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If you want to avoid public housing hotspots in an area you can. I'll show you exactly how to find public housing hotspots so you can avoid them.

If you're looking at investing in a property, chances are you're going to want to know where the public housing is in that area. Homeowners often want to know where the public housing is, as they want to avoid that area and some investors actually seek out public housing for the potential higher yields that properties around the public housing areas can deliver them with the potential of positive cash flow. So in this episode, I'm going to show you exactly how to find public housing hotspots in an area using a tool that's absolutely free.

Hey, I'm Ryan from onproperty.com.au and the tool that we're going to be using to do this is called Microburbs and you can find that at microburbs.com.au. You used to be able to do this – you still probably can – through a tool called Ripehouse, but that's a paid tool that's going to cost you at least $200. You could do this free through the census. However, it was very difficult and technical to do. However, Microburbs have made it really easy and I'll show you how to do it now.

So, here we are on the homepage, microburbs.com.au. All you do is enter the area – the suburb that you're interested in looking at. Let's just choose one area of interest that I don't know a lot about, Tamworth, New South Wales. So let's go ahead and have a look.

Now, Microburbs shows you a lot of different things. There's a lot of information in here. If you want to see that they offer, go to onproperty.com.au/339 and I did a walkthrough with the creator of Microburbs and we went through absolutely everything. But for this purpose and finding public housing, we want to go to this affluency score section here. Go ahead and click on that, and we can see public housing here. So if we click on that, that's going to give us a heat map overlay of public housing in the area.

Now, I don't know anything about Tamworth, I've never been there. So, I don't know where the public housing is. But I can see from this heat map, straightaway, that in West Tamworth, 16% of West Tamworth is public housing and in South Tamworth, it's about 8%, whereas in Tuminda is 0%. Regular Tamworth is 0%. East Tamworth, 2%. Kingswood, 0%. Hillview, 1%. So, all around, it seems to be very low. But in these 2 areas, it seems to be quite high.

Now, the powerful thing about Microburbs is that we can actually break this down from just the suburbs, which we're looking at now, into smaller sections of the suburbs that they call microburbs. So when the census is done, they break it down into these different little areas of about 400 dwellings or 400 residences. So, if we zoom in, that's actually going to break those suburbs up into different micro sections or microburbs so we can see all the difference here.

Now, it was West Tamworth and South Tamworth that seem to have the highest percentage of public housing. But now that we've zoomed in, we can see a red spot here where public housing is 59%, above that it is 49%, 38%, 36%, we've got 15% there. So we can see a big pocket of public housing here in the Southwest of Tamworth and we can see a few here, 19%, 25% and 38% – another pocket there. So, even though when we've zoomed out, this was all red for West Tamworth.

Once we zoom in, we can see, actually, it's just the more Westerly side of things that have the high percentage of public housing. Actually, the East side of West Tamworth, if that makes sense, seems to be pretty good with public housing, 0%, 2%, 6%, that one's got 15%, 2%, 8%. So, a lot lower, but high percentages there.

Basically, you can pull around. We can see Oxley Vale here. Let's go ahead and zoom in on Oxley Vale. Okay. We can see that that's got a pocket of public housing at 54% in the far North of Oxley Vale. So, when we're zoomed out,

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Today I share a new tool that gives A LOT of information about a suburb so you can make more informed investment decisions.

Hey guys. For years, it's been really hard to find decent data on an area that you're looking at investing in. If you're interested in investing a particular area, if you don't live there, it can be very difficult to know things about that area that you want to know. Things like; even capital growth or crime rates or public housing in the area.

What the area is like? What kind of restaurants are in there? Over the last 6 months to 12 months, there's been a lot of tools that have been coming out that have made life a lot easier for us. And we have a new tool that I've actually just discovered yesterday called microburbs.com.au and I've got the creator and founder, Luke Metcalfe with me today to talk us through it and how we can use this to better help our investing.

Ryan: Hey, Luke, thanks for coming on today.

Luke: Hey. Thank you very much for having me, Ryan.

Ryan: Okay. So, talk the people through what exactly is Microburbs and why did you start it?

Luke: Yeah. Okay. So, Microburbs is a site, totally free site that gives you these detailed comprehensive reports for everywhere in Australia. Our goal is to provide all the information that you don't otherwise get in property ads and in a format that is really easy to digest. We break things down by all different kinds of qualities of a property like tranquility and hipness and lifestyle and convenience and provide scores of each of those. And then, break down the reasons why.

