From cities to regions: How this investor built a $10m portfolio across 4 states

investors good day how you going Phil Tarant host of the Smart Property Investment Show recording our 10th year

of property investment podcast which all the rage uh it’s a badge of honor these days to have a podcast it’s like it was

15 years ago when everyone was racing to get a uh a website now everyone’s racing to get a property podcast so it’s good

for investors uh and people in in and around property lots of information out there trying to navigate which ones to

listen to are probably the tough ones so um uh if you’re tuning into this you make the right decision there you go if you like what I did right there um uh

but if you do like what we’re doing and I get in trouble from our producers all the time for not asking for reviews and

uh and well five star reviews obviously uh uh so if you don’t mind sort of doing that and helping us out and uh wherever

you’re listening to this whether it’s the um on Spotify or it’s uh on Apple podcast uh let us know what you like

what we’re doing uh I get a good bit of this job that’s sitting behind the microphone talking to people about property but it’s big team here that do

a lot of the heavy lifting uh around it all so uh a favor for me if you could do that that would be great but today we’re

going to get stuck into regional investing and it’s something which I’ve been keeping a very close eye on it’s

something which I’m paying a lot more attention to catalyst of that has been um just some of the numbers coming out

of the uh most recently reed fast 50 report for uh this year which is where

to put your money today for the best capital growth in 2026 there’s going to be a whole bunch of podcasts coming

downstream on this shortly but it was a fair representation from regional markets and one of the reasons why is

that regional markets do provide good value uh for the right investor at the right time but often uh the price point

allows for investors to enter that market potentially versus metropolitan markets so lots of things uh to chat

through uh today and to help me with this I’ve actually got a finalist two years in a row of the REB awards for a

buyers agent of the year that’s 2023 and 2024 ben Ple from BFP Property Group

i’ve been nervous about saying your name did I get it right oh you you’re close yeah Ben Plle it’s a tough one it is

i’ll give you it’s really funny every this I don’t know if you’ve got um and and and you’re the sort of founder

principal buyers agent over at BFP and that’s obviously an acronym for your It

is yeah very creative very creative um it’s one thing you want from your buyers agent is a level of creativity as as

required but I don’t know if there’s any words like there’s certain words with the English language or certain sounds sometimes I struggle with and I can

never get around it like I still struggle to say the word trajectory like it’s really weird yeah i

think the problem with our surname is there’s too many letters that shouldn’t be next to each other um yeah just it’s

a tough one p L O H L and I’ve had many variants over the years i bet you what

was your Aussie born and bred yes yeah background from the from Europe somewhere yeah my dad was born in

Slovenia so that’s where the name comes comes from what what did you get called at school oh you must have there look at

that was pretty good multiple variations that’s for sure that’s cool well thanks for coming in um

well your name’s Benjamin i can call you Ben that’s all right y perfect sweet um how long you been sort of doing this

buyers agent thing for yeah so we started in 2018 so we’re coming up to our sixth or seventh year it’s good

innings so pre-COVID um pre-COVID yeah yeah co was a was it was a tough time but um but yeah no we’ve been been

around for for some time but um personally investing since I was 18 so okay i’m 40 this year um so been been

doing it personally for for quite some time 22 years in a game so give me a sense of your portfolio uh then if

you’ve been at it no doubt time’s been uh a trusted ally for you but uh what’s

what’s your sort of personal portfolio looking like yeah it’s in that sort of 10 mil range um spread across four

states so Adelaide Brrizzy Tazzy um soon to be another one up in in uh in

regional New South Wales and then a family home here in Sydney so you started investing comparatively early so

you must have had a job of some sort before you were a buyers agent what what was the career prior to to property yeah

so straight out of school went into finance accounting so qualified as a chartered accountant um did that for a

good 10 years or so worked up to you know the CFO level for a whole bunch of businesses here in Sydney um and and had

a stint overseas so um yeah corporate corporate sort of you know finance gig

corporate accounting did that get did that get sort of old pretty quickly and looking for someone else it’s sort of

it’s a cutthroat industry right we were working in um in a private equity owned business my last gig so um yeah we sold

that business and um yeah I had the had the marching orders and and it was a matter of thinking about what what I

