The Lydian Financial Podcast

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/
• Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XKuzoQnj-jk

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:26 [Jackie] Hi, everyone. And welcome to Boothy's Bites for November. Boothy, what? We're already at November. What is going on?

00:00:08:31 - 00:00:16:48 [Chris] Yeah I know it's getting too close to Christmas, isn't it? Yeah. Pretty amazing. Well, what a whirlwind of a year. Anyway, thanks for checking in today.

00:00:16:53 - 00:00:25:25 [Jackie] Thanks for having me. And speaking of a whirlwind, let's jump straight in with the RBA. What have they been up to? What's their well-being?

00:00:25:30 - 00:00:42:41 [Chris] Yeah, so a little bit disappointing for people who borrowed money and also the interest rates did go up. I mean, we kind of talked about it a little bit last month. We've had some pressure with certainly some of the fuel costs in the marketplace. And, you know, some of the things have been sort of keeping inflation a little bit higher than the Reserve Bank of Australia wanted.

00:00:42:45 - 00:01:02:49 [Chris] And again, you know, the rhetoric has always been this year to try really cool inflation. So Michelle Bullock really had no choice but to sort of make those changes. I think there was a lot of deliberation about, you know, when they should hike the interest rate, should it be now or should we wait and just see. But I think in simple terms for me is if they increase now, I think they won't go.

00:01:02:49 - 00:01:18:18 [Chris] My call is there'll be no change in December. And what that means then is we've got a couple of months break with the Reserve Bank. So we don't come back until February anyway. So I think they'd rather do it now, sort of see how that sort of pieces through the Christmas season and then revisit the numbers back in February when we get there.

00:01:18:18 - 00:01:28:37 [Chris] So unfortunately, we cut the quarter percent, which, you know, does impact interest rates going up by a quarter percent as well. But yeah, it's interesting times. I do think this should be the last one in the cycle, though. That's my gut feel.

00:01:28:37 - 00:01:41:16 [Jackie] Your prediction, with fingers crossed, are correct. And everyone can have a bit of a laugh at those couple of months, so fingers crossed! And so what about home loans? What's happening on that front at the moment?

00:01:41:27 - 00:01:59:33 [Chris] Yes, so that means it's becoming a lot more challenging for borrowers or the cost or affordability piece around. You know, applying for new finance has been very, very difficult for a lot of people. So, yeah, it's tough. The refinance market has probably cooled down a lot. It's certainly... there's no cashbacks really left in the market.

00:01:59:33 - 00:02:26:52 [Chris] So that ability and incentive to move has really died down to pretty much nothing. So you know it is a quite a market that we are getting a lot of first home buyers looking to buy their first place. I think you know with the increasing in the difficulty in finding accommodation. But the second thing about that, affordability of renting accommodation, I think that's pushing a few young people or younger people to try and get into the property market on that first property.

00:02:26:52 - 00:02:46:03 [Chris] Yeah, we are seeing a lot of pre approvals and people trying to push in to try and take advantage of the first homeowners grant, the first time the deposit scheme and those schemes as well. So we've been busy doing that. What else would we be doing. The other thing we're really focusing on for a lot of our financial planning clients is really getting cash and budgeting back in the correct structures.

00:02:46:08 - 00:03:04:53 [Chris] And what I mean by that, a lot of our clients who potentially, you know, they've got an investment property, they own their own home, their investment property repayments went to principal and interest. And you know, really now what we're trying to do is sort of restate those loans into interest only and then so they can concentrate on paying principal and interest on their own home.

00:03:05:00 - 00:03:27:21 [Chris] We see obviously from a tax perspective there's a benefit, but when we're sort of 2%, the impact of P&I on that loan was a little bit less. Today though it's obviously a lot harder for clients to manage both. So yeah, we're seeing a bit of that. So cash flow budgeting is one thing, a fair bit of first home buyers via markets and that sort of that's what we've got right now with the kind of work we're doing through the network as well.

00:03:27:25 - 00:03:36:55 [Jackie] Not bad. Still a bit of work around for the team to get through. And so what about the offers that we have on the table at the moment for these home loans?

00:03:37:06 - 00:03:55:39 [Chris] Yeah. So we'll just wait for the new interest rates to come into place of a quarter percent increase. I think pretty much everyone will pass that full quarter percent on right now. Some of the specials that we are working with: St George Bank have had some really heavily discounted interest rates. So, you know, we've been we've been applying for finance through St George's Bank quite regularly.

00:03:55:51 - 00:04:16:08 [Chris] You know, they've been great for large loan amounts and low loan to value ratio loans. They've got some heavily discounted rates which, you know, sort of market leading. A couple of other niches out there: Firstmac, they're based in Queensland, and they're supporting owner occupiers and investors with some very cheap rates as well. And in fact their investment rates are pretty amazing.

00:04:16:08 - 00:04:36:05 [Chris] So yeah, those guys as well. And then lastly, Bank of Australia, they've got some cheap rates. They're down sort of that 5.98% principal and interest or interest only variable as well. So yeah, there's some good offers there. I think really my sort of call out for people who are looking at their interest rates, if their own home interest rate is more than 6%...

00:04:36:10 - 00:05:00:42 [Chris] ...they should reach out to a broker and just have a conversation just to get a health check. And if their investment loans are above 6.2%, well, again, they should reach out to their mortgage broker and do a review as well. If they do believe or if the client does believe, they've got lots and lots of equity in their property, which has changed over the last 12, 18 months, we'll again do a review because pricing is dictated by loan to value ratio right now as well.

00:05:00:46 - 00:05:03:43 [Chris] So yes, some really good specials...and it's good.

00:05:03:50 - 00:05:06:43 [Jackie] So all in all, get in touch with your broker.

00:05:06:43 - 00:05:08:55 [Chris] Get in touch. That's it. This is time to do it.

00:05:09:00 - 00:05:15:30 [Chris] And so I heard that you caught up with Heartland Seniors recently. So what have they got on the table? What's on offer there?

00:05:15:36 - 00:05:30:04 [Chris] I mean, that's a really good sort of segue. I mean, most of the time we're supporting sort of first home buyers. And, you know, wealth accumulates is something that's sort of the demographics that we're looking at. But for someone who's a little bit more mature, probably retired, I mean, you've got to be retired to use this product.

00:05:30:09 - 00:05:59:36 [Chris] There is a product called a Reverse Mortgage. Now, it's not for everyone and it's certainly not something, you know, we provide finance for and don't provide advice around that finance as well. But if you've got like an elderly person who's in a home with lots and lots of equity and they're looking for funds for lifestyle or to renovate their own home or just to maybe even sort of extend loans into retirement. The reverse mortgages is a unique product and Heartland Seniors offers a great product there.

00:05:59:36 - 00:06:16:14 [Chris] They do also aged care. If you've got family members moving into from their own home to aged care as well, they can provide that sort of bridging finance to get into aged care as well. So yeah, reverse mortgage is quite a specialized product. Heartland Seniors is going to, you know, a really good sort of lens and feel around that product.

00:06:16:19 - 00:06:30:34 [Chris] And again, if you will, if you're a mature client... I've got a dog trying to get outside, apologies. He's opening the door right next to me. I'm thinking, what's going on? Someone's breaking in the house and there's a dog breaking out. But if you if you're looking to...

00:06:30:39 - 00:06:31:39 [Laughter]

00:06:31:44 - 00:06:48:32 [Chris] If you're looking to get finance, you know, if your elderly parents are looking for finance, you know, reach out and talk to us. It's certainly for if your elderly parents are having to make provisions to move into aged care, again a great service and a great sort of niche product as well that by Heartland Seniors.

00:06:48:32 - 00:06:50:34 [Chris] So, a little bit about reverse mortgages.

00:06:50:40 - 00:06:57:41 [Jackie] Awesome. And so now moving on to self-managed super funds, what are we seeing in the way of refinancing and purchases.

00:06:57:45 - 00:07:20:09 [Chris] Yeah so again, so similarly it's a niche product. Interestingly, twofold: number one, the interest rates to refinance right now. If you are an old bank client, sort of St George Bank, Macquarie Bank, AMP Bank and other the major banks who aren't providing the product anymore, it's definitely worth a review to refinance and look at whether there's going to be a benefit; we're looking to save for the 2% interest rates on those products.

00:07:20:09 - 00:07:47:26 [Chris] But on the flip side of that, we do have a lot of clients right now who potentially don't feel it's affordable in their own name to actually gear up and borrow and invest in property. However, they've got quite a large and mature superannuation balance and they feel now's the appropriate time to sort of reach out, get some advice as well, whether, you know, the fund is eligible to actually borrow and can they create that structure. Secondly, is it appropriate to buy property and what's sort of affordability to buy a property in a superfund?

00:07:47:31 - 00:08:08:57 [Chris] Obviously from a servicing perspective, it's down to the rent income, the contributions of the super fund to actually quarantine the serviceability. So you're not going to impact your personal lifestyle, income and expenses by actually gearing in super, which is attractive to a lot of people right now who sort of just want to get through this tougher time in their personal life, but still, you know, want to build wealth through property.

00:08:09:01 - 00:08:15:20 [Jackie] Yeah, awesome. And so now moving on to my favorite kind of Boothy's Bites: your property update!

00:08:15:25 - 00:08:37:28 [Chris] Well I think have been quite right again so the last... it just seemed there's a lot more property on the market which is great; springtime is always that time, but with that extra property on the market, the clearance rates haven't been as great. Having said that, though, I think it's definitely in pockets. So what I mean by that is the first homeowners space or that sort of affordable investor space being up to sort of that one and a half million dollars.

00:08:37:33 - 00:08:57:19 [Chris] It's been hotly contested. There's no doubt about it. The options are busy. Lots of people go through these open homes and certainly they're not spending too long on the marketplace for that sort of price point. But I think what we're starting to see now is that sort of $2 million plus. that sort of mid-range family home in sort of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane; that market is certainly weakened again.

00:08:57:28 - 00:09:16:37 [Chris] Affordability for most has decreased. So therefore the ability to jump into that market, there's less, I suppose, eligibility by borrowers. So yeah, that sort of I think we've got a kind of two markets running parallel right now. And I do expect next year that the high end will start to cull a bit further as well, especially with the volumes...

00:09:16:49 - 00:09:21:42 [Chris] ...no, sorry, the ability to borrow right now is certainly a lot tougher for most. Yeah.

00:09:21:46 - 00:09:26:43 [Jackie] Definitely. And our last little bit, the update with Lydian HQ.

00:09:26:45 - 00:09:42:32 [Chris] Yeah, well we've been, we've been very, very busy this year, so we've been recruiting lots of new brokers to the club, which has been cool... and yeah, look, we've, we've got a little sort of niche space in the Gold Coast now. So we've got Jamie Peach or James Peach or Peachy has joined us up in the Gold Coast now.

00:09:42:32 - 00:10:01:58 [Chris] So yeah, it's been really nice, you know, the last four or five months where we've had sort of five new brokers join the team has been great because now we don't generally have that national footprint of brokers. We've been busy getting them onboarded, getting them sort of sets up, plugging them into some of the networks and the partnerships that we've got and also them going out to market and building their bases.

00:10:01:58 - 00:10:18:28 [Chris] But yeah, we start 2024 with a pretty big team. So it's is, which is very exciting. So yeah, so that's been, it's been great. I tell you I'm knackered though, but anyway, looking forward to Christmas.

00:10:18:33 - 00:10:22:01 [Jackie] You are only six weeks away. Yeah.

00:10:22:01 - 00:10:22:31 [Chris] That's it, yeah.

00:10:22:31 - 00:10:25:41 [Jackie] Yeah, when you're ...

00:10:25:46 - 00:10:45:01 [Chris] We're on the home run. But no, it's been great and it's so nice to, to support, you know, people starting their businesses or coming over to, you know, enhance the services for their businesses or aspirations, just wanting to grow their businesses. So it's really good that we're having these conversations. And I think certainly the partnership side of the businesses has been really well supported.

00:10:45:01 - 00:11:05:40 [Chris] We've had, you know, a lot of work we've been doing for H&R Block branches, which has been great. And also a lot of the financial partners that have been speaking about offering the service to their clients are now coming online. They're starting to engage and sort of talk about lending and property as well. So yeah, hopefully that sort of financial advice around property lending next year is going to be a big part of Lydian too.

00:11:05:40 - 00:11:08:12 [Chris] So yeah, fingers crossed again.

00:11:08:16 - 00:11:20:29 [Jackie] Yeah, bring it on! Bigger and better 2024. Well Boothy, thank you so much for your time. And thank you to everyone who's watching this. And I guess we'll see everyone for the last one for 2023!

00:11:20:29 - 00:11:23:06 [Chris] Looking forward to Christmas! See you later, guys! Thanks again, Jackie!

00:11:23:11 - 00:11:29:41 [Jackie] Thanks, Boothy. Bye.

