Australians are passionate about real estate and over two million of us own investment properties, while many more have aspirations to acquire property to grow their wealth and provide for their retirement.

But while the nation is full of people with ambitions in real estate, the reality is that relatively few people are successful with property investment.

As a nation, we’re not particularly good at property investment.

The official data shows that while more than two million Australians participate in property investment, 72% have just one property and another 18% have two. 

That’s nine out of 10 investors with just one or two properties.

Those who have a portfolio - owning five or more properties - are less than 1% of the total.

The question is: why do so few achieve success with property investment?

I think it’s fair to say that most people come to real estate investment with ambition.

There’s often a dream of acquiring multiple properties and funding retirement with the proceeds of those real estate assets - possibly even retiring early.

But the data shows that most people get stuck on just one or two properties.

Why is it so?

Our experience with investors and prospective investors suggests a number of reasons:-

• Many investors are herd animals, who jump into the market when they hear or read there’s a boom happening, rather than having a defined strategy heading towards a clear objective.

• Far too many people are unwilling to invest in good advice and information before spending the big dollars on buying a piece of real estate – and that’s the worst kind of false economy.

• Many wannabe investors are wait-and-see people - they find myriad reasons to procrastinate and avoid making decisions and moving forward - the next RBA board meeting, the result of the next election, the negative forecasts of economists, and many others.

• For all of these reasons, many investors make a hash of the first investment - buying in the wrong location, paying too much or failing to do proper due diligence and ending up with a property that doesn’t perform. This makes it hard to move forward to acquire more properties.

The objective of the Hotspotting team is to help as many people as possible avoid these mistakes and make a success of property investment.

As part of that goal, we have created a podcast focused on the 1% - the special cohort of people who have created a substantial property portfolio. 

In “The 1%” podcast, we interview some of Australia’s most successful property investors and advisers to find out the keys to their personal success and to learn how others can follow their lead and be part of the elite few who make it big in real estate investment.

There’s no better way to do property investment well than to follow the example of those who have made a success of it.