The Finance Bible

OD #5 - Why Property Is STILL the #1 Wealth Hack in 2025 (Most People Are Sleeping on This)

• Zeke Guenthroth and Oscar Don

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Property remains the ultimate wealth vehicle in 2025 despite media fear, with fundamentals that continue to outperform most asset classes over the long term. Oscar explains how investors can position themselves to take advantage of current market conditions, especially as interest rates begin to drop.

• Leverage allows borrowing up to 90% of property value, making your money work harder
• Tax benefits include depreciation, negative gearing, and capital gains discounts that significantly reduce tax bills
• Scarcity and population growth create long-term value as demand increases while land remains limited
• Record-low vacancy rates in cities like Perth and Brisbane are creating upward pressure on rents and yield
• Growth corridors where $600k still gets a high-yield house offer better value than inner-city areas
• Value-add strategies like renovations, subdivisions, and granny flats can boost returns significantly
• Using equity from existing properties is the number one way to build a substantial portfolio
• Avoid buying with emotion, chasing investment fads, ignoring the numbers, and analysis paralysis
• The best time to invest is as soon as you can afford it—waiting for "perfect" conditions often means missing growth

Hit the subscribe button, leave us a review, or reach out via Instagram, TikTok, or through our website at assetroad.com.au. We're here to help you make confident, strategic moves in the property game.

DISCLAIMER:

The information in this podcast is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice. It does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation, or needs. Always consider whether the information is appropriate for you and seek advice from a qualified professional before making financial decisions.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of the Finance Bible Podcast. Zeke here and your co-host, oscar, but before we get into it, please note that nothing in this podcast should ever be considered as personal financial advice. Of course, if that is what you are seeking, reach out and we'll get you in touch with the correct professionals. Get the job done properly, sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the Finance Bible Podcast. Today you're joined with Oscar and I'm going to be talking about why property is still the ultimate wealth vehicle in 2025, and, most importantly, how you can position yourself to take advantage of it. So, whether you're a first-time investor or someone sitting on equity or literally just curious about property, this episode will give you a few tips and also will be the episode for you. So it's a short, sharp, but something which is so important today, with what's happening in the world and the interest rates coming down, et cetera. So tune in and hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 1:

Why is property still king? Let's start with the fundamentals. Despite the media, these days, if you turn on the TV, there's all fear. There's the news outlets saying you know the housing crisis, property price is about to crash, it's too expensive to get into the property market itself. But you know, property has outperformed most asset classes over the long term. Even with all the fear that's been going on, no one really looks at the statistics. The question is, why and how has property outformed most asset classes?

Speaker 1:

So, number one, you've got leverage. So the use of actually borrowing debt from banks generally good debt when you're borrowing money to purchase an asset. So, unlike stocks, with property you can actually borrow up to 90% of a property's value. Yes, if you do borrow over 80%, you're more likely to pay LMI. The scheme of things, it doesn't really matter as long as you purchase a high growth asset which will outperform the LMI that you pay over time, which, look, let's be honest, there's a very high possibility that will happen. This means your money works harder for you and you know the good old saying make money while you sleep. This is literally making money while you sleep Capital growth of your asset building value every single second, every single minute, every single hour.

Speaker 1:

The next reason is tax benefits. So, with property, you get depreciation. If your property's negative geared, you get negative gearing benefits and also capital gain discounts. These exist for a reason and they can significantly reduce your tax bill. So we see clients who are around a $250,000 income per year and the number one issue they have is the amount of tax they're paying. So with property and investing in property, their taxable income reduces dramatically, especially if they've just bought a brand new property, because with depreciation you can claim up to 40 years worth of depreciation on a brand new property. If it's 20 years old, the property you get 20 years worth, and so on so on. But tax benefits is a real indicator and a real reason why property is still king.

Speaker 1:

Thirdly, scarcity and population growth. So Australia's population keeps climbing, especially in affordable growth corridors. And the funny thing is about this you've got all the land in Australia, but land is eventually going to run out. It is limited. So if you're sitting on the fence and trying to figure out if you want to buy this block of land in an area, let's say Melbourne or Sydney, for example, which is very rare, especially in Sydney just pull back and look from it from a bird's eye view and realize that land is limited, like I just said, but demand is not. So while Australia's population keeps climbing, there'll be more individuals wanting to buy property in Australia, but because land is limited, there won't be as much property for them to buy, so prices will generally increase over time, no matter what. Because of this, and if you're too late in areas that you want to buy or you think are growth corridors for your investing, it's too late and you've missed out on a lot of money in terms of capital growth. One of the other reasons is rental demand. So you look at cities like Perth and Brisbane at the moment probably in the last five years and also regional hubs around those areas. Vacancy rates are at record lows. So that's upward pressure on rents and yield, which is literally a massive indicator and a big reason why property is still king. Bottom line is fundamentals of property haven't changed. The only thing that has changed is the strategy that's required to win.