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/
• Youtube link to this video: https://youtu.be/qXy3xVQa9ik

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:00 [Jackie] Hey everyone and welcome to Boothy's Bites for October, and hello and welcome to the man himself, Mr. Chris Booth. How are you, Boothy?

00:00:08:00 - 00:00:20:00 [Chris] Yeah, I'm good, thanks, Jackie. It's great to be doing this. And I just wanna say thank you for joining Rocksy (Andrew Rocks) and I in Brisbane last week to catch up. It was wonderful to share that time as well. And I know Rocksy was very excited, so thank you for indulging him.

00:00:20:00 - 00:00:28:00 [Jackie] Oh, thank you for inviting me. All right, so let's dive in with the RBA and interest rates. So what's happening there?

00:00:28:00 - 00:00:42:23 [Chris] Well, Michelle Bullock is the new governor of the RBA. So we've got a lady at the helm, which is great, but I think, look, you know, the sentiment for interest rates right now is we're on hold and that poses as a real welcome breath of fresh air for all borrowers.

00:00:42:23 - 00:01:08:38 [Chris] And for me it's a sensible decision right now. You know, we've done a lot of work with regards to increasing interest rates. We're waiting to see what their impact ultimately rolls out to be, you know, to cull inflation, which is obviously the primary concern of the Reserve Bank of Australia right now. Is it working? Well, the data that we've had out this is that the inflation is coming down with it, which is great, but we do have a few headwinds on the horizon for the RBA to manage and look at.

00:01:08:38 - 00:01:24:46 [Chris] I think you know for me as well, I'm sure yourself, Jackie, you know, we're all driving cars and I'm going, Oh my God, when you're tapping and going at the bowser, you can't, you know, when did the tank of petrol become $150 instead of like $50? You know, that's taking away a lot of money out of the system, but also increasing inflation as well.

00:01:24:46 - 00:01:42:28 [Chris] You know, so so the fuel prices are a bit of a concern. And then the impact on that as well, you know, being, you know, the cost of food and goods that we buy as a consumer as well. So that is definitely being impacted there as well. And then lastly, the other thing which is happening in probably means that we won't be able to afford to go to the states.

00:01:42:43 - 00:02:06:46 [Chris] And meanwhile as the currency, the Aussie dollar, is falling quite considerably and that will have an inflationary aspect to that as well. You know, trying to buy things which are important for Australia will be costing us more money as well. But you know, this is a complement to that as well whereby that we'll be able to sell more things overseas and also it would be attractive for people to come travel to Australia so that should stimulate the economy as well.

00:02:06:46 - 00:02:14:00 [Chris] But I think for now we're on hold with interest rates, which is great. That means that, you know, we've got a bit of a pause there.

00:02:14:00 - 00:02:21:00 [Jackie] So yeah, nice. I love your silver lining. This is happening, which isn't great. And hey, come to Australia and see what we've got.

00:02:21:00 - 00:02:31:04 [Chris] Well I've got a tourist boat on as a sidegig so you know, we can get some Americans to come on my Seabird Seven tourist boat and promote this.

00:02:31:04 - 00:02:36:00 [Chris] Yeah that's right. Sorry. It's not about Lydian today, it's about the Seabird Seven.

00:02:36:00 - 00:02:45:00 [Jackie] Book with Boothy, get in contact! (laughs)And so what trends are we seeing in the home lending arena at the moment?

00:02:45:00 - 00:02:55:08 [Chris] Yeah, so that has been good for us because now we've got very transparent interest rates in the marketplace. So we know where the rates are. We know where the promotions are right now.

00:02:55:08 - 00:03:09:27 [Chris] We know with the existing rates that we've got a good or bad. So, you know, providing advice right now is a little bit easier. And the clients, you know, it's a little less volatile for the client. So with this changing environment, you know, one of the things I would say is fixed rates have been all over the place.

00:03:09:27 - 00:03:25:35 [Chris] So about a month ago we had some cheap fixed rates in the marketplace. But with all this sort of uncertainty, with the headwinds we talked about before, those fixed rates have actually increased now. So they are a little bit more expensive than variable rates, which were a bit different last week where we had last month where we had a few special offers on fixed rates.

00:03:25:44 - 00:03:29:00 [Chris] So it's a fairly transparent market right now, yeah?

00:03:29:00 - 00:03:39:00 [Jackie] Yeah. Okay, Good for transparency. We like that, but we'll see what happens. And so what about hot rates on offer at the moment? What have you got for us?

00:03:39:00 - 00:03:47:34 [Chris] Yes. Okay. So that's good because we've got we've got more of a normal market right now with interest rates to sort of win business, as it were.

00:03:47:34 - 00:04:12:14 [Chris] The banks have got to do a little bit extra, which is cool. So we've got a couple of under the market or so under the counter market interest rate. So St. George Bank have got some very very attractive rates. Now from a pricing perspective, they're looking at a 5.69% variable and that rate there has to be a 60% loan to value ratio or less and you've got to be borrowing $1 million or more.

00:04:12:23 - 00:04:29:27 [Chris] So what they're doing is providing a lot of competition in that sort of exposed higher end of the market but low risk to the bank, yeah? Which is, which is really cool. But if you're not borrowing that sort of amount of money, we still have some special rates in place right now. So I think it's what I'm just going to check my email.

00:04:29:27 - 00:04:46:39 [Chris] So I think it's Firstmac that we've got from a hot rate perspective? So they've got cheap rates as well. They've got some cheap rates right now as well. And also Bank of Sydney, they've got some really good rates as well for investors. So they've got a cheap investor rate, interest only and principal and interest which is, which is really cool.

00:04:46:39 - 00:05:07:00 [Chris] So I think the biggest thing for me right now, it's worthwhile reaching out to your mortgage broker, have a chat with them, do a rate with you, look at what's good and what's bad. And there certainly are some heavily discounted rates. And even if it means that all we're doing is fighting with your existing lenders to get back to rates where you're at, that's obviously the service that we can provide and to our clients as well, yeah?

00:05:07:00 - 00:05:11:00 [Jackie] Awesome! And so what's been happening in the property market?

00:05:11:00 - 00:05:27:59 [Chris] Yeah, so, well, Kelly and I have sold a Brisbane place, so I mean, I'll walk you through that experience really. So I was really worried. We've had an apartment up there for sort of five or six years. I think it is. And yeah, look, we're looking to change tack a little bit and you know, we decided to actually sell that property.

00:05:27:59 - 00:05:54:12 [Chris] Now the Brisbane market for us has always been able to rent out the apartment. It's been great. It was local to the hospital and things there, so we've never had a problem with the property. From a capital appreciation perspective. it really didn't work out wonderfully for us, but it did appreciate, no doubt about it. But anyway, in the initial consultation with the real estate agent and we went through McGrath, the team, and was recommended to go through Craig McGrath by Donie Collins, who is our Property Specialist as well.

00:05:54:12 - 00:06:09:10 [Chris] So you know, a real team effort for us and, and Craig, to be honest, was a little bit unsure about where the value of the property was going to to lay. And we have actually got tenants in that property as well. So the process for us was wonderful though. So, you know, we had to get consent from the tenants to do an open home.

00:06:09:13 - 00:06:29:07 [Chris] We only had one weekend to do an open house. We got some 20 people in there. We've got five or six contracts out, two or three offers. The property basically got we agreed on the price 2 to 3 days later, exchange contracts, work through the cooling off period. Valuation and formal approval happened pretty quickly for the buyers and we settled today of all days.

00:06:29:07 - 00:06:47:33 [Chris] So a really, really amazing which and I've got to say, I think the sentiment for that first home buyer market right now, it's really, really hot. So in our portfolio we've got lots and lots of clients who've got pre-approvals in place to buy that first home. And traditionally that first home would have been sort of that sort of price point around five, six, $700,000.

00:06:47:33 - 00:07:10:24 [Chris] But we've got all the first home buyers right now who are prepped and primed to buy at 1 to 1.3, $1.5 million. So that marketplace, I think is in real, real demand right now. And I suppose, you know, the statistics being, you know, the rental market increases over the last 12 to 18 months have been quite incredible. And it's really motivating people now to consider buying their own home rather than renting.

00:07:10:24 - 00:07:25:24 [Chris] And that's sort of that's sort of "new to market" space is real hot. But, you know, I do believe that the you know, as we go through the, you know, the spring and summer campaigns right now, more properties are coming into the market. So hopefully that will have a sort of a cooling effect on the values of property prices as well.

00:07:25:24 - 00:07:45:39 [Chris] So it's just interesting firsthand, you know, we were able to sell the property for the you know, for the right reasons very, very quickly. So anyone who's looking to consider to offload property, rebalance the you know, the books, as it were, well then reach out to us. We've got plenty of people in our world who can support that process and do a really, really good job. Donie and Craig...

00:07:45:45 - 00:07:53:00 [Chris] ...were fantastic for us. So it's just been nice to go through a process which I'm recommending my clients to go through as well, you know?

00:07:53:00 - 00:07:57:00 [Jackie] First hand experience. Well, congratulations to you and Kelly. That's very exciting.

00:07:57:00 - 00:08:03:00 [Chris] Yeah, we're going to Vegas! (laughs)

00:08:03:00 - 00:08:04:00 [Jackie] (Laughs) I wouldn't expect anything less!

00:08:05:00 - 00:08:08:00 [Chris] Or I might have to pay off my credit card. I don't know, we'll see.

00:08:08:40 - 00:08:12:00 [Jackie] And so what about news back home at Lydian HQ? What's happening there?

00:08:13:00 - [Chris] Yeah, so the Pride is growing. It's been really exciting, actually. So in the month of September, which it's crazy to think that, you know, we've been onboarding some really nice partners so in particular Australia --- are new to Lydian Partnership, which is great. So we've been speaking to the teams in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and rolling out the services through their channel and then next to their dealer group channel, which is really exciting for us.

00:08:37:01 - 00:08:58:53 [Chris] Secondly, we've been speaking with the H&R Block offices as well, so we've been having some lunches with the H&R Block district team and promoting the lending services through those services. So through those offices as well, which has been really good. So I just want to thank the brokers for really pushing that out and helping as well these services to those branches, because I think there's over 400 branches nationally and I can't do that myself.

00:08:58:53 - 00:09:18:07 [Chris] I'd be a little bit tired. And then lastly, you know, closer to home, you know, we're really expanding the pride. I mean, Jackie, you have seen from the day that it was sort of my Jerry Maguire moment who's with me, and a couple of mortgage brokers joined. We've got a bit of a merry band now. So, you know, we are definitely national and we've got a great guy who's just joined us, an English guy, so please go easy with him.

00:09:18:07 - 00:09:37:46 [Chris] But he's booked into the Gold Coast in southeast Queensland for us. His name's James Peach. He's got a business as well, called Peach Finance. So some of you may well see his billboard when you're driving north to Brissy there. So it's James Peach, it's Peach finance that's powered by Lydian. But yeah, we've got a great broker joining us in the Gold Coast which is pretty cool.

00:09:38:00 - 00:09:59:30 [Chris] And that means then I can go back there to visit James and have a little bit of a holiday because Gold Coast is one of my favorite spots in Australia. (To Jackie) Yeah, come get come down and visit. So he's joined us there and then yeah we've had a bit of a reshuffle with Darren. So with Darren primarily about brokers, he's been with us from day dot, he's gone up to manage the HQ there in Brisbane which is really exciting for us.

00:09:59:34 - 00:10:19:24 [Chris] And then yeah, yeah, watch this space. We've got a couple of other brokers which we're really pleased to have on board and we will launch those guys and girls in the October and November months as well. So we hope to have a team of about 17 mortgage brokers by the end of the year, which really plugs in those gaps and relationships that we've got from the partnership perspective.

00:10:19:24 - 00:10:46:04 [Chris] So it's a big thank you from Rocks and I for, one, joining us. And number two, thank the brokers for thinking about Lydian as a home to be and thank the partners for supporting Lydian so we can grow as well. And lastly I suppose thanks to the operations team for helping us plug in these guys and girls into the Lydian platform and doing an amazing job for the brokers from a transaction perspective and a marketing perspective to get their branded personal profiles out there.

00:10:46:04 - 00:10:52:00 [Chris] So it's a real team effort that Lydian HQ as well as Jackie, that's yourself. I won't forget you.

00:10:52:00 - 00:11:21:00 [Jackie] Well, I think every time we've jumped on to film these Boothy's Bites, we've spoken about a new broker coming on board. So that's a testament to you and Rocksy constantly trying to grow the business and yes, so thank you to you guys for providing us with such an amazing team to be a part of. It's awesome! Go Team Lydian! (Laughs) We've got the trucker hats!

00:11:21:00 - 00:11:28:00 [Chris] Yeah, that's it. Okay. Well, I think...okay, well, I'll do a team song. Yeah, it was the Lion King song, but it's a really difficult one to sing. We've all failed at it, anyway.

00:11:29:00 - 00:11:40:00 [Jackie] You've never asked me. But anyway (laughs) Well Boothy, thank you so much for joining me for your segment. As always, a pleasure. And we'll be seeing you next month.