So, for example, under tranquility, we show what kind of land nuisance nearby. Is it near industrial? Is it near public housing? Under affluence, we provide the median price and you can see that on the map as well. The convenience will show you how far it is from train stations and from the city. So, all the kinds of stuff that you might to find out about a property. All these things that you – it's such an enormous checklist of things, often as negative things, as well. Like, you might be surprised when you move in that you're in a mobile black spot. So we can answer that for you as well. Or the internet isn't very fast. So, all these things, we put them into one report for you so that you can be assured that a property is right for you, whether you're an investor a home buyer.

Ryan: Okay. So the purpose of Microburbs is basically for anyone who's looking at investing in a particular area or if you're looking at a specific property, you can basically go to microburbs.com.au, you can put in the suburb or you can put in the property and it's going to give you a whole bunch of information on the demographics of the area, the restaurants and all the stuff. Basically, anything you would ever want to know and even things you wouldn't even think of about an area. I guess the goal is to make investors confident in their decision and know they're buying the right property, is that right?

Luke: That's right. Yes. Good point. We do areas as well. You can search of suburbs, local government areas, any level, we cover – post codes. Our big thing is that realestate.com.au and domain.com.au, they're great to tell you about the house. So, whether it's got a Smeg kitchen, how many bathrooms it has, but it's not telling you about the neighbourhood. Obviously, majority of the purchase is actually the land value. It's the land that cost money. And land is only worth something if it's near other things. If you all you cared about was the house, then go build a mansion out in the Nullarbor Plain and you'll save yourself a lot of money, right?

So, all these things about what kind of neighbors you're going to have, what risks that the property faces is really an information gap that we are filling. There's a large number of government sources out there. There's other private sources as well and we're a...

Renovation can be a great way to get instant equity and make money but first you have to find the perfect property to renovate.

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There is a new, faster, better way to search for real estate online. A better experience with less ads.

Hey, guys, Ryan here from onproperty.com.au, helping you find positive cash flow property. Today, I've got an awesome tool for you guys and an interview with the creator of that tool. The tool is myrealestate.com.au and the creator who's with me today is Nino Svonjia.

Ryan: Hey, Nino, how's it going?

Nino: Hi, Ryan. Good, yourself?

Ryan: Very good. Now, you guys know when you go on to realestate.com.au or you go on to domain.com.au and you search for a property, the search listings aren't always the best. They're not organized the best. There's often those sponsored listings that get in the way that aren't in the same suburb or the same price range that you're searching for.

Searching for properties online and finding a decent property can be extremely difficult and Nino is trying solve this problem with his tool, which I just discovered the other day, called myrealestate.com.au, which you guys can be able to check out.

So, Nino, talk us through what is myrealesate.com.au and what are you guys trying to achieve over there?

Nino: Thanks, Ryan, First of all, thanks for having me on your show. It's great to be here. MyRealEstate is a completely new kind of search engine for all listed properties in Australia. So, it's very unique, it's very different than anything that's out there. What we're trying to do is gather all of the listings that are advertised out there and put them together in one place. More like a traditional search engine rather than a property advertising portal. So, we want it to be fair. We want it to be fast and easy to use.

Ryan: Yup.

Nino: You mentioned some of those points there around fairness. We see a lot of that as we gather some of that data. Sometimes, prices can be put in a price range where they don't belong to, just so they're trying to attract more users to click on them, and this is really not fair for the buyers.

Ryan: Often times, I'll do a search and stuff will come up that's listed as "auction" or it's listed as "no price" and it's not actually really in that price range. I can tell just by looking at the property. This property shouldn't really be shown to me in the price range I'm looking for.

Nino: That's right. The reason for this is because some of these websites have the ability to specify a hidden price or a hidden price range so that they can still appear in search results. This is not fair because this is a little bit deceptive behavior and often, what advertisers do is put lower price ranges because they're trying to attract more buyers. With myrealestate.com.au, we just have a single price.

You either have it said or you don't. And, we try and be very transparent about showing that to the users. In fact, if the price is not said, we try and penalize that and push it down because we think that if an advertiser hasn't put a price, usually, they try to involve in some tricky behavior. Otherwise, it's either too expensive, the vendor wants too much money or they're trying to fish the market, or something like that.

Ryan: Okay. So, let's talk through the search software because I've had a little play with it, but not a massive play with it. I like some of the tools because you can search using keywords. So, I can search for things like "yield" and properties where the real estate agent has "rented", the yield will come up. Or, I can search words like "rented for" and then properties where the real estate agent has said "rented for" will come up. So, it can help us find out the yields of properties or find out the yields of areas, which is really helpful for people searching for positive cash flow.

Is that how you designed it – to be like a search engine based on what the real estate agents say or is there some other way that we should be using it?

Nino: No.

