case individual basis.

0:37:11 - (Tyron Hyde): Good answer, off the cuff, Miriam.

0:37:12 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Thank you.

0:37:15 - (Tyron Hyde): Question number seven, what would you, if you could fly back in time and see yourself, your 20-year-old self, what would you tell your 20-year-old self about investing?

0:37:23 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Number one, educate yourself. Don't be passive and rely on others. Make sure you're doing some reading. And look, back then, when I was 20, there really weren't property investing books or that around. There's, you know, obviously been a proliferation of them in the last 10,20 years, and now there are podcasts everywhere and all the rest of it. But certainly educate yourself, set financial goals so you're independent, and that includes women as well as men.

0:37:49 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Because the rate of divorce nowadays is so high. It's really important that if you're going into relationship, if you're going into a marriage that you have independent assets and savings. You get a family lawyer to write an accredited agreement, accredited family law agreement, so that if the relationship splits up, you know exactly who walks away with what. So it's about having an insurance policy.

0:38:15 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): But look, get your foot in the door. Make sure whatever you do, it matches your risk profile. You can sleep at night, get advice from experts and. Yeah, keep reading. And look, I've. I've had people come to me where they've read. They've educated themselves, they've done everything right, but the one thing they didn't think about is where they've come undone. So, for example, I had clients buy a house and land package.

0:38:39 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): They were selective in the location where it was. They did all the right things, given what it was. But what they didn't realise at the time and why they couldn't get a tenant was because in that particular estate, the mortgage payments for anyone buying their own home were the same as the rent they were trying to get. So they shot themselves in the foot because they didn't factor that in. And that's what I see happen. Most people make mistakes because of what they don't know rather than what they know. But education is still a good thing. Empower yourself with it. So I'm pretty fierce when it comes to looking after my clients and not putting up with rubbish and fighting really hard for them. And, you know, after we bought the property, even up until before the property settles. So that's just who I am.

0:39:21 - (Tyron Hyde): I want you on my side, Miriam. I can tell, I want you in my corner, as a boxer would say.

0:39:26 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): All right, well, it's funny, we're very much about being in people's corner, but what I say to people is I'm half Italian and half German, so the Italian in me never likes paying full price for anything. And the German in me is all about, cross the t's, dot the I's, follow the bouncing ball. So it works.

0:39:41 - (Tyron Hyde): Well, you know, it's hard to pay cash for things these days. Right?

0:39:45 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah.

0:39:48 - (Tyron Hyde): Question number eight.

0:39:49 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Using cash, though, everyone still needs to use it. It's the old analogy, use it or lose it.

0:39:53 - (Tyron Hyde): That's right. Okay. Okay. Question number eight. What legacy do you want to leave your family or your community?

0:39:59 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Look, I think I wrote my best-selling book to educate and protect consumers, and I've sort of spread it out there. I gift it to people. I'll put it into libraries. And I think that's perennial. You know, it's something that people can always go back to maybe some of the tax rules will change, but the concepts are there.

0:40:15 - (Tyron Hyde): Absolutely.

0:40:16 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah. And look, I hit the media hard for several years to address the issue of underquoting in Victoria and that eventually got shaken up where the government attempted to fix it. They didn't do the best job of it. They've attempted again. And now I think they're only implementing the rules. Call me cynical, but I think they're only implementing the rules because they're out to generate revenue from everywhere they possibly can. But it got the conversation going and it got legislation tightened up in Victoria, as it has done in some other states.

0:40:43 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And I guess for me, having helped hundreds and hundreds of clients make good decisions and protecting them from costly mistakes, because people often only have one chance to get it right and so they're totally dependent on that person that they're engaging to work with them. And look, if someone's got $300,000 or 5 million, they're going to get the same level of service and care and concern because I'm not doing and working in this business because it's about money for me, it's actually about contribution.

0:41:10 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): It's about that value around justice and looking after people and advocating for and protecting them.