00:11:40:00 - 00:11:44:00 [Chris] Thank you, Jackie. You take care. Cheers, again. Ciao, everyone!

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/
• Youtube link to this video: https://youtu.be/Y6ev0n8iXmQ

Transcript:

Jackie Hey everyone, welcome back to the September edition of Boothy's Bites with the man himself, Mr. Chris Booth, how are you doing Boothy? Chris I'm doing very well, thank you for having me. I can't believe it's nearly summer.

Jackie You've been out on the boat recently? Warmer weather, boat weather? Chris Yes, I have. So if you follow me on Facebook, you'll see my - I only post good posts on Facebook, I don't post my shopping or housework or anything like that, but sailing certainly posted, and me and my mate got out on the weekend and did the spinnaker sail for the first time, which was pretty cool. A spinnaker's a big and complicated sail. Anyway, we had a great sail out, we got out to the sun, had a beer, sailed.

Jackie Very nice! Now let's get back to business, enough with sailing. So first up, let's talk about the RBA's cash rate decision. So your thoughts on that?

Chris Yeah, well, I mean it was Lowe's last hurrah which is good so I think a sort of - you know his exit, and then we've got a new governor of the RBA, and I forgot her name and I should know, but anyway we have a new person joining so that's got to be a different sentiment, we've got some different rules to engage as well, so probably not gonna be as many meetings and things which is all gonna be fascinating going forward.

Chris But retrospectively, this year we'll be waiting for the inflation to come down - it progressively has been coming down, which has been great, and that means the interest rate rises that we've had had an impact there too. Obviously we've sort of worked through some of the Coronavirus impacts as well on inflation, and it was really nice to see that inflation figure come down, so that was the primary goal and is still the primary goal of the RBA, and that's meant that they've had a breather there with that sort of retrospective data, which is cool.

Chris On the flip side of that, you know, when we rise interest rates, consumers are impacted y'know. So we've got problems now with consumers who are really struggling to afford just their day to day living, including their home loans and things like that. So, you know, extra discretionary spending, that's for the actual downsizing of retail sales. A lot slower.

Chris The impact of the costs associated with building and renovations and refurbishing homes and things, that's really be down. So the next sort of thing that the RBA has got to work out with that slowdown is a contraction and it will. They need to reduce interest rates to stimulate more activity and a little bit more confidence in the market as well.

Chris So yeah, it'd be an interesting sort of next few months, but you know, 4.1% is the cash rate I think will be 4.1% next month. I mean there's no sort of noise or news on the horizon which can really sort of impact the short term and what that's meant is that the yield curve, the interest rates that we're forecasting is gone from the normal curve, which is low interest rates down here by interest rates...

Chris ...here, we've now got the long term interest rates back to the same as the short term interest rates. So we've actually got what's called a flat yield curve. And what that means is that for borrowers, the interest rates associated with that, we've got cheaper fixed rates than the variable rates, which again is quite interesting. We haven't had that sort of anomaly in cheaper interest rates, fixed rates. So anyway, so that's the, that's the RBA, you know, *whew*.

Jackie What an interesting time though, and there's no denying that we're all feeling the pinch in one way or another. So it'll be interesting times ahead. So what's the latest with various bank rates at the moment and also some of the services on offer?

Chris Yeah. So I mean the lenders are really, you know, we're in this kind of new norm now where interest rates are actually at kind of that they're transparent, we can see exactly whose variable rate is the same because before, when interest rates were going up, some of the smaller rates were changing somewhat. It's a bit confusing, but right now we're kind of in the sweet spot where we can actually compare like with mortgage lenders. So, you know, the good thing about that now with from an advice perspective, we can see what the cheapest rates are, which is wonderful.

Chris Sticking to that, we now can see what the cheeky rates are, which some of the lenders are out there start to claw back a bit of their interest margins. So like no names or giving out names, but like the larger banks, they're going to be cheekily increasing their interest rates outside of RBA cycle. We've seen a couple of interest rate hikes 1050 basis points from variable rates set to just increase that.

Chris So, you know, it's worth getting a review right now on your interest rates, which it always has been, and some of the appetite to lend right now, the best interest rates are always going to be your low loan to value ratio home loans with strong servicing. So prime lenders like Macquarie Bank, ING, and Suncorp, they're often really discounted rates for those low loan to value ratios and others.

Chris And there's still a wee bit of a cash back market out there as well. You know, $2,000 or maybe $4,000 to refinance. But a lot of that sort of fight for refinance market is really gone. And in fact, we've got a few more people who are actually actively looking to buy property right now, got pre-approval and some funding and as well, which is really nice.

Chris So that is cool, you know. And then lastly, affordability with our lenders is very different. So the credit policies with which we're working with are quite different and affordability certainly is one of those big factors when looking at a client situation. So maybe you're with your current bank and to demonstrate affordability today so hard with the bank's policy.

Chris Having said that, though, if you did look to move to a different lender, that policy and ability to demonstrate affordability is very different. And then that's considerations for recommending different lenders as well. So solutions based, but number 1: get an interest rate with you to get a better rate. And number two: let's look and see what eligibility you have with the lenders too, yeah?

Jackie Nice, love the work arounds and so what are some of your favorite lending offers available at the moment?

Chris Yeah. Okay. So I've got to just quickly open my email. But first one first is Bank of Sydney. They've got a really cool 5.64% owner occupier P&I variable, which is extremely cheap. Bank of Australia, they've got a three year fixed rate. Like I said before, some of the fixed rates are lower than the variables. So they've got a P&I three year fixed, 5.54%. I'm stumbling over my words because it's so cheap.

Chris And for investors we've got variable P&I and interest only at Firstmac for 5.74%, which is - Firstmac are a great bank an a good lender too. And lastly, we've got Bank of Australia with 5.64% P&I or 5.84% interest only rates too. So I think that that three year fixed rate from memory as well. So again, like I said before, if you're paying over 6% your interest rates right now, it's really time to actually do a quick check in with your broker and do that review as well.

Jackie Nice. And so let's now talk about some niche products. So you've mentioned aged care loans and also the deposit boost loans. Can you talk us through those a little bit?

Chris Yeah. So I think importantly for us, you know, we do home loans and investment home loans very well, right? That's our vanilla stuff. But, you know, as a mortgage broker, we've got access to over 60 different lenders, that's home loans, investment home loans,

Chris We've got 40 different commercial lenders as well. But also within that sort of pot of lenders, we've got a variety of different sort of niche products. And we work with a lot of financial planners, they have a lot of elderly clients who've got some mature wealth, but potentially a lot of those clients own a property, don't want to sell that property...

Chris ...but have to make that change from living on their own and having that independent's home to moving into an aged care facility where they get some support and that comes with a lot of cost. Now, to borrow, if you an elderly client is difficult because you don't have an income and potentially don't want to dip into savings investments, but you've got to do that.

Chris So La Trobe have got a particularly niche product to actually help support that process. So they will allow you to utilize some of your equity within your own home and borrow some money, and that money that can be utilized to get you into the aged care community and also pay those ongoing costs and importantly as well, you can actually capitalize those costs of the loan on top of the loan, so you don't actually have to make any repayments if you don't have the ability to do so and you get up to seven years to sort of manage that facility as well, which is pretty cool.

Chris Yeah. Sadly sometimes in these situations, you know, that person might be in a pretty difficult time and it's always so difficult for family to manage those financial arrangements, so this is one way to do that. And if the family member does pass, then again, you've got some time and some flexibility to manage the sale of that property in accordance with the estate and the estate funding as well.

Chris So really good sort of niche solution with helping clients who are vulnerable and in need of help whether they don't have access to cash, for us that's a big asset being at home, being able to get that cash and, you know, have a bit of their quality of life too. So one niche one. On the other one, OwnHome. I really like this one. I forgot, was it a deposit boost loan?

Jackie Yeah, it's deposit boost loan. Yeah.

Chris Great. So I actually went to a party about three years ago. Christmas time. Oh, about two years ago Christmas time, I'm sorry. I met all these young guys, all these kind of young go-getters. One of them was the guys from Quickli, who've got this really cool servicibility calculator. They're go-getters as well.

Chris But another business at the time was a company called OwnHome and they were coming up with really cool solutions for people who have got high income but don't have deposits to get into that first home. And yeah, we've reconnected just recently with the CEO that was...Anyway, I reconnected with the guys at OwnHome and he talked about some of the new iterations of OwnHome. And what that is, is basically the clients who've got a strong income but have no deposit...

Chris ...they will do two loans for that client for 100% of the purchase price of that property to get them in their first time. So one, it's got to be a quality property. Number two, you get a prime lender who will lend 80% of the value of that property. OwnHome will then go ahead and lend the balance being 20% of that property.

Chris And then lastly, the client has actually got to engage OwnHome to go do the buyer's service around finding that. And so you'd meet with OwnHome, you talk about the properties that you want, but then OwnHome would go away and help source that property and you do have to pay a fee for that. Now because you've got the blended first mortgage and the second mortgage for the facility

Chris The blended interest rate is higher than the normal standard variable rate, but nonetheless, if you're in a high income earner looking to stay in, you know, the eastern suburbs where I started out looking to buy a million dollar or 1.5 million dollar place there, you're outside of the first home grants, you're outside of all the benefits that you get from that.

Chris And it can still get you a good home in the location you want to be. And all you've got to do is save up the stamp duty being sort of 30, 35, 40,000 just to get you into that property, which is way easier than saving all of the rest of that money. Also, you avoid lender's mortgage insurance as well, which is a huge cost and huge burden as well.

Chris So it's a real niche product. The second part about it is it's not just for first home buyers. It can be for people who are buying a family home at a later stage in life, you know, they then will have had one separated, starting out from scratch, don't have savings and it might be a few years when Kelly kicks me out.

Chris So you know, how can you utilize this - frankly I'm earning some good money and I can go buy myself a place to live in and as I've handed all my cash and all my assets to Kelly to keep her happy. So again, I can see there's a -

Chris I can see there's a space with this type of service in the future. Anyway, a couple of great examples there, but I'm sure there's more utility for OwnHome as well. But really niche product. And I promise you, I'm not trying to divorce Kelly, nor is she trying to divorce me. I can't get any better.

Jackie Oh my gosh, that's why we love you.

Jackie And so. Okay, moving on to my favorite part of Boothy's Bites, your property update. So, what have you noticed happening in the market recently?

Chris Yes, I think it's you know, it's still hot, hot, hot. You know, so there's plenty of demand, plenty people out there buying, which is great. Supply still not opened up yet. Interestingly, though, we work with a business called Salefunder, which they finance the advertising costs associated with listing of properties...

Chris ...and we get to work with those clients, go through that sort of transition period and sale. There has been a swathe of clients who are putting their properties for sale right now. It's been very noticeable - the volume of those listings is certainly picking up. So, you know, my forecast is still at the stands and I do believe the spring period running into summer would see volumes of sales picking up purely for the, you know, the pressures around managing extra debt and interest costs associated debt.

Chris So, you know, with that extra supply should meet demand and we start to see some calming of prices. In fact, interestingly, we've seen an increase this year in all the major cities - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane - in property values, you know, and that's purely been that sort of low supply, high demand and an increase in prices. And in fact just recently we've had a few clients who purchased, you know, the options have been so strong that they've had to, you know, been motivated to purchase and put in higher bids than what they thought. They won...

Chris ...the property. We've got a valuation on that property and it's been less than the purchase price, which has been the first time in quite a few years. So just be mindful when you come to those auctions or putting pre-bids in - we're at that stage now where potentially the valuations of these properties, can start to turn a little bit and that may impact some of the credit decisions around valuations, yeah?

Jackie Nice, so make sure you're surrounded by the pros, hey? Get it right the first time.

Chris That's exactly right. Do you know anyone?

Jackie You know someone! So let's just finish on what's happening at Lydian HQ. What's the latest?

Chris That's a great segway - do you know anyone - well the Lydian family is growing. Woo hoo, the pride! So we're really super stoked, this year has been great. You know. So we've worked really hard.

Chris We've got fantastic partners nationally. We're getting some great results for our brokers who joined us early on. But because of the demand of the partnerships and the platform that we have now for brokers, certainly we get a lot more interest, a lot more support from new brokers joining Lydian, which is wonderful. So we've been able to recently put a new broker on in Sydney, a guy called Michael Short.

Chris You know, he fits in very well. One of our Sydney based brokers has moved up to Brisbane to work with some partners up there, so that's great - so we wish Darren well. But he's still in the pride and the family is just running the office up there. We've also got a new broker down in Melbourne - Pinakin - who's joined us as well. So we got Michael, Pinakin, and I'm missing someone - oh Tahlia, she's running up in the Sunny Coast and she's joined us as well.

Chris And excitingly we hope to have someone plugged into the Gold Coast area very shortly. So on that note, we need a broker in Newcastle. If you've got anyone, family, or friends who want to be a broker in Newcastle. That's a good spot for us. West Sydney - we want to be the king of the West. Parramatta, Penrith, we've got a space for you down there.