should do next and um prior to establishing BFP I’d used um you know

one particular buyers agent for for a number of transactions um one of the guests on your show but um um and yeah I

think probably throughout that process it was about you know really understanding the benefits of um of what

someone can you know a BA can do for someone like myself at that time being in corporate and you know time poor and

um and and and just leveraging off you know the experience yeah the sort of existing buyers agent is a great

incubator for new buyers agents you typically you find most buyers agents come out of being a property investor they get introduced to it through being

a professional and then they use them and they go hang on a second their job looks better than the job I’ve currently got i might go and do that which is

which is a great way to grow the sector 100% yeah 100% it was about a sort of a a means to an end in terms of yes you

want to invest you’ve got the capacity it’s more you the time and and I guess the interest to to really you know

pinpoint um where you should be going and and how to you know build out that portfolio so you fortunate now to be in

the in the position of um you know just advising clients on how to do it and and do it right and and and so you’ll never

look back you don’t think you’ll go back in corporate world no no definitely probably unemployable now i am I don’t

know if is probably taking my job you’d think so right you know um but you know it’s funny your observations on on private equity you know there’s a lot of

glitz and glamour around it people want to chase it but uh pretty much every single person I’ve spoken to has had a relationship with it in some capacity go

it takes a special person it takes special person but but to be fair to to private equity they they know what

outcome they want and they’ll be aggressively focused on ensuring that outcome largely is delivered because you

know they’ve got they’ve got um uh well people they got to return their dough to who are expecting an upside and they

typically got a bit of skin in the game themselves so all upside so there’s a there’s a lot property investors could learn from from sort of private equity

maybe I can do a thing on this and if you don’t understand how private equity work but you know they’re there to get get a return and every single property

investor I know is there for a reason and you know you still hear these ideas of like why do you invest in property i

just love property and you go well what do you love about property like you know often people struggle to articulate what

they actually love about property i don’t love property i think it’s a great vehicle for for creating wealth i like the outcome that it gives me you know

but uh I’m probably the same right i don’t lurk around lurch around you know Facebook groups where people just talk

about property day in day out I think it it’s it’s a vehicle to to creating wealth and but you don’t really

get deeply invested in you know the anything but the outcome so um which is

a tough one when you’re working with clients there’s always a bit of emotion involved but um but um but I think it’s

you really got to take that helicopter view of you know what are you here to achieve and and and map out that plan to

you know to get there and and do you think being an accountant by trade is a is a real enabler on that base or

sometimes it inhibitor because you know I know a lot of very successful property investors who are accountants um however

I know a lot of other accounts that don’t invest in property because it’s it’s a mindset type thing for them how

do you find it how do you sort of balance a ledger on on leveraging your accounting capabilities in property

investment i I think it’s the analytical ability to to really um sort of you know

understand how to to to to build out that portfolio understanding cash flow is super important for any investor um

you know understand how to you know decipher data points and understand how a trend works and and all that kind of

good stuff um I think is is crucial i think as an accountant it’s definitely helped and probably put me um you know

ahead of the game in terms of how to manage a business that’s for sure but um I guess as an investor there’s definitely some crossovers and and some

value that you know we would have learned as we were trained years ago yeah are are you able to get get beyond

the numbers and the numbers are very important they can tell a lot of tales but to actually you know let the

creativity of of of identifying you know locations and and and sort of the

narrative and the color that emerges through it which which you might not necessarily see in the numbers sometimes how do you sort of embrace that yeah i

guess for for when I invest it’s all very much having a very sharp economic lens right so looking at these which

we’re going to talk about regional locations today um it’s got to you know the economics of these particular cities

must make sense so um um I I think the ability as a as an accountant to

understand economic drivers understand what you know pushes growth in a market or or in an economy um you know how that

interrelates with with unemployment rates and job creation all that kind of stuff really important when investing in

the region And so I think that ability to to really get that is you know definitely important and do you do your

own tax no no no definitely not i think I gave that away about 10 years ago as

well so you’re a smart accountant get some other account absolutely i’ve had some of the the best property investor accountants I know get someone else to