Speaker 1:

Next bit I want to talk about is what's working this year in 2025. If you're listening to this, in 2026, how many years time? This is for 12 months before. But let's talk about what's working for smart investors right now. Number one we got buying and growth corridors. So there's a lot of talk about individuals purchasing growth corridors. These are markets where 600k still get you a high yield house. If you look in Sydney or Melbourne at the moment, close to the actual CBD you are dreaming. There is no chance you can look at getting something similar or close to that price point, especially with a high yielding return. That's literally impossible. But we're talking about outer suburbs of Brisbane, perth, adelaide, for example, just in areas where there's a lot of infrastructure spend, job growth, internal migration and affordability.

Speaker 1:

Second odd we've got value-add strategies. So this one here in 2025, you don't want to just buy and wait. You want to look at renovation, subdivisions or even just add a granny flat. There's a lot of properties out there where you can get, you know, 500, 600 meter square block for the potential down the track to put a granny flat on. It's all fine to you know, buy it now and wait five, 10 years, but you kind of want to have a plan. When you purchase a property, do you subdivide it in 10 years? Do you knock it down straight away? Do you add 30 grand of renovations to it, or do you put a granny flat on straight away? In some states and in locations where you've purchased, and if it's done correctly, close to great locations, this can literally boost your rent by up to $300 per week. So before you purchase or before you look to purchase, have a think about what your overall strategy is that you want to do. Do you have the time that you can do this, or do you want to engage in a professional service to help you with this? Or do you want to actually just buy and wait? Because you can, but there's also more money to be made if you want to take a leap and do more things to your asset.

Speaker 1:

Another example is using equity to build a portfolio. If you've listened to this podcast before, you know all about using your equity to build a portfolio and borrow more debt to keep going and acquiring more assets. But if you own a home or have an existing investment, you may be sitting on hundreds of thousands in untapped equity. If you don't know if you have equity, or if you don't stop the episode, look at your property, get a valuation done, see the amount of debt you have, figure out how much equity you have, because this is one of the main reasons well, probably, in my mind, the number one reason and the number one way for people to build wealth over time and retire financially free with the equity they have and just continue to recycle and build wealth after that, property after property, check it out and use it strategically. And you've got to remember, with investing, not emotionally, you don't want to have any emotional attachment to it, because if you're emotional about an investment, you're not going to purchase the right place, you're not going to get the right result that you want and ultimately it's not going to grow as much as a strategic purchase that you could have got somewhere completely different. So this is where professional services come into play, because they can pull the emotion out of it, so they can just come to you and say these are the numbers, this is what works, as opposed to you being a bit. You know, I love that house over there, I really want it, even though the numbers you know, giving you a 3% yield as opposed to a 6% yield.

Speaker 1:

For example, one of the last ones here that I've written down is build to rent and duplexes. So in the past probably the last 24 months as well higher build costs have scared a lot of investors off. But for those who can purchase it and service, dual income strategies are creating amazing cashflow, especially for a lot of our clients who can purchase in that price point. You're picking up a dual occupancy for around 850, 900k, renting for 11, 1200 a week. Yeah, they can create amazing cashflow and the yield for those as well, sometimes over 6% to 7% gross, which is really solid in terms of an actual rental yield. So, if you can afford it, definitely speak to someone who can give you some more information on it. As this podcast is general in nature, a lot of different places like duplexes, co-living houses, ndis if you can afford it, great opportunities for that higher cashflow.

Speaker 1:

The next part of the podcast are four mistakes to actually avoid when it comes to property, because I just want to be real with you for a second. There are a lot of people out there who promise the world with all these different types of investments, but they don't really talk about what to avoid and what to look out for. So there's four main reasons where most investors mess up. Number one I just touched on it literally a minute ago is buying with emotion. So when you're investing in property, you got to remember this isn't your forever home, or even your home. You may want to live in it down the track or you might want to relocate if you buy an interstate, but you have to remember it is an investment. At the end of the day. It's literally a vehicle for wealth. You have to treat it like a business and nothing more.

Speaker 1:

Secondly, don't chase fads. So there's a lot of TikTok investors who push crypto mining granny flats. You're probably thinking what on earth are they? Well, there's a lot of people who see these random videos online and just because it's a little fad or people are promising, you can make so much money on it and it's the next best thing to get rich quick. Most of the time, it's probably too good to be true. So I would just stick to timeless principles. I would stick to property itself as a wealth creation tool. You can see it over the last hundred years. If you look at it on a graph and you zoom out, it's always got an upward trajectory. Yes, there may be some drops in some areas every year, but pending where you grow and where you purchase, you can if done correctly, you can come out on the other side very well.