Chris And then lastly, southwest Sydney as well. We've probably got a bit of a corridor there for some space too to get brokers started. But look, we're a team of 16 brokers, which is great and yeah, we've got plenty of great people to help clients, so we are genuinely a national business. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth. Oh, we need someone in Darwin as well. Have you got someone in Darwin?

Jackie I'll get on the phone, see what I can organize. Maybe another Jackie, but just Jackie's. Well Boothy, thank you so much for your time. I can't believe that it's September already. We're doing this update and within 5 seconds we'll be doing October again. So thank you for your time. Love chatting to you. And we'll see everyone next month.

Chris Yeah thank you Jackie, see you, ciao ciao!

Jackie Bye!

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/
• Youtube link to this video: https://youtu.be/Y6ev0n8iXmQ

Transcript:

Jackie Hey, everyone. Another month, another Boothy's Bites and we can't do it without the man himself. So. Hey, Boothy. How are you?

Chris Hey, Jackie. Thanks again for having me. This is really cool. I love it.

Jackie We love Boothys Bites. Always a good laugh. So let's jump straight in. The RBA. Some good news for everyone, right?

Chris Yeah, well. Hoo hoo! So, yeah, two months in a row now. So that's really cool. And it's quite exciting because I think, you know, like I'm pretty beat up with all these interest rate changes and things. So it's just nice to get a bit of consistency, one with that decision, but also, you know, so we can now start to better understand what rates are with which lenders as well.

Chris So yeah, it's been an interesting time, you know. The good thing about, well, those positives and negatives about, you know, the interest rates not going up number one, the positive thing, inflation that's starting to come down now quite quickly, which is a real big win for the RBA. You know, that's what they've been focusing on. That's the negative side of this, although is one of the other sort of sentiments of of you know, the economy.

Chris Retail spending was really, really bad. So a lot of the mums and dads and and people out there are really start to curtail their spending and watch their spending habits. So you know the, you know, that's obviously means that the households are doing it tough. And though these interest rates are having a big impact on many, especially for borrowers.

Chris So that's we've got some tough times ahead, I think. But potentially now I think we might be at that peak of the interest rate rises. So that means, you know, what we've got today for the next 4 to 6 months should be nip potentially where we're at for a while now. And this is you know, this is our new norm.

Chris Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean it's a positive with a negative. Yeah.

Jackie Yeah. So like anything. Yeah, life's like that Boothy. And so what about the lenders, What have they been up to over the past month?

Chris Yeah, that's been quite interesting. So we've got the cash back and these really cheap interest rates that have been offered, they've kind of been pulled back out of the market now, certainly the cash back side of things, which was pretty crazy last year, that was definitely, you know, pretty much gone now. But interestingly, the you know, some of the major banks, they actually have been increasing their interest rates out of cycle.

Chris And what that means is that there even though the Reserve Bank hasn't increased their cash rate, the banks still have the ability to increase their own rates. So they've been increasing some of their standard variable rates by ten, 15, 20 basis points over the last few months. So that's been having a negative impact on borrowers and also the fixed interest rates.

Chris They've actually been going up as well. So again, you know, a bit of competition is kind of coming out of the market. I think some of the larger banks that really worried about their profitability for shareholders are not really, you know, the the cost to the borrowers to say so. Yeah so that's been happening but then you know there is still good competition out there for clients looking for a cheaper the rate.

Chris And certainly that review process I think is invaluable for anyone who's got a loan right now because of all the short term, all we've gone through in the last six, 12 months. I really recommend a review today more than ever.

Jackie Yeah, yeah, of course. So much happening. So you want to make sure that you're at the best place possible. And speaking of which, what are your favorite offers going around at the moment? Yeah.

Chris Okay, well, pull up my sheet because I forget, just give me one sec.

Jackie Lots of them.

Chris You know. You know, you know, every every mortgage broker has their preferences, right, with, you know, regards, turnaround times and consistently good interest rates. But there are certainly some specials out there with some of the non-major banks. So Move Bank in particular has got a really good owner occupier at 5.64%, which is incredibly cheap rate and that's a variable rate with no offsets.

Chris Principal interest owner occupier, Home Loan, Bank of Sydney, they've got a 5.64 with an offset, which is, which is a good feature as well. That fee and variable to kudos have got a fantastic three year fixed rate. So I talked about fixed rates going up the other day or just before, sorry, but they've got a 5.693 year fixed rate, which I really do think offers good value for a few years in this kind of market.

Chris Right now. So that might be one to consider for parts and maybe not all of your loan, but certainly for part of it just to have some peace of mind with your repayments over the next few years. And then lastly, for our investors, Bank of Australia, they've got a 5.79 P&I variable or a 5.99 interest-only variable.

Chris Now that 5.99 interest-only variable I think is unbelievable. So really again, if you're an investor and you're paying principal interest on your investment debt and we've also got a home loan, it really is important to start looking at that structure, getting your cashflow in place to concentrate on your own home rather than the investment property and make sure your investment property is interest only.

Chris But yeah, if you've got a 6% in front of you, interest rates right now, come see us!

Jackie Hahaha! We wanna talk to you. And so what about the property market, What's happening there? This has got to be one of my favorite little segments of yours, hearing your property take. So, take it away.

Chris Well, okay. Well, the first thing is I rent a property in Randwick and my landlord called me the day and said they're struggling with their interest rates and making repayments on their home loan, and hence they've got to increase my rent. So I can't be the only person who's having these conversations with my landlord and renter.

Chris And anyway, I did said to my landlord when was I responsible to pay your home loan? Right? You know, that's not my job. However, he had a good point. So I look at what apparently my rent has been a little bit lower than it should have been for a while. So I think most importantly, if you are either a property owner for investment purposes, well then get that reviewed and have a look at that, because it's a pretty tight market right now.

Chris My wife and I realize we can't go anywhere, so we've kind of got to cop it. But certainly, yeah, those, you know, making sure, you know, your properties have been reached out with the most appropriate income and the best income it can have. I think that's a really good thing to do. Review again, reach out. We've got real estate agents around the country.

Chris You can do reviews for you. The second one, I would say is what are the markets doing? So last week we actually had a I suppose a poor performing Sydney market from an auction perspective. So we did come the 70% clearance rate. Now I don't know whether that was real low amounts of stock on the market, So it's a bit of a tough thing to really kind of juggle and figure out where this market is going.

Chris I do believe that the springtime this year will start to get more normal volumes come into the marketplace. Certainly the biggest thing is, you know, with the stress of interest rates right now, you've got borrowing against property. People will be considering to sell property, de-leverage, de-gear, capitalize the balance sheet, do that kind of stuff. So my take on property right now is I think we'll just wait until spring comes around.

Chris It's sunny today, but we've had a couple of days of miserable cold rain. So when the sun gets a bit, when it gets a bit warm and the sun comes out, maybe a few people will start to list their properties. Brisbane's done really well, hasn't it? I mean, Brisbane's really been booming, so you know, well done. Brisbane and Melbourne also has been doing pretty well, so they've had clearance rates above that mark and I think the forecast for Sydney property gains in this 12 months is about 10% and I think that's similar for the gains in property in Melbourne and Brisbane as well.

Chris So you know, property prices through this interest rate hike, it's certainly not gone down. They've they've continued to steadily, you know, go up and 10% is not nothing. You know, it's quite a large gain as well. So yeah, I think if the people who have got cash and are looking to invest, there's no time like now to invest if you're looking for, you know, plenty of benefits.

Chris If it your first homes, there's plenty of benefits and offers. So no stamp duty, first home loan deposit schemes, first homeowner grants and things like that. So again, reach out if you're looking to buy property. We've got a swag of pre-approval in place right now, so we've got lots of people looking to buy.

Jackie Yeah, so exciting. We love to help them on that journey. And so lastly, what's the updates happening at Lydian HQ? I hear that we've welcomed some new workers into the Pride.

Chris Yes, it's been really good. I think we've spoken about it. Jackie, you've presented well and you've polished Lydian's profile. So people are attracted to come to Lydian now, which is really good.

Chris We've also got a great lady who joined us earlier. So I'm based in the Sunshine Coast as well. So yes, she just got on board yesterday, so we're really excited for Tahlia. And in fact, she's doing a caravan journey around Australia to see if we can be a mobile broker. That's cool. That's pretty cool.

Jackie That's cool.

Chris That's pretty cool. She's taking her young kids and family around Australia while working for Lydian, which is really exciting too.

Chris But she's a fantastic mortgage broker too, so we welcome her on board. And then we've got the conference for Virtual Business Partners in Cebu next week. So Andrew and I, we go up there representing, we'll be networking with many of our existing partners, plenty of prospect partners there in the financial planning space. So we're excited to get over there to see some of our good friends.

Chris But yes, it's really good. And then watch this space next month. We've got more brokers joining in more key locations. So it's an exciting time to be part of the Pride.

Jackie It sure is. Come and join us. We're a cahoot! Well Boothy, thank you so much for your time. Love doing these monthly updates with you and we will see you in September next month.

Chris Yeah, perfect. Alright, we'll have a have a great one. It be spring next month, so I'm looking forward to that. Thanks again, Jackie. Just want to say thank you to Andrew, my business partner, for holding the fort while I was away. You know, all those big decisions he did incredibly well, So well done Andrew.

Jackie Awesome. Thanks Boothy, see you soon. Bye.

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/
• Youtube link to this video: https://youtu.be/eZH5Prp79KQ

Transcript:

Jackie I want to welcome back to these bites for July. We have the man, Mr. Booth, with us again. So welcome back, Chris.

Chris Thank you very much Jackie. Great to see you again. And, look, apologies for the June Boothy Bites. Obviously, we're on a bit of a holiday in the UK. And can I just say for people watching, I love your hair, I love what you've done Jackie, well done!

Jackie So a bit of a back story for those watching, just quickly. I actually canceled the recording of this yesterday because my hair wasn't looking good. So I do look good today. Thanks Boothy

Chris You are welcome. It looks wonderful. And I've made an effort to today as well.

Jackie

Yeah, I see that. So, enough hair talk. Straight to business. So what's happening with the RBA? Good news, ay?

Chris Yeah, well, look, I mean, we've got a bit of a preview which was good, you know? And I think, you know, with all the news around right now I think we just sort of deserved a bit of a break. You know, the 4.1% cash rate, which the RBA, or the Reserve Bank, decided to keep on hold for another month - it's good.

I'm also partial of that. I think the next six months are going to be tough. There's a lot of people who've actually had fixed rate loans, you know, into that Corona Virus period. And they are maturing over the next six months. So there's a swag of people coming off 2% interest rates now reverting to that standard variable, which is, you know, close to 6% and in some instances higher. So I think that's sort of negativity for that.

You know, the average household is a borrower and having to just spend sort of budgets and spending habits and the impacts of that. I think the RBA did the right thing by sort of pause right now.

Jackie Yeah, sure. And so what about predictions? Is there any predictions out there for rate cuts or anything like that?

Chris It's interesting. I did put a little snippet on my Boothy Bites email to a lot of the partners just yesterday. So with the sentiment right now, the majors that they will do that forecasting.

So we've got ANZ, NAB, CBA and Westpac and they're awfully similar. So they're expecting, you know, over the next few months a couple of, you know, one or two more interest rate hikes over this next six months. And then the sentiment as a collective is that from the Reserve Bank then is at the top of that cycle, you know, being sort of mid to high 4% for a wee while.

And then the sentiment then is that hopefully the inflation's pull down at that time and then back to that more normal 2 to 3% environment which Reserve Bank is comfortable with and then the Reserve Bank then would probably need to address the slowdown in the economy about this quick interest rate hiking has actually caused. So that potentially means that next year we see some reductions in interest rates where the cash rate then goes back to sort of a more normal rate at around about that 3.5%, maybe 4%.

So we're in a bit of a cycle to go through, but certainly there's a pause for thought right now, which is great for borrowers like myself means something on the horizon, something to look forward to at least. It's good news.

Jackie What about the lenders? So what are they doing at the moment? Any lenders catching your eye?

Chris So the lenders right now, I mean, that's a really interesting conversation with a lot of the lenders now are starting to change their serviceability policies to afford the luxury of refinancing. So what I mean by that, you know, for clients looking for a cheaper interest rate, many of the lenders are locked into these traditional assessment rates where they've got to use a 3% buffer on the actual rate.

So that means many of the lenders have been using sort of eight and a half per cent interest rates to demonstrate affordability, which is an extremely high interest rate. Now we've got a bit of latitude, so, so flexibility around that.

Well I think APRA and ASIC and now for an affordability test for refinances, the banks are allowed to use a 1% buffer. So that means, you know, if interest rates are 6%, the assessment rate for a refinance at the moment that is 7%. So again, I suppose it empowers people to look at their interest rates and then have to go to generally to shop around and then no longer credit lock from that serviceability perspective. So there's some policies there which are really helpful for people looking to get a better rate if they are maturing off those fixed rates some of the lenders will be working right now.