do that 100% so you’re probably better off yeah work with a a pretty smart and

savvy property investment um you know focused accountant which does definitely

help yeah no it certainly does and you know creating a BFP uh property group um

tell me about the first day was it did you leave a job and start a job or was it did you have a break did you sort of

incubate the idea for a little while like what what was the what was the sort of the the cadence of the shift into

being a a self-employed business person yeah it’s funny so I left the private equity owned healthcare business that I

was a CFO for um and went into a venture capitalbacked startup in the property

space wow so um as a as a consultant so I I floated around um you know working

kind of you know three to four days with the founders of that business um for I think it was a 3 to four month window i

guess at that time it allowed me you know the opportunity to really craft a business plan and and really get your

ducks in a line and um you know that contract then came to an end and and then it was yeah full-time and I still

remember um you know uh we’d had our second daughter at the time i think my wife was pretty stressed to saying “Well

yeah you’ve gone from a a pretty good corporate you know salary to to literally nothing.” But I think it um

you’ve got to draw the line in the sand somewhere you’ve got to commit and and that’s what we did and and yeah you back

yourself um and I’m not sure if it’s on your notes but the first two clients that I ever attracted to this business

was because I was on a podcast seven years ago yeah I did know that yeah so I come on as an investor um and and my

first two clients were from that podcast well they just contacted you saying “Hey

I like you as a property investor.” You went “Oh I’m actually think about being a buyer.” 100% yeah so I think seven years ago it was a very different

landscape podcast was probably the main I guess resource for for investors at the time no real Facebook groups or

anything like that and um and yeah so the the phone rang and and and then and it was you know you get that one you get

that two you do a great job they get great results and and it sort of compounds from there so oh that’s good

to hear that’s really good you still know these absolutely yeah good yeah clients that we’ve two brothers and um

we’ve worked with them a number of times you know since that time and now that’s sort of you know referred on families

and friends and it just it’s compounded from there so um yeah it’s it’s been a it’s been a great journey um but um I

think you we’re sort of you know it’s that slow sustainable growth is what we were after nothing you know it’s um you

nothing to really set the lights out on fire it’s just you know doing the right thing by the client getting great outcomes is really you know big part of

what we do and um and just helping people with honest advice around building out portfolio so yeah having

watched the the emergence and I would say rapid growth of the buyers agent sector in Australia you essentially get

two pools of of buyers agency if I can generalize for a moment um you know you

have quite a lot of above the line groups who are charging forward to try and build huge scale and you know big

engines and everything connected with it and then you’ve got this this another co another cohort and I think just

listening to you there Ben you’d certainly fall into this this um um bucket is

um more methodical considered boutique orientated consultant orientated

non-scalable business that’s what I run non but like you know where you where you’re really buying the person 100% you

know and you’re buying and and which means there’s bandwidth restrictions on that however uh you’re buying the person

and the the connectivity with them and the communication capability with them

um which really appeals a lot I’m finding that really appeals to a lot of people might not be all the sort of glitz and glamour and the the the the

flashing sort of signs and stuff but it’s the it’s the highly connected and engaged relationship and that that seems

to appeal to a lot of people 100% % and that’s yeah that’s the the differentiator in terms of there’s some phenomenal operators in our industry um

but the clients that come and work with us are the ones that you know will have that sort of one-on-one with myself yes we’ve got a team that support

acquisitions etc but um you book in a call on our website you’ll chat to me um

there’s no you know sort of funnel that you’ll go through we have a good conversation you come on board then you know you have that strategy session with

myself so it’s like I say it’s a non-scalable business cuz I can’t be everywhere um so we do have to compact

and sort of you know make sure that we can’t we don’t work with you know everybody um but I think with the with

the clients that do come on board they they come on board and they really appreciate that sort of level of service

and um you know is there a particular type of client that that sort of I know I want to get into regional investing but I’m quite curious about this is

there a particular type of client that that is attracted to you i know it’s that every investor comes in all shapes

and sizes but um you know are they people like you the guy you were back when you were a corporate guy yeah look