There is a new, faster, better way to search for real estate online. A better experience with less ads. Hey, guys, Ryan here from onproperty.com.au, helping you find positive cash flow property. Today, I’ve got an awesome tool for you guys and an interview with the creator of that tool. The tool is myrealestate.com.au and […]

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Analysing a property market and understand what areas are likely to grow can be difficult. In this interview with Jeremy Sheppard from DSRdata.com.au we learn how to use data to find the best places to invest.

One of the hardest things to do as a property investor is to know how to analyse a property market. We can look at so many different suburbs. We can look at different cities. But it's really difficult to know – is that area actually going to grow in value or is it going to stay stagnant or decline?

So, today, I did an interview with Jeremy Sheppard from dsrdata.com.au. He is my go-to person when it comes to understanding how data impacts our view on a suburb and impacts whether we think a suburb is likely to grow or not.

There's a lot of people out there touting wisdom about population growth and income statistics and all of this sort of stuff, but often, the advise they give is actually wrong. And Jeremy has his counterintuitive approach where he really looks at the data, really understands what the data means and how it's going to affect a suburb. And he displays all the data for free over at dsrdata.com.au.

So today, I got on the line with him and we discussed a whole bunch of things about how to analyse a property market. We looked at a lot of different things. Originally, I was going to break this up, but it was such a good interview, I decided to leave it all together. Here's a short list of some of the things that we're going to discuss.

We look at the DSR Data story, so why did he start DSR Data? What's so great about demand and supply and why is that important? We look at is capital growth sustainable? One of the things people say is if an area has grown in the past, it's going to grow in the future. That may not actually be true. We look at how to analyse a property market using his tool and using other data. We look at whether or not population growth causes capital growth and the answer is, no, it actually doesn't, but we talk about that.

We look at whether or not the property clock is a bogus idea. I really like this part of the interview where we talk about whether or not we think the property clock actually has merit, or is there a better way to look at things? We also talk about how to estimate the peak of a market, so we're not buying at the peak and then prices drop. We also talk about why we may not actually need to buy properties under market value.

We discuss a whole bunch of other different things as well, but I'll leave it with you for now. Here's the interview with Jeremy Sheppard from dsrdata.com.au.

Ryan: Okay. Well, let's start. So how did you get into property analysis, data analysis or suburbs? What caused you to start your site DSR Data?

Jeremy: First of all, getting into the data. I found myself spending a lot of time researching and I also wanted to keep things objective. I knew that a numerical basis for property investing is a good idea for objectivity because the numbers don't have emotions and it helps me keep my emotions out and prevents me from making subjective decisions. But the other issue was that I wanted to buy in the best places in Australia and there's nearly 16,000 suburbs.

So, how do you go about filtering that down? Having an automated tool just zips through all of them, looking for at least some positivity in certain statistics. That, to me, it just struck a cord and I found myself gathering the same sort of data all the time for individual suburbs, so why can't I just do it for all of them? So that's where, I suppose.

Ryan: How do you decide on the criteria to say, "Well, I'm going to look at X, Y, Z." And the different points that you eventually decided on? Did you do this all by yourself? Like, is this a project at home sort of thing?

Jeremy: Yes. Yeah, yeah. It started off as just a home project. Yeah. I want to make good investments, how do I go about it?

Analysing a property market and understand what areas are likely to grow can be difficult. In this interview with Jeremy Sheppard from DSRdata.com.au we learn how to use data to find the best places to invest. One of the hardest things to do as a property investor is to know how to analyse a property […]

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How can you find a good suburb to invest in? A suburb that is likely to go up in value, one that is low risk and has the potential for capital growth.

So you want to invest in property. Obviously, you want to choose a suburb that has minimum risks and the potential for maximum returns but what are the steps that you need to take to actually find a good suburb to invest in?

What are the steps that you need to take to find a good suburb to invest in?

1. Start At A State Level

The first thing that you need to do is to start broad. What most people do is they start from the ground up which is the wrong approach.

They will find a property, someone might send them a link and say, "Hey, look at this property" or they might say, "My uncle is selling a property and you can buy it. If you don't go through a real estate agent he will give you a discount."

And so for one reason or another, you end up starting at the property level and you then need to work your way up to understand, "Okay, is this a good suburb to invest in? Is this property a good price?"

But what tends to be a better way to approach things is to actually start broad, so start at a state level or start at an area level.

2. Narrow Down To A Major District

Let's say you decide to invest in Queensland, then let us first assess Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Hervey Bay, maybe some regional areas as well.

Assess them as areas and first understand, "Okay, what kind of area do I feel comfortable with and want to invest in?"

Analyze your area and look at things like past capital growth history.

Look at the potential trends for the area moving forward. Look at the demand-supply for the area. Look at vacancy rates in the area and things like that.