0:41:16 - (Tyron Hyde): I definitely want you in my corner. Question number nine. Miriam, what does success look like to you?

0:41:21 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, that's a really interesting one. Look, I think it's a combination of having achieved business, social and personal goals. Look, it's not about money for me. I'm not a consumer, I'm not attached to material things that, you know, we're all going to die and we can't take anything with us. So I think for me it's about the experiences in life, having balance in my life so sufficient money to live an ideal lifestyle that I desire.

0:41:48 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): But it doesn't need to be, you know, swanning around in billion-dollar yachts or anything like that for me because that's meaningless to me. Like I said, you can't take it with you when you die. And my highest values aren't based around money and the superficial stuff.

0:42:03 - (Tyron Hyde): I think I tried to be the richest man in the grave a couple of times. I nearly ended up there doing it. What is your ideal lifestyle?

0:42:09 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Oh, look, I'd like to do a bit more travel. I mean, having left home so young, my focus was getting to college, get a qualification, work hard, you know, typical European background, there's no fun, just work your butt off and, you know, create some assets around you. So I think I'd like to do a gap year. I've never done a gap year.

0:42:28 - (Tyron Hyde): Yeah.

0:42:31 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): My version of a grey gap year.

0:42:33 - (Tyron Hyde): A grey-haired grey gap year.

0:42:36 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): rather than an 18-year-old gap year. But no, look, I'd definitely like to travel. Who knows what's going to happen? We could have these global passports coming in that unless you take 25 vaccines and jump through 20 hoops and let the government have control of all your assets, we may not be traveling into the future. Who knows?

0:42:55 - (Tyron Hyde): Sounds like you live in Melbourne.

0:42:58 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): I just had a month in Queensland.

0:43:01 - (Tyron Hyde): Now, Miriam, you might not know, but I started this podcast because I saw my father lose all his money and I'm leaving this hopefully for my daughter to look back one day and hopefully get some words of wisdom. Yeah, but question number ten, Warren Buffett is quoted saying, rule number one, never lose money. Rule number two, never forget rule number one. Miriam, how do we not lose money?

0:43:20 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, don't be passive. Empower yourself with education. Read my best-selling book, Property Prosperity. That'll give you a big-picture overview, but it'll get you to consider your risk profile because I always have clients coming to me going, I want you to buy me a development site. And when I ask them their risk profile and they say, well, it's low, I explain the distinction between the difference between the two and they inevitably change their strategy.

0:43:44 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So that's unbelievably important because it is about sleeping at night and most people don't sleep at night because they bite off more than they can chew. They do it naively and quite frankly, with developing nowadays, the margins now aren't what they were decades ago.

0:43:59 - (Tyron Hyde): Yeah.

0:43:59 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So why take on the highest risk profile you can possibly do developing for a really small return with all the manner in which things can go wrong when you could simply buy something that matches your risk profile and to a degree, set and forget. The other thing is find out your borrowing capacity early, stick to your budget and be buyer ready. If you're going to actually buy a property. Searching on the Internet is not research, it's searching. So don't fool yourself that sitting on the Internet every night for an hour and a half is research, because unless you know what you're looking for is simply searching.

0:44:34 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): I come back to that gentleman with that massive portfolio and his one solution was to buy undervalue and his negotiation method was unbelievably arrogant. It was take it or leave it. And I just said, well, I don't work that way and I'm not going to be arrogant and dictate to a vendor that kind of position so that I have to start the process all over again. You know, that's, that's not what I do, that's not how it works. So. Yeah, but definitely if you lack expertise or if you're not confident to buy on your own or even if you're overconfident, then you actually best to invest in a specialist and work with a credible buyer's agent. So, you know, you want Google reviews, you want to see media, you want to see qualifications, you want to see case studies, you want to see evidence of the capital growth that their clients have had, those sorts of things, professional indemnity, insurance, what state are they licensed in?

