One of the most interesting things I do is meet many investors every week (i.e., prospective clients). It is something that I have been doing regularly for almost 20 years, so I’ve literally spoken to thousands of investors. 

It is interesting because it provides me with the opportunity to reflect on peoples past investment decisions with the benefit of hindsight. There are some common themes. People tend to make one of a handful of mistakes. I think past mistakes provide very valuable learnings. 

Mistakes are predictable from the outset

I believe that all financial “mistakes” are completely avoidable. Virtually no financial mistakes (i.e., losses or underperformance) occur because of random bad luck. 

They are avoidable if you follow an evidence-based approach. For example, if your share investing methodology involves buying highly speculative stocks, then you only have yourself to blame if you don’t make any money after several years, because the evidence shows that speculation has a very low probability of generating reasonable returns over the long run.  

Therefore, based on my 20 years of experience, if you commit one of the mistakes below, there’s a very high probability that you’ll end up with a dud investment. Conversely, if you avoid all these mistakes, you maximise your chances of success. 

I must remind readers that I am completely independent. We do not buy property on behalf of clients, so I have no vested interest in you following the below advice. I am merely sharing what I have observed over the past two decades.  

(1) Buyers’ agents buying outside of their domicile State 

It is becoming more common for buyers’ agents to buy property interstate for clients. For example, a Sydney-based buyers’ agent might buy property in Brisbane. In my view, this is a no-no. 

One of the most important things I hope to benefit from when engaging the services of a buyers’ agent is their experience. I know that selecting the right property is part-art and part-science. 

The science part incudes all the objective considerations such as past growth, location, land size, land value, zoning/restrictions and so on. The objective assessment is driven mostly by data and a lot of this data is now available for a small cost online. I probably don’t need to pay a professional to collate such data. 

However, the art part of selecting a property is obsoletely critical. It requires local area knowledge. Things like, one side of a particular street under-performs, or a block of apartments has always experienced management problems. Or tenant turnover is too high because too many cars get broken into. These are all real examples that I have come across. If I am going to engage a buyers’ agent, I want them to have more than 10 years’ experience in buying property in a particular location. That will ensure they have experienced a few market cycles. They have learnt from past mistakes (we all make mistakes in the first years of practicing our craft). 

Given the subjective nature of property, experience is crucial to ensure you don’t make any costly mistakes. The more experience, the better. 

(2) Buying a development site without sufficient due diligence 

Some investors are attracted to developing property e.g., small-scale development such as building two or three townhouses. In theory it seems like an attractive way to make a quick profit. But it’s certainly not hands off and not without risk either. 

Unfortunately, a more recent trend I have come across involves investors buying development sites without undertaking enough due diligence. This has happened even if they used a buyers’ agent or not, which is unfortunate. Obviously, they used

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This podcast provides general information about finance, tax and credit. It doesn't take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs, so you need to assess whether it's relevant to your circumstances before acting on it. If you're not sure, speak to a licensed, trustworthy professional.