I’d say I’d say 60 70% are similar to myself or um my wife she was in law as

well so we kind of attract that type of client um be it a finance executive or a

business owner or you know mid to higher income earning you know families um but then there’s also a growing trend of you

know that sort of firsttime investor that really needs to be nurtured so we’re starting to see a bit of a trend

in in that sort of you know type of client that’s coming on board as well but I’d still say yeah bulk of them

would be um yeah similar to what I was yeah we we did a a sort of reader survey

or a viewer survey for for SPI recently and um it was really good sort of catch

up for me to to to recalibrate my my sort of just views and observations

towards property investors you know you because you sort of you end up in this bubble right where you think investors

are a certain type of people that that’s really the the fringe cases right most property investors in Australia are

exactly those people you you spoke about they’re they’re sort of middleish income

some of the higher income family orientated people on a journey who are at a point in life where they’re

thinking about what the future looks like and therefore they want to start investing in property or or expanding

their portfolio on the basis that they don’t want to work forever right like really really simple they’re they’re not

chasing 10 20 30 40 50 100 property portfolios they’re they’re very

considered and and they’re very very average you know they’re thinking two three properties maybe four properties

and that that that that is average and that if you fall into that you know that that definition I’ve just sort of spelt

out there that’s the majority of property investors in Australia 100% that’s the majority so and and it’s cool

so you enjoy being a buyers agent yeah I love it look I think it’s um it’s a it’s a privilege to to help and guide people

into making smart decisions when it comes to investing there’s a lot of noise there’s a lot of misinformation in

the market so I think if you you know if you have that experience which we do it’s just giving genuine advice that um

that doesn’t come with a ton of bias or anything like that it’s just giving you know advice that really suits that

particular client and if you got another uh property startup in your somewhere venture backed venture capital backed

startup look you never say never but um but look I think for now it’s uh just you know just continuing to build you

know what we’ve created yeah great um and help as many many people as possible but I guess it’s just not Yeah just

probably capping at some level we don’t want to I think for me lifestyle is really important too and I think that’s business that this has created as well

so and that goes for our entire team you know that’s um that’s that’s crucial so it’s not about just growing for for the

sake of it that’s for sure no it’s good no it’s um nice to get insights into um uh BFP property group and no doubt you

can just track you guys down just by googling you but um m the reason why I got you here is to talk about regional locations um but you know it’s good to

get a sense for for how you guys are aligned so let’s get stuck in it we’ll just go to a quick break uh stay with us back in a moment good day welcome back

phil Taran from Smart Prop Investment having a chat with Ben over at BFP Property Group now Ben the top your top

regional locations for 2025 um let’s define what regional is first because

different people have different views of this how do you sort of what’s your sort of construct of regional to give us a

frame of reference yeah you’re right yeah I think when people think regions they think some sort of rural town out

the middle of whoop or something like that but look it’s it’s an urban center that um is located outside a large metro

capital city um for us it’s typically one and a half to three hours outside of a a major capital um but it’s a city

that has its own strong economy um it’s got infrastructure it’s got a growing population um and perhaps it’s

supporting you know a larger kind of um um you know rural area around it so um

yeah that’s kind of the the simple definition of a of a regional city um some people think it’s anything but a a

capital city i guess there’s a bit of merit to that but um um you know for us it’s all about you know the economics of

a city so based on your definition and I’m a really simple guy so I got to simplify things myself it would be uh

it’s not a metropolitan area but it would be cities that have

characteristics of a metropolitan area correct absolutely yeah it’s a better better definition yeah yeah so like you

know you all the stuff you’d expect in a big metropolis but it’s smaller and it’s not a capital andor like I I guess in um

new surveal you would have the SID Sydney Newcastle Mullingong would be your metropolitan areas and everywhere

else will be yeah look I think there’s the way it’s going at the moment I think that’s probably you know Sydney is

growing maybe yeah but Newcastle’s typically um if you’re looking at statistics and data it’s classified as

its own um you know regional city um but you go out further west to places like

Orange or do um Aubry Wonga Waga like these are large sophisticated regional

New South Wales cities so that’s the kind of um you know what a regional city would look like in my eyes so you travel

far and wide across Australia looking at regional cities is that something you like to do yeah we do yeah absolutely so we’ve got a team that’s you know

scattered across the eastern seabboard um so we you know we get out of these areas a lot of our be our buyers agents