You can also go to council websites and you can try and assess what infrastructure developments are going into an area.

Is the population growing or declining?

What you want to do is to start to whittle down the area so you just have a couple of areas you want to look at.

3. Start Looking At Suburb Research

Then you start going into the suburb research. What I advise is to do research on a lot of different suburbs, not just one.

The way most people approach finding a good area to invest in or finding a good suburb to invest in is they say, "Okay, here is a suburb. Suburb X. Is this a good suburb to invest in? Yes or no?” That is one way you can approach it, but it's probably not the best way.

It is very difficult to collect enough data to understand if one suburbs is a good suburb to invest in. It is very difficult for the average investor because you may not understand what all the data means. Maybe you don't understand exactly how to research a suburb.

What is a lot more effective and a lot easier is to spread out and you look at all the different suburbs and actually compare those suburbs to each other.

Look For The Best Suburb In The Area

Let's say you decided the Gold Coast was a good place to invest. Rather than saying

"Okay, the Gold Coast. There is a suburb in the Gold Coast called Robina, do I want to invest in Robina, yes or no?"

That is the old way to do it. The better way to do it is to say:

"Well, what are all the suburbs of the Gold Coast? There is Robina. Mudgeeraba. Burleigh. Broadbeach. Surfers Paradise. Southport. Which of these suburbs is going to be THE BEST suburb for me to invest in?"

Collect all of the suburbs, do research and data on all of the suburbs and then lay them out in front of you and compare them to each other. You will then be able to rank them in order and you will see that some suburbs you definitely do not want to invest in and you will see a few suburbs that really go to the top of the pile.

What you can then do is assess those top suburbs and decide which of these top suburbs do you think is the best for you.

How can you find a good suburb to invest in? A suburb that is likely to go up in value, one that is low risk and has the potential for capital growth. So you want to invest in property. Obviously, you want to choose a suburb that has minimum risks and the potential for maximum […]

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How can you know if an area is a good place to invest or if it is likely to decrease in value? Successful property investors know the areas they are investing in.

How do you know if an area is a good place to invest in? So you want to invest in property and you are looking at a variety of different suburbs to invest in, how do you actually know if the suburb you choose is a good suburb to invest in, that will likely increase in value or if it is a bad suburb that is very risky and may decrease in value?

Hi, I am Ryan from OnProperty.com.au, helping you find positive cash flow properties. This month we are talking all about research for the launch of my new course Advanced Property Research which you can check out at OnProperty.com.au/suburb. Now, I just want to put a disclaimer out there that this is probably not the best way to discover if an area is a good place to invest.

The best way is probably to get access to hundreds of different data points and be a super nerd and understand exactly how to analyze them and analyze the trends and know everything to do with the suburb being like a super computer. But most of us cannot do that and most of us can only understand what a few different data points from an area mean. So this is going to be a good strategy for a lot of people out there especially if you are not of how to do a lot of stuff with research. But for those of you who are super smart, you can obviously take this further and go into more detail.

So the first thing that I think you should do when looking for a good place to invest is to find good. And this starts by actually understanding your financial goals and your lifestyle goals and understanding what sort of property and what sort of area is going to move you towards those goals as quickly as possible. For one person, they might just want an area that is extremely robust and low risk because they just want to maintain their money and their portfolio and maybe generate some cash flow as well. Other people might be after fast equity growth because they are making the bulk of their income from their property portfolio and they want to be able to expand quickly.

So depending on who you are and depending on your goals, the definition of good area is going to change. So it is important to understand what your financial goals are, what is the property investment strategy that you have chosen to achieve those goals. And therefore what kind of suburb are you looking for that fits in with your property investment strategy. So sit down, take some time to think about what do you actually want to achieve from the property, what strategy are you going to use - is it buy-and-hold, is it positive cash flow, is it renovation, all these sort of stuff. And then try and work out what is a good suburb for renovation or positive cash flow or for buy-and-hold. So first, understand what is good.

For most people, I think, what is going to be helpful when looking for a good suburb is to try and minimize your risks and as well we want to maximize our return but I think that for a lot of people should be secondary to actually minimizing our risks. Because a lot of people go in and they are looking at a suburb and they are just looking at the upside. We get our greed on and we are thinking about how much money we can make from this deal and we are not thinking about the possibilities of things going wrong. So for a lot of people, I think minimizing their risks and focusing on the risks of an area to assess whether or not it is a good place to invest is probably the best place to start. And then after you have assessed the risk then you can look at data points of the area that indicate that you may be able to get maximum returns for the area.

So to do this, we want to look for what I like to call red flags. These are risk aspects of an area. An example of this would be a high vacancy rate in an a...