Owen Raskovich

If you can avoid it, that's a good idea.

The other thing is to keep an eye out for stamp duty and all those different exemptions for if you're buying a house under a certain amount or if it's detached or if it's a new home.

Next step is, obviously this is outside of the control of a lot of people, but we talk about a lot on the program, is just making sure your job's secure, finding out if you do take out a loan to buy a property.

Can you maintain that loan?

As good as it says, as good as that borrowing power calculator is and whatnot, it's probably a good idea just to make sure to have a reality check, to talk to people older than you, talk to your parents, friends, cousins, uncles, brothers, aunties, whatever.

The next thing is focus on the good properties.

I've said in this podcast that if a property is investment grade, meaning it's on a good street, it's a pretty decent house, it's got a good land size, and it's in the right location, close to hospitals, close to public transport, close to shops, all of these different things.

I mean, it's all case by case, but if you're looking at an investment grade property or a good asset, as we talked about with Amy Linardi on the podcast recently, I'll put that in the show notes.

If you're focusing on good properties, during this time, you're probably likely to get a better price than you might otherwise would.

And then the final thing is keep an eye on prices in your neighborhood.

If you're looking for prices, don't just fall in love with the first one that comes across your desk.

I tend to do this all the time.

No matter if it's a property, if it's

a bargain at the shop, don't be fooled by the flashing lights and the shiny sales signs.

Make sure that you really do your research, you speak to some people, you get experts on your side, whether that's a mortgage broker, accountants, buyer's advocate, any of these things.

As long as you have your finances in check, you should be almost ready to go pretty quickly and you don't need to fall over yourself to rush out and make a bid.

You can act in a way that's, I guess, considered but also excited.

Okay, so that's kind of like my roundup of property prices.

I've got a lot of stuff in the show notes.

I tend to waffle on a bit in this because I really wanted to emphasize the point that even though these forecasts are pretty scary, there's a lot you can learn by just looking at the commentary more so than the number.