0:45:26 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): But I'd avoid the borderless buyer agents who take enormous risks for their clients. You know, I hear stories all the time of selling agents, selling rubbish to them because they sell them the stuff the locals won't buy because the locals know better and then because they put everyone in it, it falsely inflates the market and people think they've done well. But if they come to try and sell it, they're not going to be selling to the locals. They'll have to sell to someone who's equally naive about what they've bought and where they've bought it.

0:45:52 - (Tyron Hyde): It's interesting. I see. If I was starting out as an investor, what I'd do is id get Terry, I know you know Terry Ryder, Terry Ryder's Hotspotting reports. I'd get probably SQM, Herron Todd White's Property Clock and I'd overlay all the areas that they recommend. Right. And if they all three of them said I'll buy in the Sunshine Coast, I'd find a local buyers agency in the Sunshine Coast and use that person rather than someone who says we service everywhere, and just using property managers to do inspections. So that's how I would approach it.

0:46:20 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah. And not everyone can service everywhere. You know, you don't want a buyer's agent who's sitting on the Internet in Sydney or Melbourne and recommending buy this property in Queensland, never having seen it. And a lot of them will farm their work out to the local property manager who they've got an agreement with where they fill in a checkbox. But that's not the same as looking at a property. You know, when you inspect a property yourself, there are smells, there are sounds, there are noises. You can't tick that on a checkbox.

0:46:51 - (Tyron Hyde): The property managers are incentivised to get the property management agreement afterwards. They've got a bit of incentive there as well.

0:46:56 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): It's a total conflict of interest and at the end of the day, these buyer agents tell their clients what they're going to do, but it doesn't mean they're not liable if it turns shit because they're outsourcing to a third non-related party. And I'd be very concerned about the legal implications there if something goes wrong. And who's going to get sued? Because if you're engaging a buyer's agent and you're paying that agency to do the work and they're farming their job out to someone else who's not related, well, why would you want to be involved in that? With that agency?

0:47:24 - (Tyron Hyde): Yeah. Yeah. Great. Now, I didn't tell you, but there is a surprise question at the end of Ten with Ty, always. And you mentioned Melbourne before. I know you're in Melbourne, so I'm going to put it to you. Why would I buy in Melbourne when you've got land tax there, where the threshold starts at 50k? In New South Wales, it's 969k on a million-dollar property. Right. You've got a windfall gains tax. There's other taxes. Seems like there's taxes, taxes coming out of Melbourne's left, right and center. Why would I buy in Melbourne?

0:47:49 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah, really good question. And I hear what you're saying. Ironically, there are people selling out, but they tend to be the older people who don't have a lot of cash flow so they can't necessarily meet their obligations. They're retired, so they're sort of freeing up cash and shifting their property. But it's not everyone. I mean, we've got a lot of investors in the market and those numbers have increased in the last twelve months.

0:48:16 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): There's still the fact that Melbourne is now got population larger than Sydney even. We have a lot of immigration, we have a lot of employment opportunities, we have massive amounts of infrastructure. More so that's happening than anywhere else in the country. I'm not negating the fact that we have had a fiscally incompetent government who mismanaged the finances. Have I said that clearly enough?

0:48:40 - (Tyron Hyde): No. Louder and prouder, please.

0:48:43 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So I'm not negating that. And what's disgusting with every government is they use property owners as a soft target to pay for their incompetence and it happens in every state. Look, I've got multiple properties in Victoria. I'm not selling them. They're fundamentally still good assets. All I'm going to do is pay capital gains tax, lose the income and then buy somewhere else. Pay stamp duty again. And you know, there's nothing to say that the other states won't play the same game.

0:49:10 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So unfortunately, more and more, it's one of those things where we factor that in as a cost. Those people that are selling, you know, we've still got home buyers in the market. So seemingly there's less rental stock potentially over time as a result of this, which means the opportunities for capital growth and high yields are ironically better. And so the fundamentals are here. I mean, we've also had a softening in the market. You know, I bought a property this week for a client, an exceptional property in a regional area for 460,000 that 18 months ago would have easily gone for 600.