So Qudos Bank, which is the ex-Qantas Credit Union, they've got a 5.59% variable which is extremely cheap. Now how long they keep it at 5.59% because it is a lot lower than that. Many of the ones out there to be seen. But certainly at the very attractive rate for their basic product there.

Macquarie Bank has always been in the market. So, if you have got a low loan to value ratio, strong debt to income ratio and you know, a good application for lending,they've got a 5.79% package, which means you get offset, neutral and all of that really cool banking stuff that you need for a good loan.

And then for investors, if we're looking at investors, those Firstmac is going to be 5.74% interest only interest rate.Now that is interest only and them for such additional interest only in price slightly higher, which is cheap at this time it's the same rate.So that's an attractive rate for interest only repayments, which may be helpful to get your budget and cash flow back in order.

And then lastly, talking about fixed rates, I think there's a couple of attractive rates on offer from Bank of Australia. They've got a 5.8%, three and five year fixed rate and for those both I believe are interest only as well. So yeah, so there's some cheap rates. But again, you know what I'm saying to our clients let's have a look at what the current interest rate, let's go back to existing lending fight for a better rate. If that's not available from that lender and they're giving you still a low deal well then let's have a look and see what options to move for some of these cheaper rate. But again, it is a difficult market, but certainly lots of lenders are very supportive to your business.

Jackie Well, yeah, sure. So plenty of options that everyone by sounds of it.

Chris Yeah, sure.

Jackie And so what about the property market? Are you seeing any trends there at the moment?

Chris So, I mean, last year really we - as Mortgage Brokers with, you know, as a collective, you know, a national broker base. Most of our applications were for refinances. We have very few clients actually thinking about or looking at purchases, you know, and it was a strange time for cause traditionally, we've got, you know, clients who are looking to buy their first home or upgrade their family home and things like that.

So that was out of the market last year. But we'll probably March or April, we'll start to see a few more pre-approval come back into our application system, which is great to see. And again, you know, our brokers are working with first home buyers because some changes to those grants. So in particular the first home buyer grants with some changes. So the first home loan deposit scheme and some more space is available and that changes to that actual delivery for clients as well.

So we've seen quite a few first time buyers banked by that first price. Second to that, we've had a lot of pre-approval in the market. Sorry, in our business, getting prepared to buy their, you know, upgraded family home.

So now what that's meant is that, you know, just seeing from my street alone in Randwick, we've got a couple of options down our street which I tried to attend just to get a feel of the flavor, what's happening. And their busy, you know. So, there's lots of buyers there, lots of people registering, watching what's happening and the price that the properties are selling for, are certainly, you know, they're kept pretty high and in fact property prices across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane seem to be appreciating and not going down.

So that demand is excessive for supply that's out there currently. And I think we'll start to see you know, we'll see that for the next couple of months, hopefully, though, and we are seeing that now. You know, there's a bit of stress on some of the family budgets.

We'll start to see a few investors to sell their investment property so we can move recapitalize their balance sheet to pay down some, pay off debt, reduce the cost of their home loans, and also maybe reduce their personal home loan as well. So, you know, I do expect a few more properties in spring period to come to the market.

So hopefully that supply then starts to meet the demand and potentially the property prices either stay the same or potentially come up and pull off a little bit.

So yeah, we're seeing lots of people trying to buy and hopefully they get they get the success they're looking for in buying surely.

Jackie Yeah. Awesome. And so what about back home? Any news that Lydian HQ? I hear we've got some new faces on board.

Chris Yeah, it's exciting times. Yes. So, you know, on our quest to become a national brokerage company two of those remote cities in Australia, it's really hard to get to them and tough to fall, Perth and Adelaide. We found two fantastic people, so we've got Harsh Joshi over in Perth who's joined the team. And yeah, look, he is a wonderful man he's very sensible. He's an ex-accountant and I mean you've done the broker Bio, so he is a good guy. Hopefully you can help me be a bit more flexible as well. But Harsh has joined us in Perth which is a really good addition to the team.

And then secondly, we've got a more of a mature person over in Adelaide. So we've got David who's similar sort of demographic to me who's been in financial services and finance and things for many many years. And he's already working with a couple of partners in our Adelaide team So geographicaly now, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth which is pretty cool! this a very exciting!

Jackie we've nearly got it all covered and Northern Territory and then we've got all of Australia coming.

Chris We're still trying to find a quirky dude to join us in the Gold Coast,you know anyone?

Jackie I'll keep an eye out for you,

Chris Sorry, I should say "Dude or Dudette"

Jackie Right, we'll "Dude or Dudette" Well on that note, I'm going to go and look for a Gold Coast based broker - a dude or dudette Gold Coast based broker. So Boothy, thank you for your time July update as awesome as ever and we will see you on the next month! Thank you so much.

Chris I just want to say good shout out to Rocksy and Joanne Wynn for holding down the fort and obviously the brokers while I on Holiday. It's wonderful to go away and have that break, but also know that the good people of Lydian have got my back and I've got the broker's back as well. And as you do, Jackie, as well.

So thanks guys, I'll look forward to the month ahead and also August Boothy Bites. So I'll see you soon.

Jackie See, thanks Boothy. Bye.

Chris Ciao.

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/
• Youtube link to this video: https://youtu.be/MxK6HNd0vPU

Transcript:

Transcript:

Jackie: What are the some of your favorite offers out there at the moment in regards to lenders?

Chris:

We always love AMP, so AMP have got some really cool offers, cheap interest rates that they've got. I think we they should watch that Just Jackie video. So 5.14% was their own P&I variable, which is a great rate. One of the interesting things about AMP is that if you actually use the equity in your own home to refinance investment debt, they will give you an owner occupier rates as well. So that's a top tip for young players. The other one I got in here is ING. We always like ING, they've got investor owned 5.49% and they've also cashback with that, which is pretty cool. And then the other one, which is the old Qantas Credit union, which is called Qudos now they had a 4.99% no frills product, which is crazy cheap.

Jackie: But in the RBA, those cheeky little things, let's start with them.

Chris: Yeah, well we've got a surprise to do with I think, you know, it's one of those things where there believe all the media hype and the increase in interest rates was a bit of a shock. I think to everyone. The economists weren't really predicting it and the media were saying, you know, we were at the top of that interest rate cycle. Now, obviously, we're not. So the you know, the concerns with the Reserve Bank is still inflation and the inflation rate is up that the band which the RBA look at is a 2 to 3% band. So we're way higher than that band. So they're still wanting to do a little bit of work to slow down the inflation there. And what that means was probably the next two months we probably got another quarter percent interest increase I think, and then I hope that's the end of the cycle. So for me, getting to the end of June and maybe one more quarter percent, I think that's it. Interestingly, in the States, the inflation figure came down extremely quickly over there. So inflation hopefully will follow suit locally here. So that's some better news there. And then next year, you know, the forecast is that interest rates do fall. So, you know, short-term pain I think right now. But hopefully, you know, we get back on track next year and it's a bit easier for us anyway. Yeah?

Jackie: Yeah. So hang on when you out of it because the lender interest rates at the moment what's happening there?

Chris: Yes that's interesting. So we've come through a really sort of tight cycle of volumes in the system. And what that's meant is a lot of the lenders, they're fighting for these prime loans. They're offering cash back, cash back to to refinance. They're offering heavily discounted rates. The retention seems a massive way out in force right now at stopping people from moving by matching or improving offers which have been made to them by brokers or other lenders.Also matching cash back to the state, which is crazy, right? I'll give you money if you stay in bank with me, which we've never heard of before. So, you know, it's been a real scrappy market to be honest. The interesting sort of green shoots which I'm seeing, we've got a lot of clients who've gone through the pre-approval process. And what that means is they're getting finance ready to potentially look to buy a property, which is which is exciting because the really fulfilling part of my work and all brokers work is helping clients buy that next aspirational property, whether it's their first property or upgrading their home. And you know, there's lots of clients now in our pre approvals who are looking for that next property. So you know, some real good green shoots there. Yes, I think look, it's interesting, but interest rate rise, you know, like I said before, you know, there's lots of lenders fighting for prime loans, which the interest rates are extremely cheap. So but on the flip side of that, there's a lot of clients who are really kind of locked in to their lender because they feel that they can't move because of affordability, because affordability now from a services perspective is increased. So we've got this little niche part of the market now where there's some solutions based lenders who have got a little bit more flexibility and will name a couple people like Liberty who've got this kind of policy which actually helps people refinance to like interest only repayments extend to them, get cash flow budget back on track, They may pay a little higher interest costs, but the cash flow side of things is certainly way better. So we're doing a lot of work around repositioning cash flow re-extending interest only to things like that. So really husbandry around managing cash flows, is that that's the main game for us right now as well.

Jackie: Yeah. Okay. And so what are some of your favorite offers out there at the moment in regards to lenders?

Chris You've put me on the spot because I'm a terrible broker. I've got to read my email I sent myself because I forgot. And so we really we always love AMP, so AMP have got some really cool offers, cheap interest rates that they've got. I think we they should watch that Just Jackie video. So 5.14% was their own P&I variable, which is a great rate. One of the interesting things about AMP is that if you actually use the equity in your own home to refinance investment debt, they will give you an owner occupier rates as well. So that's a top tip for young players. The other one I got in here is ING. We always like ING, they've got investor owned 5.49% and they've also cashback with that, which is pretty cool. And then the other one, which is the old Qantas Credit union, which is called Qudos now they had a 4.99% no frills product, which is crazy cheap. Right? That's the last one I want to talk about is the self-managed super fund environment. Right. Like you said before, I've missed myself. If I'm in St George Bank with a separate super fund, I'm getting my paperwork ready now to refinance. But I've been trapped in an interest rate which is over 9%. I think my last letter, which arrived yesterday at 9.52%, which is way, way too high for someone to love. My loan to value ratio is 30 40% against the Greg property. My contributions to super strong, my super balance is good. The rent is covering way in excess of the interest costs on the 9% today. So the cool thing about that is wealth, which is a new lender to the marketplace. They're currently offering a 6.19% rate, which is pretty cool. So a savings rate of over three and a half percent if Chris can get his paperwork together.

Jackie: So, you heard it here guys, if Chris Booth is doing it, you got to do it. And so what about the property market? What's happening there at the moment?

Chris: Yeah, so I mean that's an interesting one. So we actually went over to manage that. I have got some real estate agents over there who they gave me a bit of an insight into where the markets have for themselves. They're doing open homes now where there's a big attendance each week, so there seems to be a lot more demand. There's still scarce amount of stuff, which is always troubling, and that's why we've seen property prices really maintain, if not increased slowly over the last couple of months. I believe Sydney property prices have increased, which is quite interesting in this environment where it's been a bit of doom and gloom. My gut feel is that as interest rates have now sort of hit the top and people are starting to look at that re budget and cash flow, I also think with this sort of fixed rate cliff which is coming off so a lot of clients coming off 2% rate is now coming down to 6% rates now to maybe reconsider holding that second or third in property in their portfolio. You know, it might just be a stretch too far. So I do feel in the coming months we'll see people considering listing their investment properties, cashing in, recapitalizing the balance sheets and doing that. So I think we'll start to see a few more properties on the market. And again, that's going to that's met with the demand that we're talking about before without pre-approval. So, yes, I think we see an interesting spring for sure.

Jackie Yeah. Okay. So probably a good time for a reshuffle if it's going to happen.

Chris: I think so, yeah. Yeah. So still lots of interest there for sure, which is good.

Jackie: And so what's happening at Lydian HQ?

Chris: Yeah. Well that's the most exciting thing, isn't it. So we've welcome the new broker to Lydian. So we've got a chap, called Christian. He's an ex-PT. He has been in finance that I think is a year and a half now. And he's joined Sydney HQ and he's joined the Sydney Heights. Kids are really excited to have Christian on board and putting some parties in Sydney. Myself and Darren, we went over to the Philippines last month and I took Kelly along for a holiday, so we went to the Cebu head office for Virtual Business Partner where our staff are and were able to meet up with the operations guys. I drank too much tequila and rum and did too much karaoke bad singing. So but that was great. It's great to see those guys as well. They're lovely. And in fact, they moved into a new office today, which is really cool. So yeah, they're really, really happy right now. And I was able to take Kelly to a little trip to Boracay on the way back with you if you want to, a romantic weekend or a few days away. Jackie I recommend Boracay. And then the the last thing was yeah we hosted our first ever pool competition but not swimming pool like snooker pool or pool. I thought we did a pool competition at the office and it was great. We got some hot wings and some beer and we had a competition. I think there's like 20 odd people in the room, plenty of our partners in, you know, old friends and things like that. We had a great night. So bring out Lydian caps. Yeah, got some good feedback. Actually engaged the week. We've got a couple of new partners join us as well, which was great. So a really nice night. And Andrew is always a great host, as you know, because I had a good night there. So that was yeah, that was really nice to do.

Jackie: So good! Oh, it's so coming up roses here at Lydian HQ.

