Aussie Real Estate Podcast
From Childhood Passion to Property Strategy: Why Conservation vs Non-Conservation Zoning Matters
21 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It is a Thursday, January the 22nd, and towards the end of last year, we were talking about hoping that there wouldn't be any world shocks to the market that might affect the real estate property market.
well yesterday in davos located in the eastern swiss alps where world leaders gathered the temperature it rose very quickly and one blunt line summed it up which said dealing with donald trump is like dealing with a t-rex you either align with him or get eaten Even before he's arrived, leaders were openly nervous. Europeans talked about independence.
Macron warned about a return to raw power politics. And Canada cautioned against going along to get along. The rules-based order, they said, is under real strain and everyone's bracing for impact. I mean, it's pretty heavy stuff. Trump is arriving today and there's going to be fireworks. No question.
And are we on the verge of something so unimaginable in terms of the global world order that we just can't fully appreciate what is about to happen?
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Chapter 2: How does early exposure shape a person's understanding of real estate?
Well, time is going to tell us very quickly. And talking of time, the time tunnel is back in just a moment. Yes, with more interviews, this is the summer series on the way after this.
You're listening to the Summer Series on The Real Estate Podcast.
So I grew up in a very real estate focused household. My mom was a tax accountant and my dad used to buy and sell real estate after buying and selling cars. So buying and selling was something that I'd seen for a lot of my life. The home that I grew up in, we renovated it and sold it. And that's where I saw my first real estate process roll out.
And from there, sitting in the audience, watching how an auction works, I was hooked by the dopamine of it, I think. I was so intrigued by buyer behavior and how people respond under pressure. And my dad and I used to watch auctions every Saturday. So from about eight or nine years old, from there, I knew I really wanted to be a part of it. And that's how I've landed where I am today.
That is a front row seat on the action of what is going on. Not dissimilar to me because I'm not a real estate agent. Yes, I bought my first property when I was 19. I've traded in property all my life. I know property inside out. But sitting here doing what I've been doing over the last handful of years... my goodness me, I mean, I have learned so, so much. How can you not?
And the same thing, you got hooked?
I got absolutely hooked. There's so many peaks and troughs to buying and selling. And the thing about it is, it's not because of all the emotions that play into it and all the money stakes, I suppose, front of mind when you're buying and selling, it's really money, right? Money and emotion. It's just that there's never been the same scenario play out twice.
And I think for me, that's what makes it so interesting is that I never stop learning.
Right, let's move into Surrey Hills. It is an exclusive part of Sydney and it's also, people might not know this, it is the capital of mum and dad borrowing money out to their children. This is something that you have been a part of for some time.
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Chapter 3: What is the difference between conservation and non-conservation zoning?
And that was purely based on the fact that the energy that this property had and the feng shui of the home was going to put a dampener on this prospective purchaser's life. Something that I really can't argue against with facts. I can't show comparable data. I can't show a graph or any indication of where a market might be moving, any past sales.
There is absolutely no way around a personal decision that is determined by somebody's clairvoyance.
Yeah, I would say that our standard deposit these days is probably more so 5% than it is 10%. It's probably just a cash flow thing. I mean, if you're buying a house at $5 million or $4.5 million, 5%, you're talking $225,000, whereas 10%, you're talking $500,000. So most vendors that we're selling on behalf of are fairly comfortable for it to be a 5% deposit.
And what we've also seen sort of stretch out a little bit more over the last few years is the settlement term as well. Your standard settlement term in days gone by was probably six weeks, which to a degree it still is these days. But what's becoming more common now are the three to four month settlements that are taking place as well.
Now, we're talking about the market starting to heat up from this moment in time right through until Christmas, perhaps into the new year as well. Are you expecting those terms when you say pushing those terms out further than six weeks? A lot of the transacting, it all comes down to who's got the best terms and the shortest time to transact.
Correct. I mean, our advice to our owners is always to put your preferred settlement period on the front page of the contract, whether that be six weeks, three months, four months. The way we approach the situation is, you know, we're open to offers of any kind from all the parties and we'll just take that to the vendor.
But we find if we put our preferred settlement term on the front page of the contract, that's where we draw the line in the sand. And if anyone wants something different, well, again, we're all ears, but you kind of got to come to us with a good reason to take that to the owner to get them moving away from their preferred to your preferred settlement term.
And I want to talk also about in your suburb, houses performing well in terms of sort of these knockdowns. They look at it and go, yep, this one we can knock down. Just how attractive is that in the suburb of Willoughby?
It's a huge thing. So there's what's called a conservation and a non-conservation zone. If you're in a non-conservation zone, it means that effectively you can buy that house and you can bulldoze it down and build a new house from scratch. If you're in a conservation area, it means that you have to keep the streetscape the same from the front. So you can't knock it down.
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Chapter 4: How do zoning decisions impact property value and demand?
Am I out of line for saying that?
Oh, look, it's a difficult one because I think if we're talking about the two major buyers from the block, they were there, one very astute investor and another very, I guess, smart promoter of their own company to do so, factored all of that in when they were purchasing the properties at insane prices.
So it did cut out for a very long time, the mum and dad buyers that were there to really buy properties a home that they wanted to live in because they'd watched the show. They, you know, a lot of the time too, buyers actually hadn't watched the show, which is surprising.
And so when they found out it was actually a block property, it was, you know, and that they got all the furniture, they were quite surprised. So I think that over the years, it's really changed. I think we might see less of that in this year's block.
I don't think we'll have those two people bidding furiously and it might come back to a more level playing field for both investors, which I know are a huge buyer proportion for the block, as well as, you know, the people that actually want to live in these homes.
Yeah, and if you don't have those two buyers there, I think the pencil's got to be super sharp, doesn't it, on the list price, maybe just a little more, because I sort of got the feeling, not that I've ever watched a series, but I've read these articles about these buyers. I sort of got the feeling that they were almost like a bit of an insurance policy.
I think you've hit it on the head. I think they were an insurance policy, you know, for Channel 9, for the block producers. It really meant that they had some depth of buyers there just because of these two people. But I think that today's market really is so price sensitive. So whether it's the block or anything that's on the market, It needs to be razor sharp. It needs to be on point.
It needs to factor in what you're selling, what the market around you is selling. Buyers do come, the right buyers do come to those properties to buy them.
I have to say, I know very little about Genesia.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of buying in conservation zones?
It's about creating the opportunity, and that is definitely exactly where you're at. Talk a little bit about the property in terms of what you bought. Read somewhere that it's risen by 276%, a gain of nearly half a million dollars.
I think that's the Brisbane unit market in the time since I bought in. What I really learned from that first experience and doing some minor renovations and selling that for a small profit was then a wonderful learning ground for the first house that we then bought with some land of our own. And that was a wonderful experience. property investment success story.
We negotiated well in buying that house, which was something that was perhaps a little easier to do in the mid 2000s. Put in the sweat equity, the three reasons I love property investment. It's the leverage. It's the fact that you can take on the debt, the other people's money and to invest and gain off the back of that while inflation eats it away.
it's the sweat equity that i can spend my weekends painting building fences adding value can't do that to bhp or commonwealth bank shares in the market and then it's that personal edge you have of being able to do the research buy the right property at the right time we lived in that property for a few years and then we started to to travel to see the world turn that into an investment property with living there we put something like 90 000 of our own cash into that house in brisbane
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