0:49:44 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So the time is right to buy back into the market because it's sort of at the bottom of the cycle.

0:49:49 - (Tyron Hyde): I agree.

0:49:49 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah.

0:49:50 - (Tyron Hyde): So it could be priced in is what you're saying. This land tax could be priced in it. Look, at any point they could change that, right? And then there'll be a flurry there. So maybe getting there before, if you ask me. But I wonder, do these people do a cost-benefit analysis, right, on having this lower threshold and then how does it affect stamp duty? People aren't buying and they're not getting their 30, 50k stamp duty clip, right? They might be getting a bit of land tax, but are they getting the stamp duty?

0:50:14 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So the governments are always short-sighted when they sting, you know, property owners with various taxes, whether it's resi or commercial or land or whatever the case may be, and then they point the finger and they demonize land and all the rest of it. So the cycle is the same. It's never, we're responsible, we're incompetent, we need to find a way to rectify it. It's always the demonisation of landlords or taxes.

0:50:37 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So yes, I hear what you're saying, but I can't speak for any government. But it doesn't mean the next government that comes in won't wind some of that back because of how unbelievably unpopular it is. And those governments may understand it's better to have a booming economy and attract people to a state than not.

0:50:55 - (Tyron Hyde): What they might get in is a decent marketing team and rebrand it. Calling it a Covid tax, where you guys are locked in there for the worst COVID lockdown in the world and now we're going to have a ten-year Covid tax to remind everyone about lockdown. Please change the name, people.

0:51:10 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Look, there's so much going on with politicians, you know, if all of us could magically stand out the front and protest in parliament, and insist on an election to bring it, you know, and try and end the pain sooner rather than later. Wouldn't that be brilliant? I know in Europe over the years they've stormed governments and stormed palaces and all the rest of it, but I think Aussies are a little bit more complacent than that.

0:51:35 - (Tyron Hyde): Now, Miriam, I've loved this. Now if you want to have Miriam in your corner, how would they contact you? Miriam, and where will they buy your book?

0:51:42 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Yeah. So if you don't mind, I'll just share my screen with you.

0:51:46 - (Tyron Hyde): Sure, go.

0:51:47 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): So the website is propertymavens.com.au. You can see it there. Got a little sandwich navigation bar on the side. So if you go into resources, you can buy my best-selling book there. There's a home buyer get ready assessment where you take a quiz, log on to that and it'll ask you some questions so that you've got an understanding as to whether or not you're ready to buy a home. And then if you'd like. So there's plenty of resources, there's blogs, there's webinars, plenty of webinars that I've done with Terry Ryder and Hotspotting over the last decade.

0:52:20 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): And then we've got lots of success stories. But if you like a free consultation, then hit the contact button, hit free consultation, give us some information around what you're looking for, where you're looking to buy. You know, we work across all of these areas and then one of the team will reach out and yeah, happily see how we can help you. And look, if we can't help you ourselves, we will definitely point you in the right direction.

0:52:43 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): But also if you want to have a look at our success stories, we've got hundreds of them there. And look, clients have come back two, three, four times. You know, that's pretty typical because again, you get that first one right and then you make sure that, you know, your leverage off that you get into your next one and your next one, but not necessarily the exclusion of accounting and tax advice.

0:53:05 - (Tyron Hyde): And should everyone get a depreciation schedule, Miriam?

0:53:09 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Absolutely. You know that to your team.

0:53:12 - (Tyron Hyde): Excellent. I've loved this chat so much. I think. I'm glad I gave you a voice. And thanks for being part of Ten with Ty.

0:53:18 - (Miriam Sandkuhler): Oh, thank you so much. It's been great. Really appreciate it.

0:53:21 - (Tyron Hyde): Thank you. 

If you own an investment property, then Washington Brown can help you pay less tax with an ATO-compliant depreciation schedule, visit washingtonbrown.com.au to pay less tax today.