Chris: Hopefully, we're working hard. We're like the duck with the duck on the ponds. My legs are like this, but we look pretty seamless, I think.

Jackie: That's all that matters. What's on the outside? Nothing like that. I think. You know, lastly, we're looking for new Brokers. I think that's one of the biggest things I can say as a close. We've we've been very successful in engaging in some really big national financial planning firm, some big accountancy firms. We've got a new business who's just joined us, who's who's like part of a property financing business as well, which is interesting for us to partner up with. So, you know, we're a great home for brokers who, you know, just want to give the operations excellence, the projects. They also want a little bit extra help with some clients to be able to help as well, which we can We can do it through our partnership program. So we're a great place for for brokers.

Jackie: And also, we're fun!

Chris: Yeah, Yeah. Well you are. I'm a bit old and gray this time,

Jackie: Right. Well that's everything. That's great is what's all done wrapped up for a month of May. Jeez, this time next month, we're going to be in the middle the year.

Chris Maybe the next couple of days is will be I'll be in the Outer Banks. I'll be doing it from the Isle of Man in England. There you go.

Jackie: Oh, amazing. What, like. Thanks so much, Boothy. See you later.

Chris Thank you. Jackie, ciao!

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/
• Youtube link to this video: https://youtu.be/I9knSkI1DZk

Transcript:

Jackie: Hi, Chris. Welcome back for freebie spots doing the march wrap up. Wow. I cannot believe how fast this is getting away from us. Any idea where it's going?

Chris: Well, no, no, no. It's all a blur. And obviously, I've just got to sit down and figure out exactly what I did in March because I completely forgot. But anyway, and look, you look wonderful, by the way. I seem to be wearing my sailing shirt, and I haven't quite prepared for this meeting. But anyway, ready to roll?

Jackie: Yeah. You look amazing. All right, so let's talk interest rate. So you actually hold the pause on the cash rate that the RBA did. So congratulations to you. The RBA proved you not to be a liar, which must feel pretty good.

Chris: Firstly, I think it's just blind look. But I think, you know, secondly, it's a really, really crazy change of events. You know, the systemic problems which kind of started with the bank in the States, you know, the I think it was one of the tech banks over there had some real back problems and ultimately can afford it. And then subsequently we had all the issues around, you know, challenging the viability of other big banks in particular credit space and things, all of that sort of uncertainty and volatility in the in the in the market for banks and debt markets in particular really changed the forecast in the and the future of our interest rates in

Chris: our money markets. And what we actually saw was the futures, all the, you know, two, three, four years interest rates which the market forecast and predict they came they collapsed and dropped incredibly so in the first 2 to 2 weeks in April we saw nearly 6070 basis points reduction in in those interest rates which went from sort of 3.6%, which is the interbank market rate down to 2.8 I think was about 2.8%.

Chris: So again, you know, the real, real, real big shift in sentiment and part of that was a real, real big push on banks. Now when you've got lots of volatility in the marketplace, lots of uncertainty, you know, we've got some struggling consumers right now with consumer confidence. We still haven't seen the impact of all the increases, interest rates to cool off our inflation.

Chris: All of those factors. You know, for me, I just felt that we would you a pause just to wait and see what the actual numbers come through over the coming months look like. And then the RBA will figure out whether it needs to do a little bit more or less. More importantly, like the growth in sentiment for growth across the globe, in particular, that, you know, the main economies in the world is quite gloomy.

Chris: You know that they do believe that some countries are starting or the start of potentially recession, which is which is always troubling. And when we see a slowdown in growth, then the next interest rate move potentially to interest rates to go lower to stimulate activity. So the RBA's in a really, really difficult situation tends to be this pause.

Chris: But, you know, like you said before, it's a real great time for clients to go, oh, oh, you know, I can actually now open my bank account, find out what my ratings and know it's not going to change in the next two days. So, yeah, it's a good time to have a bit of certainty and go what the repayments are going to be now.

Jackie: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And so what about lenders and lenders interest rates at the moment, Yes.

Chris: So again, that's quite interesting because we've seen some really good rates. There's a lot of competition out there, right? So we still got the cash back rates, we still got the competitive interest rates. You know, clients are getting special deductions that their existing lender were getting for people fighting for better rates, new lenders and things. So really, it's a hot market for that refinance market because really that's all we've had for quite a while.

Chris: So, you know, the mums and dads buying property and buying investment properties, that market has been quite cool and and not being as energetic as, you know, probably a couple of years ago. So really the main banks are fighting for the same deals and that's driven interest rates a little bit lower. And also these cash back and refinancings in light of those forecast interest rates being fixed rates, you know, the three years and the five year interest rates have actually come down now.

Chris: So potentially it might be worthwhile thinking about hedging some of your money on a fixed rate loan. Again, you know, depending on your personal circumstances, but those fixed rates have actually reduced down, which is the first time in quite a while. So interest rates wise, plenty of cash back offers plenty of opportunities to seek better rates. And again, really this is a great time sort of in this pause to review your rates and then come see, you know, your broker and sort of have a health check.

Chris: I think that's probably the best thing, you know, whether you need to move or not. You know, we can make that decision post review. But yeah, plenty times plenty of opportunities.

Jackie: Yeah, great. And so it looks like you've been a social little butterfly throughout March, especially in the partnerships world there and everywhere. So who you caught up with recently? Partnerships. Well.

Chris: Yeah, it's been a great month. You know, like the big part, my job is actually catching up with good people. I've never worked with many of these guys and girls for a long, long time. And they're trusting us with, you know, referring as clients and things. So, I mean, I took a trip down to Melbourne and I saw Michael Leonard, who's been a lifelong friend and client, so we had a catch up with him also, Catherine Cashmore I think she's been on the on The Just Jackie Show.

Chris: She's fantastic. So I've had to catch up with her Kelvin have down there as well. So that was my Melbourne sort of day. I think it was a day trip down there and, and I managed to get a beer in the market, which is my favorite Melbourne pub as well. So boom, tick the box and the following week was then very, very gracious to be invited to The Hague in our block national conference.

Chris: You know, Brody's in Seattle, the Russell start. You know, they invited myself, Tom and Donny, who are in our co-op arrangement with like, you know, we were able to spend three days with the the district team, the franchise team talking about the ancillary services and benefits of utilizing our advisory platform so financial planning, mortgage broking, property advice, etc..

Chris So that was really good to meet those people and get closer to the clients that they're supporting. And you know, quite kindly. Dan Dan Brown from Coastal Advice was up in Brisbane as well with us supporting that as well. Tom From My Money Sorted. Donnie from DMC property. Yeah, so that was a really busy few days as well.

Chris: And then I think Newcastle, I went to Newcastle to see our good friends at Third Eye, so they're actually building one of the largest properties in Newcastle City Center called Dairyfarmers. And again Andrew and I are a long term friends in fact, and we went to school with one of the principals there a long, long time ago in Gunnedah.

Chris: So maybe hook them up for a story about going to die day. But yeah, so we caught up in Newcastle with those guys and I popped in to seek advice group as well. And then lastly, one of my favorite ones, we had lunch with Lorraine John from Princeton lawyers and her partner Ben Shepherd as well. So Lorraine did some great work from a comprehensive perspective for our clients as well, and supports us with clients who need that advice.

Chris: So crazy, crazy busy march. Was it March?

Jackie: Yeah, not yet.

Chris: But Tim was partying, drinking and socializing, so I probably need to lose a few.

Jackie: I was going to say, What do you do about professional socializing? It doesn't sound.

Chris: Like.

Jackie: It's much more interesting, but very impressive the amount of people you get to see. So what's news at Lydian HQ? What's going on there?

Chris: Yeah, so? Well, we had the recent additions to our operations team, so we've got the lovely Fay, Grace and Terence join the team. So we've got, you know, that's cool. And wait till next month cos we've got a surprise with some pictures and things like that but yeah. Great team over in, in the Philippines, in Cebu in partnership with Virtual business partners.

Chris: So that's the team which is growing. But you know, for on the broker front, you know we're really excited to have two really cool guys have joined the group. So we've got George now I can't I think Papa Douglas.

Jackie: He's had his profile up before. Oh, goodness. Sorry.

Chris: Sorry. James. George. Joe. It's a great name. Anyway. George the Greek. Okay, But George is a fantastic mortgage broker, so we got to say, I knew his property. I've got it. But anyway, George, you know, he really feels a great opportunity and a whole for our face to face or, you know, local broking in Canberra and that region there, which is wonderful.

Chris: So, you know, Andrew's got some great financial planning businesses over there. We've got the small block offices that we want to support. We've got a new partner which is coming online now, a life insurance business, which George can support that network as well. So, you know, George has got a good business himself. So his personal brand is fetch loans, which is beautiful.

Chris: And he's going to be supporting the wedding work in the act. And then secondly, we've got Christian Christine Greener, who's joined us in the Sydney office, Christian Jones is he's got some good experience behind him. We want to look after some some of the growing and new partnerships we're getting in the Sydney offices, which is cool. So he'll be working out 75 bit with Andrew and I'd be very distracted, I'm sure, by Andrew and myself.

Jackie: Especially in that office.

Chris: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Although we had, we had you here. Yeah. Where they go.

Jackie: I was going to say I've seen that wine covered. It's, Well.

Chris: It has to be. Yeah. Yeah. Well on that and on that note just quickly we've got the pool, our first inaugural pool competition happening tomorrow night, which I'm really excited about. Again, we'll take lots of pictures for you, but I seem to have a very large delivery from Dan Murphy. The wing house and the cheese platter has coming shortly.

Chris: So I'll be catering and wining and dining tomorrow night, too, with Andrew as the other possible host.

Jackie: Yes, the hostess with the Mostess. And so as well as just Jack you. So I think last week we had our part in a video live with Brett Warren being the national director of Metropole and I know coming up we have a part in a video going live with Eleanor Berti from Absolute Wealth Advisors and also John Hill from Mercy.

Jackie: He also there's a lot of action happening with the Just Jacky video series and pretty good if I do say so myself. But if you would like, if you're watching news, one of our partners, if you do want to jump on board the Just Jacqui video series, just reach out to us because we would love to have you on.

Jackie: We want to showcase the partnership and also your business in the best possible. So contact either of us if you do want to jump on the just happy video series.

Chris: Action and look, you know, I love it. I think, you know, the fact that you're interviewing these guys and girls I think is a really cool thing. Secondly, learning a bit more about their businesses and and then showcasing that is wonderful. And you know, again, I'm so privileged to be working with them and their clients. It's it's unbelievable.

Chris: You know, it's a two and a half year journey now. And yeah, it's so exciting. We're growing. We've got some great partners, we've got some great brokers, we've got a wonderful operations team. We have the wonderful just Jackie. Yeah, great, great mum. So yeah, wait till April.

Jackie: Yeah, bring it on. All right. Thanks so much, Chris, and see you all soon for the next big thing.

Chris: But thank you.

This episode was originally published on our YouTube channel, dated October 7, 2021. Links: https://youtu.be/YrnBLgC8UE4 and https://youtu.be/DfkJJo5mrNg

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/

Transcript:

Chris Booth Hello, everyone. This is Chris Booth. These by some color coding the phrase, but we've got Dom Nesci from Wealthi on. How are you doing today?

Dom Nesci All right, So am I taking a bite out of Boothy today?

Chris Booth Well, you can. It's a little bite. Don't take too many bites. There's not that much left of me, you know?

Dom Nesci And it's all for Kelly.

Chris Booth Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Okay, well, that's a different conversation today. Now, just noticed someone's stolen your bird. I don't know. Is your mom behind in them doing a few things? Is she going to be a guest presented today?

Dom Nesci No, She's actually hidden the bird inside the pantry now, so a mighty muffled noise of her squeezing it. Stay.

Chris Booth Whoa. Now, Bird, Violet's on this show. Now, Booth is bites. Anyway, we'll cut to the chase. So you and I have been talking a little bit just of late about the property market and some of the things that are happening. But, you know, you're a man on the ground, and I really respect your opinion. So, you know, wealthy is doing a lot of things right now.

Chris Booth Can you walk us through some of the the you know, the conversations and the areas that you're looking at from a wealthy perspective? So.

Dom Nesci Yes, if you want me to share my screen, make me the host and I can show you a whole bunch of stuff because there's a whole heap of things that we could go through before before jumping on here. I was actually just about to shoot like a market synopsis, which I do very regularly, and I like to talk about the data that we're seeing that comes from reputable sources.

Dom Nesci So what I'll do is share my screen and show you a few key things. Um, let's see what browsers I got open. Okay, these are all safe. Okay, So let's, let's, let's start with a few key things. Now, what I wanted to point to here really is how the market is performing. And one of the key places you can go to is the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Dom Nesci These guys report on everything, the report on inflation. They report on the types of loans that they get written all the time. So this is pretty interesting. Now what I noticed here is that Australia is performing exceptionally well over this last quarter. It rose by 6.7% and over the last 12 months, 16.8%. So, you know, I'd like to say that we're geniuses for the investments that we've got our clients up by 12 months ago.

