Now is the perfect time to invest in property if you can block out the noise

Today I drew inspiration from a lovely young man I had coffee with. His name is Matt, and he’s one of our clients.  Matt’s a switched-on guy, maybe about 30 or so, has a psych degree, owns three investment properties, all high yielding (I’m talking 9 to 15%!), runs his own importing business, has been to a property seminar or two, and he and his wife are expecting their second child in a couple of weeks. Oh, and he’s also very polite.

We’ve just finished a development project for Matt and now we had the actual end figures confirmed, we caught up to reflect on how his first project went with Property Bloom and what he could be doing to plan for his next.

That’s what I like about Matt. He’s a planner, a big-picture guy, yet he still keeps track of all the fine details. Here he is, two weeks out from having his second child and we’re sitting discussing property development options (we did also touch on the benefits of epidurals!).

We chatted about current economics, the estate of affairs here in Australia with our political uncertainty, the constant barrage of whether Julia Gillard is a worthy prime minister, the lousy situation in Europe – is Spain going down and when?  How will Greece pull through? The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and how cool Kylie Minogue’s outfit was (OK, that was my comment; I don’t think Matt had an opinion on that one).

We covered off the “two-speed economy” of Australia, the state of China and how much coal do they actually need (a lot, thought Matt, as he visits China regularly for business and has seen for himself the massive changes taking place).

We both agreed that the current state of affairs was actually the perfect property investment environment for those who could block out the noise and focus on what was happening right under our noses.

We’d concluded that we didn’t actually care about what’s happening in the global arena (apart from seeing our superannuation cut in half over the past year).  While we weren’t being irresponsible, we just both decided that it didn’t really impact on our big picture.

This comment from Matt said it all:

”Jo, I’m not going to wait around for the world to determine my future.”

There it was. His words really resonated with me.  His statement so bold but yet so matter of fact, making perfect sense.

There’ll always be something to wait for. Let’s wait til after the new baby comes. Let’s wait for the next election. Let’s wait to see what happens in Europe. Let’s wait to see what the share market does. Let’s wait to see if the RBA cuts rates… Let’s wait, let’s wait, let’s wait!

Before you know it, you’ll be 65 asking “Why did we wait?... If only we invested in property back in 2012 when rates were low, yields were high and it was a buyer’s market.  What were we waiting for?”

For my client Matt, I’ve got a great next development project coming his way because he’s not going to hang around waiting.  So by the time his new baby turns one, he’ll have another great project under his belt.

So what are you waiting for?