Speaker 1:

Number three, ignoring the numbers. If the deal doesn't stack up today in terms of your cashflow and the amount of money you have for the deal, you don't want to rely on the potential of the. So let's say, for example, if you bought an investment property today and you had to put in $300 per week to cover the mortgage repayments. But you think that the overall capital growth of the property in 5, 10 years will outweigh the amount that you're putting in per week. Well, you may be right, but you also may be wrong. If you can't afford to take the risk or to not know if it will pay off, then don't do it at all. You can't ignore the numbers. If you're going to actually invest in property and put money in yourself, you don't want to actually ruin your own day-to-day life in terms of your spending and limit yourselves to what you want to do. So make sure you look at the numbers and actually figure out if you can afford it. If it is negative per week, or don't just rely on the capital growth because you don't know it anything can happen.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, analysis paralysis. So this is a classic waiting for the perfect time to buy. Let's wait next month until the rates drop again. Oh no, actually we'll wait till November for another rate drop. The question is if you wait till November, you could have already missed out on $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 of capital growth and capital gains that you would have purchased right now. So there's never a perfect time to invest or to buy. It doesn't exist. The right time is to get in as soon as you possibly can, so that might be as soon as you have a certain amount of savings saved up. Let's say you're wanting to hit $80,000 in terms of savings to purchase a property as soon as you hit 80, I would be jumping straight in.

Speaker 1:

Whatever you can buy, get your foot in the door because if done correctly and you build equity, then you keep going and you go again because if done correctly and you build equity, then you keep going and you go again. The hardest bit is getting in at the first, and especially in today's day and age. In Australia, with the rates starting to drop even more, we've seen in the past, when rates drop, property prices generally tend to increase. So if you're waiting for another rate drop, well, you're probably going to be priced out if you've got a limited budget. So if you can afford to do it, get in before you're priced out. There's no perfect time to buy Now.

Speaker 1:

To finish off, if these points have fired you up and you're wondering what to do next, here's three steps you can take today. So the main one if you're sitting on the sidelines and you've been thinking for a while what can I do? I want to get involved. Assess your borrowing power. So, if you have a mortgage broker, speak to your mortgage broker. Ask them to tell you what you can do before you get emotionally invested in a property. What I mean by that is figure out what is your borrowing capacity. If it's 800k, what options can you look at? And if you can borrow 800K, or if you're wanting to actually invest and you can afford what you're wanting to look at, then it's time to build your strategy.

Speaker 1:

So the number one question we get and we ask clients is what is your strategy? Are you aiming for capital growth? Like how old are you? Are you in your 20s or 30s? Do you aiming for capital growth? Like how old are you? Are you in your twenties or thirties? You want growth over time? Do you want cashflow or do you want the best of both worlds and have both of them, which is ideal. But your goals dictate your market and your actual property type, because there's individuals out there who solely want cashflow for their investment property, and that's fine, because that's where they they're at in their life and that's what they want to achieve. Where there's other ones, who are generally the younger individuals who want the capital growth because they've got 30, 40 years to retirement. So it fully changes and it's all different.

Speaker 1:

Number three get support. So, whether it's a personal mentor, investment property advisor like the team at Asset Road, or an actual real estate agent who will find you a property that they're already selling, get help. Don't go and do it alone. It's a lot easier when you've got someone actually helping you in your corner. I hate to say it, though. There are some people out there who say they help you but they're not in your best interest. But you've just got to figure them out and avoid them at all costs, because there's always people out there like that. But if you speak to the right people, talk around town, have a chat to all different companies, but definitely get support, because that's the most important thing. The best investors don't always know the most. They just take consistent action with the right team behind them, because without the right team you don't know anything, and right now, a lot of individuals are time poor professionals, so you don't even have the time to do the investigating and looking at the properties Because you're working nine to five at least. Nine to six, nine to seven, get home and all of a sudden it's 10 o'clock, you're going to bed, so that's why you need to get support.

Speaker 1:

But that's it for today's episode. If this has got your wheels turning, hit the subscribe button, leave us a review or, better yet, reach out to us via our Instagram, our TikTok, or to shoot us an inquiry on assetroadcomau. We're here to help you make confident, strategic moves in the property game. But until next time, I'll see you then. Ciao, we hope you enjoyed the episode. As always, you know exactly what to do. Hit that follow button, subscribe whatever platform you listen to this podcast on. Also, share it to friends, families, co-workers, whoever you think may benefit from it. But unfortunately it's the end and we'll see you next week.

People on this episode

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Oscar Don

Co-host
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Zeke Guenthroth

Co-host