Dom Nesci But if you had bought a piece of real estate, largely you would have made, you know, nearly 70% on that investment. So let's put that into context. If you bought a half a million dollar investment times 1.16 a, you know, you would have made $84,000. And what the reason why I point that out is, you know, all you get for sitting on the fence is splinters.

Dom Nesci And I really feel that the market is going to continue to perform. And I wouldn't be surprised if we do see double digit growth over the next 12 months. So if you're going to take one thing out of this video, it's that you should go buy some real estate If you can afford it, do it safely.

Chris Booth Now, just jump in there quickly. I think importantly, look, anyone who wants to better understand the value of their property today just reach out to us and we can get an up to date sort of appraisal of your property and see what equity is truly available in your property. From a a conservative sort of our fee data or CoreLogic or even an online bank valuation as well.

Chris Booth Yeah.

Dom Nesci That is such a that's a great point because what we saw last month is that there's 100% more investors in the market compared to last, and that is a lot of people taking equity out of their property. So what you're pointing out there, if you've got a property and you've got an equity, now's the time to go pull it out, refinance your loan, get a shop right and go buy another investment.

Dom Nesci So I'll move on from that. This is another interesting piece of data that I like paying attention to, and it's about the movement of bodies where people are going to. And one thing that stands out is that Australia's population basically didn't change. Largely, Australia is a dependent upon migration and we've missed out on about, you know, 200,000 people per annum.

Dom Nesci Here we are. So normally we get between 200 to 300000 people per annum and these people typically land in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane after that. But what we've seen is because there's been no migration, some really interesting statistics. One New South Wales group that's that's pretty normal. Victoria had a huge loss of people, 42,000, 80, 43,000 people escaped Victoria because they were most heavily impacted by COVID.

Dom Nesci Everyone just wanted to run out of state or what we can see. He actually went back home. So from overseas they went back home. But one interesting statistic is that Queensland actually received 44,000 people. Now, we believe that the vast majority of these people are chasing the sun and better priced property and a better quality of life. And this statistic I think could be one of the main reasons why we're seeing huge numbers or huge changes in the Brisbane market.

Dom Nesci So now what I'm going to chat to you about here is CoreLogic is one of the most reputable sources of data that you can find for property. And what they say here is one, the annual number of dwelling sales is at record highs. Now the annual number of record sales is the amount of amount of transactions, amount of property.

Dom Nesci That's changing hands. And there's a huge a number of properties changing hands in Brisbane. So in Queensland in particular, where you've seen that a ten year average, it's 50% higher than the ten year average and that's being reflected in the property prices is a lot of demand in Brisbane at the moment. So for people that are looking to buy property in Brisbane, you've noticed that it's very difficult to get your hands on stock.

Dom Nesci So if you are looking to buy real estate in Brisbane, you need to act very, very quickly, whereas you can have a look at some other markets, the moving much, much slower and to me they look like opportunities.

Chris Booth Yeah, definitely. Well that's a lot of interesting numbers and you can pretty much get this information. So because Australian Bureau of Statistics we've got call logic there, which I know there's a lot of free research there as well. Um, yeah, to look at some ideas around investing then Tom, would you have any sense, anything sort of been in mind and sort of give us a, you know, an overview of why that area and then sort of why that property from a wealthy perspective?

Chris Booth Yeah.

Dom Nesci Yeah. So for all of our clients that work with us, they know that we primarily work across the Australian Eastern seaboard and we take a lot of time, diligence and care to list what we believe are the best properties in Australia for investment purposes. And we, we, we try to buy a or get our hands on a cross-section of investments that range from apartments, townhouses, houses and even some sort of industrial or more sophisticated, sophisticated commercial real estate.

Dom Nesci Now some of the stuff you can find it on market, some of it we have it exclusively now. I think that there are this one this deal here I think is pretty exciting. It's a joint estate we have there are six townhouses that are currently available in that market. They are about 540 to $600000. They are a dual contract or split contract where you've got to buy the land and build it.

Dom Nesci You have to build the house on top of the land. And the reason why I like it is Joiner is an excellent little market where it's about 20 kilometers north of Brisbane. The north of Brisbane is an attractive market to me because it feels like there's a lot less supply up there and the rental returns are extraordinary. We've had some agents come back to us and confidently come back and say they will actually sign a five year rental guarantee at $500 per week.

Dom Nesci That's from the developer where they've baked it into the build. It's coming from an agent and a third party that will say, we'll definitely get you some tenancy in that property. So I think that they're well, price very strong yields vary. It's a it's a in an established market not a lot of supply and it's a really good quality product.

Dom Nesci So that's showing up in Brisbane.

Chris Booth So I mean just on that one then. So that's a new that's a new dwelling, Yes. So how long would it take typically to construct from purchase.

Dom Nesci So these ones, the completion timeframe are going to be about the end of 2022. Yeah, they will be starting construction in March and some of our clients have really liked the fact that in this deal the developers allowed for us to exchange on the land for $10,000 and then 5% on the build. So that's about 15 K So you're in, you can reserve the block, have it under your control for $25,000 and you have a little bit of time.

Dom Nesci So you got until March to save the remainder of your deposit, get your financial affairs in place, and then basically you've got about a nine month time frame. So effectively by the end of next year.

Chris Booth Perfect, Perfect. And the big thing for me, it's like cash flow on this, these types of dwellings, once it's constructed and you've got at least out, you know, you've got the heavy, you know, you've got the large allowances for depreciation which manages the cash flow so much better for you as well, which is a real plus for a new property.

Chris Booth Well, I mean, unlike that and I'll be Googling Joyner on the map a little bit later, do you have anything in in a different sort of suburban and not sort of the Brisbane area?

Dom Nesci Yes, absolutely. So I really like the Melbourne market. So we've got to I've got more than two. We've got a number of different property opportunities in Melbourne that range from split contracts or geo contract townhouses and houses, which range from about 470 odd thousand up to about $600,000. And they are in areas let me just put this.

Chris Booth Up just before you jump into the property itself. Just tell me why you like Melbourne, because it hasn't had a pretty big growth this last sort of 12, 18 months or not.

Dom Nesci Well, it's been one of the most depressed markets out of all of Australia. It's moved the slowest, nearly that nearly the slowest moving market. And that is because a lot of those migration numbers that we saw, people have been leaving Melbourne, have been going to the other states. It hasn't received any international migration. So it's it's the demand side has been lackluster.

Dom Nesci But then also the Melbourne market has been severely depressed because they've gone in and out of lockdown. It's been physically impossible to inspect, it's been traumatic. So lots of people, we are across all of Melbourne, we've got stuff in Werribee when it's like Essendon and as well as places like Berwick or Burek as the Melburnians like to say.

Dom Nesci So we've got a very good exposure across all of the Melbourne market.

Chris Booth Melbourne intrigues me. I mean it's a big city and it's one of the biggest obviously in Australia. So it's interesting to hear that, you know, it's probably underperformed in the last 12 months due to the impacts in the properties you've got there. You mean anything in particular you'd pick.

Dom Nesci Choices, Choices. You know, I really like the member and or actually the Jubilee Wyndham Vale estate. I really like it inside there. And we've got some great relationships of builders and the developer and that estate houses less than 600,000 is a really good option. I like the Barrick option. That's great because our single contracts and you know, Chris, you know, this better than most sometimes a house on land build can be a lot of moving parts for purchaser.

Dom Nesci So having a single contract, three bedroom townhouse for 610,000 in a well-established sort of infill area is very attractive. It's a boutique estate where there's only about 100 or so townees and you've got a beautiful little civic center are also say that these Mill Park townhouses, we've got a great relationship with the developer there, that three storey townhouses, three bedrooms, double car, garage, 680 K but you've got a good piece of land content they architecturally designed and they're just absolutely beautiful.

Dom Nesci I'll just show you that they're just stunning, like they're there for us to buy something like this. In Sydney, you're spending probably close to $1,000,000.

Chris Booth Yeah, they're really not certainly all fantastic. I really like them. They're lovely.

Dom Nesci Yeah, they're really, really nice. Also, it's also screen sharing and all.

Chris Booth Yeah. I mean, just to wrap up, I mean, look, people can, you know, do the research and they can go on to your website, but I really think the most important thing is first and foremost is get in touch and speak to one of, you know, you guys in your team or yourself. So you have to someone get in touch with Dominici then?

Dom Nesci Well, I mean, you can pass on my details to your team and I'm very happy to have a chat to any of your team. We've got a number of investment specialists who will instantly get on top of any of your mates. For clients that are watching this out there, just Google wealthy WTA. I that's wealthy dot com trader we're on YouTube.

Dom Nesci You can Google us we're on Instagram and all the different social platforms Flickr to text email Kol, whatever. We're happy to have a chat.

Chris Booth Beautiful. All right. Well really appreciate the insights today. I really value your thoughts and insights to the the nation of property, but also those little macro and micro sections of Melbourne and Brisbane as well. But yeah, look PM me if you want to have a catch it. We don't have a great day.

Dom Nesci I like to take a bite out of earthy. Is that the segment. Thanks. So I appreciate jumping on the show.

Follow us:

This episode was originally published on our Youtube channel, dated October 7, 2021

Link: https://youtu.be/89imXqPTcTo

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/

Transcript:

Chris Booth Welcome. This is Chris Booth from Lydian. And today we've got the privilege of speaking to Dominic Nescie or Dom Nesci from Wealthi. Hi there, how you do, mate?

Dominic Hi Chris, it's a pleasure to be on your show. And I call this song and dance for your audience today.

Chris Booth Okay, Well, well, that's the first question I've got. What's on your playlist today from a music perspective, I think people want to know, Oh.

Dominic You know, I was listening to this morning, I woke up to a song by I was an Italian song called Village Guitar, and it's about Albano. And effectively it's this guy singing about how life is good and that we're blessed. And one specific line, he says, All I need is a cup of wine and a bit of bread in hand, and then life is good.

Dominic So I listen to that and I work up basically singing a bit of opera, and Charlotte wasn't that impressed.

Chris Booth Bellissimo. Okay. Okay. Well, anyway, on on a serious note, look, I mean, you and I have been friends for a long time, and I've watched the, you know, the rise of Wealthi and you're doing some great things out there. Can you can you just give me a little bit of an insight about Wealthi and you know what you're doing right that mate.

Dominic Wealthi makes real estate investing easy. So what we do is we canvass the whole Australian market but primarily work on the eastern seaboard. So Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and we canvass for the best quality real estate that we can find. We specialize in brand new and like you, we basically work with clients to figure out what their needs are and then we match them to the right investment.

Dominic We don't charge them any fees, we get paid by the developer as any deal has an agency in there. We've just pushed McGraw or Elders out of the deal and then we get that transaction fee similar to what you get if we say.

Chris Booth Perfect, okay, cool. And so, I mean, look, I mean, there's a lot of noise out there in the you know, in investing in property and, you know, use this person. Use this person. Can you tell me why with why someone would would choose Dom Nishi and the Wealthi team. What's the sort of the, the things that you bring to the table and the experience and the knowledge about property as well?

Dominic Well, the first thing that our clients will notice is that we genuinely care. I mean, it sounds really dumb and, you know, simple, but everyone in the team is very passionate about real estate. We invest in the deals that we're buying and we're with the client for the life of the investment. When something and the thing about real estate and any investment things go astray, I think problems happen and it's about being there.

Dominic When problems happen is about being there to set out the plan. To be very clear about how things are going to work. There's a lot of moving pieces and we pride ourselves in having a number of people committed to the transactions and making sure that it does happen and again, with real estate, you're buying an asset. So it's not just purchasing it.

Dominic You got to buy. Well, certainly, but then it's about maintaining it, making sure you get the right rental manager on board, partnering with the right mortgage broker and getting all the right bits and pieces together to make sure that it works well over time. We keep on double checking to see that things are still working, make constant contact with all of our clients.

Dominic As soon as we see that we've got equity back in that investment, we work with the broker then released it and keep on investing.

Chris Booth Excellent. Okay, that really resonates for me. I think. You know, knowing yourselves personally, Tom, I mean, you invested in property from an early age. I think it's important to find people who are really willing to sort of, you know, dip their toe into property and they've got experiences like me, just their own home, but also investing in property and seeing that growth and realizing that growth as well.

Chris Booth I mean, you know, so what was some of the tell me a little about some of your feelings when you first thought about investing in property. And it's probably the wrong place to ask, actually, because you were just going to buy a property, whatever it took. So but I mean, tell me what your thought process was when you first took that that step.

Dominic So some of the things that I had noticed when I was buying that first investment is one, I was super excited and I wanted to go and do it. But I was also terrified of making the wrong, wrong move because are so many pieces is there is organizing to finance, making sure the structure is correct, making sure that the investment was going to be right and it wasn't going to blow up or there's going to be any issues with it, making sure that the contract was being read correctly.

Dominic And I wasn't just finding my way, my life and being committed to effectively a lemon or a dud, You know, there's so many bits and pieces along the transaction that you do need professional help and care. And I was very, very lucky because I had you I had Terry Oates, I had the property management team. There was all of these people that I could rely upon and trust.

Dominic That gave me a lot of confidence. But at the end of the day, you still have to follow your nose, follow your gut, and just kind of jump in and take that leap of faith. Because even to this day when I'm buying real estate or buying an investment, there's always that element of have I screwed up here or what thing aren't I saying and what elements am I missing?

Chris Booth But I think the great thing about that is, is that you had all of those professionals around to help you as well. And, and but also that, you know, we're Wealthi today. You realize that in your in your world, you've got all these professionals still helping with the clients in a similar sort of way. But you can be the sort of client centric and the relationship for that client as well.

Chris Booth Yeah, well, the thing.

Dominic Is, Chris, you and I, we've worked on many deals together and we're not naive. You know, we've seen when things go wrong and everyone likes to say that, you know, pull the wool over client's eyes and say everything will be perfect. You know, everything's going to work exactly to plan. But there's no one deal that ever works 100% to plan.

Dominic There's always something. Yeah, there's always one thing or the other. And it's important to build in those failsafe. So to understand if this happens, what's, what's our fallback? You know, if a valuation doesn't come in on the money, it doesn't necessarily mean a deal is bad, but maybe the lender doesn't want that type of investment. Maybe their credit policy doesn't fit or, you know, maybe we're not getting as much rent for that investment because it wasn't marketed the correct way or we didn't get the right manager or, you know, perhaps something has happened along the way on the delivery.

Dominic You know, something hasn't the material hasn't arrived. Who's going to go talk to the builder, who's going to talk to the developer and have that hard conversation? I know that, you know, your voice gets heard when you've got a bit more power in that relationship. So, for instance, you know, if we're doing ten or 15 deals with one particular person, they're going to listen to us a lot more than if it's just one individual investor by themselves trying to battle them by themselves.

Dominic So having the weight of, you know, a team of people behind you that are working towards that end goal, that aren't naive, that have seen pain, that have seen where things can go wrong, can save you lots and lots of money, lots and lots of time. And also just that emotional heartache that comes along with investing.

Chris Booth Yeah, perfect. And you know, for me, working with trusted partners is very important. So, you know, Lydia's got lots of clients now and we, you know, we were all actively looking to invest in property or talk about property. So if, if a client came through Lydian and we were introducing them to your team, you know, what are the services you provide and what would the kind of the client journey in the experience look like from your perspective?

Dominic We start with firstly talking to the leading partner because it's your relationship, it's your client, you know them well and we want to know who they are, what they're about, what things have you discussed and what's the relationship that we're walking into. The other thing that's important is in talking with the client. So we immediately call those clients.

Dominic As soon as we get the details, we find out when we can. We reach out as soon as possible. We arrange for a phone call or a meeting via Zoom, and we do a discovery session. So we want to find out who the client is, what their needs are, what they goals, what their fees are. And then after that we arrange a subsequent meeting to then go through different property choices.

Dominic Now we're very clear about showing them the whole of the map and showing them that there is a broad selection of property and we're not just trying to funnel the into to the one deal of the month, but then we also want to save their time and say based on what your needs are, your goals, your aspirations and your fees, these are the top one or two that we believe are going to suit you the best.

Dominic And sometimes it's an iterative process and we understand that we're very, very patient, work with clients over time and sometimes it just clicks and a deal happens and they know what they want. They buy the property that suits them best.

Chris Booth For us at Lydian, we really appreciate the, you know, having valued partners like Wealthi in the team that I know you guys do a great job and now we've got good relationships with the whole of the team there. I love the marketing, I love the podcast. So, you know, if the client wants to get in touch with the domestic and the Wealthi team, how would they best follow you and catch you this big?

Dominic A Wealthi ale, I swear on YouTube or on LinkedIn or on Instagram. I think there's a tip top page. You go to our website, you know, give me a phone call. You know, Chris, you've got my details. I won't just say it on here because I've been getting a heap of pranks recently from, you know, Darwin or something recently.

Dominic But yeah, just for reach out, you know, send me an email. Dominic - [email protected].

Chris Booth Perfect. I'm well thanks for sharing a bit about Wealthi today and yeah look forward to our next catch up on the Italian song I'll be googling now or looking on Spotify to see what it's like. But again, I.

Dominic It's spelled F-E-L-I-C-I-T-A, Felicita by Albano.

Chris Booth Beautiful, beautiful. Thanks. Dump and pay me if you need to catch up with Dom anyway. But you have a great day. See you.

Dominic See ya.

This episode was originally published on our YouTube channel, dated October 7, 2021. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X8G24g7dS0&t=370s

Follow us:

• Website: https://www.lydian.com.au
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.lydian.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lydian-financial-services/?viewAsMember=true
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lydianfinancialservices/

In this episode, Chris talks with Pete Wargent of Buyers Buyers about the market status of the time, as well as the innovations and research that Buyer Buyers conduct in order to give great guidance and advise.

Transcript:

Chris Booth Good morning, Pete. This is Pete Wargent from Buyers Buyers, and I'm privileged to have Pete on them on a little catch up this morning and to talk about property for the living clients. But so welcome, Pete. How are you going? All right.

Pete Wargent Pleasure to be on. Thanks, Chris. Yeah. Oh, well, here.

Chris Booth It's still and still doing a bit of summertime in England. Yeah. Enjoying it.

Pete Wargent Yeah. So it would be nice to get back into Australia sometime this millennium. But at the moment, the home quarantine still seems to be a few weeks away. So yeah, been enjoying the European summer. I can't complain.

Chris Booth Yeah, very nice. And recently I saw you do property research in the Algarve and I heard property research in Crete next. I mean, you know, it's tough when you're at the top of your game, you know, today, really, I'm looking to get a bit of insight, a bit more sort of locally in Australia. So, yeah, look, we've just been through a pretty tough winter season with property.

Chris Booth What's what's your feeling and thoughts about what we've just gone through recently.

Pete Wargent Yeah, so we do a lot of market research, we've got a lot of property out there that we collate and then report, and also as property buyers, agents, we sell an awful lot of stuff just at the coalface. So we get a bit like you guys with mortgage brokers, you tend to get an early read on some of the trends in the market.

Pete Wargent So notably at this time of year, you would be seeing Australia coming into the spring selling season and that has kind of happened to some degree, particularly in Brisbane, but in Sydney and Melbourne for obvious reasons. That hasn't really taken off. The total transaction numbers are well down in Victoria. You can't even get to open homes in most cases.

Pete Wargent Sydney kind of holding up but on lower volumes. But I guess with the dynamic really at the moment is we've got this big wall of pent up demand and when we do get to what the reopening, which feels like probably mid-October, then we will see a rush, I think between mid October and the end of the year. And I have a feeling this year the housing market will run all the way through to the weekend before Christmas.

Pete Wargent So we're going to get a very compressed selling season this year.

Chris Booth From a property perspective. You know, I believe, you know, we've seen some really, really big increases in values of properties over the last 12, 18 months. Can this continue in the in the coming months? Is there that much demand?

Pete Wargent Well, yes. I mean, in the short term, yes, I think it's obviously in the medium term, you know, price growth at that rate is not sustainable. But the real dynamic at the moment, it's just a dearth of stock. And that's that's not just in Sydney. I mean, that's really right away around the country. And people have been somewhat reticent to list new properties.

Pete Wargent But it just, you know, the old cliche in the market, mobiles and services like the it's putting an awful lot of pressure on on the market. I mean, if you look at total listings for this time of year, we're down well more than 25% on the five year average. So the stock levels are very low and even the oldest stock is selling.

Pete Wargent So I think price gains will continue for the rest of this year. What happens in the new Year? You never quite know election year. Maybe there might be some regulatory intervention or maybe, you know, with the property market and the the international borders reopening, it could be a change in sentiment. But at the moment, there's a lot of demand there.

Pete Wargent And just not that many properties on the market.

Chris Booth Yeah, I mean, look, so it lydiard we're seeing the same and we've got lot of pre-approval in place right now. People are sort of queuing up a lot of first home buyers as well, looking at that sort of, you know, 1 million plus properties too. So there's a lot of demand and aspirational home buyers. And also we're seeing quite a lot of expats as well.

Chris Booth I saw your article just earlier about the expert side of things, and we're seeing a lot of returning Australians coming to buy premium homes locally here. So I mean that's a lot of the old home stuff from an investment sort of lens. You know, I'm not not suggesting that we will hold you to this peak, but you know, what would some of the top picks be right now and sort of a little bit of why?

Pete Wargent Well, yeah, it depends on budget, really. And to a certain degree, personal circumstances. I think a very common situation for us. So we have clients who are, for example, based in Sydney or Melbourne, they've seen the value of their own home go up and they they think, well, might be a good time to buy an investment property. And the client itself, if that's the case, then it makes sense.

Pete Wargent They get some diversification and might be look somewhere else. Now there's been an interesting dynamic over the past 18 months because of the pandemic and there's been a sort of race for space, if you like, and a shift away from the higher density sort of CBD and inner city markets and people are looking for more space. So the markets that have been where the biggest price growth has been saying places like the northern New South Wales coast and Byron, Mornington Peninsula, even Central Coast, New South Wales south coast, the coastal markets have been extremely strong over the past 18 months.

Pete Wargent I think depending on your budget today, I mean some of the markets that people might start to look at now, I think places like the Gold Coast where the rental market is becoming extremely tight and maybe Adelaide will come onto the radar. I think one of the things that's definitely a feature of the market at the moment is people are definitely looking at detached houses, much more so than units and apartments.

Pete Wargent I think it's probably a function of people seeking more space and they just where the price growth is and that's where investors have shifted to.

Chris Booth Yeah, perfect. And you know, where, where would you go if you look, you're supporting the court, you know buyers buyers offer, you know, the buyers agency service for existing properties. You know, what sort of research can a client expect to get from, you know, your, your website, your research in support of making a decision about maybe where to where to purchase a property and what those dynamics are?

Pete Wargent Yeah. So there's a few things there. I mean, if you just want some free market research, those check out a website that buyers buyers the condo they you so there's a whole free property tools so if you want to do for example an area by area analysis or a suburb report or even if you want to get a valuation of a specific property, all of those those are there for free.

Pete Wargent If you want some guidance from us. We do have a product called We plan, which is essentially a ten year property plan where we we actually collate. I got a pointer on your current situation. We took a bit about what your goals are, what you hope to achieve, and then we help people to map out the next steps in the process.

Pete Wargent So if you want some professional guidance, we do actually have a property strategist that can help with that. But by the same token, if you want to do your own research, there's plenty of free those. You can use that.

Chris Booth So yeah, it really and I like that. I think, you know, certainly reaching out to people who are professionals in that field and have got that local knowledge is important. But certainly if you're buying for investment purposes, definitely do your research and reach out to people. And then I suppose, you know, we've seen a lot of innovation in the lending industry recently, you know, with changes the way that we now we can actually process loan documents, you know, with DocuSign and technology becoming more integral with some of the product providers there, what are some of the innovations that we're seeing in the in the property services industry right now?

Pete Wargent Yeah, well, very similar in terms of things like digital signatures with contracts. And I think that that is the direction the industry is moving in historically, and particularly in New South Wales. I remember standing in those big 50 page contract and initially every page, which thankfully we started to move away from that to where I say part of our IP is that is a buyer's agent portal where you can actually upload scanned documents and sign documents digitally.

Pete Wargent So that is one improvement. I think particularly at the moment, it's very difficult for a lot of home buyers to actually get physically get the properties and inspect them. So I mean, obviously we have border closures in Victoria. I think I'll even get to open homes. So there's a few different things that are happening there. One is that there's a lot of auctions happening now online by Zoom and other online tools.

Pete Wargent So that is that has been a change. But I think these days, even if you can't inspect the property, it's actually quite easy for a buyer's agent. They walk you through, you know, they can take you through all this time or WhatsApp and, you know, they I guess it's not quite the same as being there in person, but it is definitely the next best thing.

Pete Wargent But yeah, there's a lot happening. I say in the projects space and a lot of it relates to buyer's agency, things like there's much more data available now at market research. And yeah, I think particularly for investors, a lot of investors don't need to actually travel to inspect the property and they can buy. So I've done the same with the help of the buyer's agent.

Chris Booth Yeah, definitely. Certainly having that trusted professional circle to support that process is important. You know, get your finances in place, then reach out to professionals to search and things. But look, thanks very much for your updated. I look forward to the summer time, especially coming out of COVID on the 18th. Enjoy your property research in Great and we'll try checking out and find out if there's any top tips to purchase in Greece or in the Algarve.

Chris Booth I'll be interested to find out. And yeah, where would people sort of reach out to find Pete Wharton and buyers by staying.

Pete Wargent At this place is just that our website by is by com but I use the bank to look forward to catch you up again so.

Chris Booth Thank you Pete Wargent.