are based in these cities we’ve got you know buyers agent based in Jalong we’ve got a buyers agent based in Aubry Wadonga so you we get into the

nitty-gritty of those particular cities um but then they can you know travel out to different different markets in in

that area as well so um yeah we’re seeing you know phenomenal growth in these particular cities um not

everywhere but there’s certain ones that that do perform well and there’s some really interesting data that um that says over the last 10 years you know

your combined regionals actually outperformed your combined capital so um I think it’s an education thing for

investors but it’s definitely something that as an investor you should be considering it’s not suited to

everyone’s portfolio but for those you know that um perhaps have a lower entry price or um they they need a sharper

yield then by all means it’s definitely something to consider yeah there’s a lot to it um and there’s always a good

debate sort of metropolan versus regional and yeah the best investors I know have a very sort of balanced and

diversified portfolio you typically see some some regional uh stuff in there but but bas based on those stats you just

provided which which um probably like core logic stats or something similar um

the performance of regional markets is there a handful of regional or is there a is there a sort of a segment of the

regional markets that outperform other regional markets and that sort of gives great weight to shaping those sort of

return numbers because there’s a lot of regional markets you wouldn’t want to be in and and and a lot of people have

invested in these regional markets which may be sort of single economy and and then they they’ve blown head they might

be mining stuff so you know not all regional markets are created equals pretty much no 100% yeah so the data

that’s you know with in the Hydonic Home values index um it’s all aggregated so yeah you’d have to get into that detail

to see what’s actually driving um you know those those returns so what is it

um you know and there is a thrust towards regional investing and and you have you have you have you have not

there’s a big debate around this and there’ll be certain people that say never ever touch it right but Australia’s a big place um what do you

think’s behind a growing sort of investor interest in in sort of regional markets or or regional real estate just

in general yes I think the first thing is entry price um so if you look if you’re a Sydney cider and you’re looking

to buy an investment property and you know Sydney you’re you’re likely to be out of um you know out of budget if you

don’t have a million bucks or thereabouts to buy a freestanding torrent titled house um if you go out

into a into a regional location look you for us we we we usually work with clients with a minimum budget of half a

million so 500,000 you can buy cheaper but probably in a market that we wouldn’t consider um so it’s definitely

opens up opportunities for a lot more investors that have you know a lower borrowing capacity or lower budget um

the other thing is the higher higher yields again refer back to Sydney your yields for a freestanding house are you

know pretty pretty poor it could be three to 3.5% if you’re lucky if you’re lucky yeah look go out to the regions it

could be anywhere from five to six% or thereabouts um so that helps with

holding the asset longer term helps with borrowing capacity and helps with people wanting to you know to buy a second or

third you know in in in a in a shorter space of time um but it’s just goes back

to well you know you make an educated decision pick the market that has a real good strong track record of growth and

there’s there’s just so many that um you know that outperform you know beautiful Sydney Melbourne or or Adelaide or

thereabouts so yeah and there’s some really good overperformance in in regional comparative to to what you see

in the capitals um would do you find uh you know most people get to a point in

their portfolio where they they may need some some regional cash flow stuff to offset you know some properties they may

be holding in the metropolan areas which might not be delivering the yields absolutely and and that’s what we’ve seen with a lot of our clients a lot of

our clients may come with an existing capital city um asset um and especially

with interest rates that have you know grown significantly over the last 12 18 months um or two years uh they’ve got

the capacity to buy but then it’s well what do we buy it’s a matter matter of then pairing that up with with something

that is of more of a cash flow orientated um asset to to to to sort of cross out any negative that you’ve got

in a capital city asset so I guess it’s a part of a portfolio strategy um in my

eyes um and I think there’s always space for a regional asset in people’s

portfolios is there any reason why you wouldn’t go into regional markets as a property investor um look I guess in my

my view not really um unless your your risk profile says that I won’t be able

to sleep at night if I’m buying an Aubry or Wagger or Bendigo then okay great um and if cash flow isn’t

necessarily you know um a a thing for you then by all means you can you know

buy really well in a capital city and so I think it’s it’s all around risk profile so if you’re you know your

situation suggests that um that’s a risky approach then they’re great you can always avoid it yeah there there’s

certain cohorts would say you should invest in regional markets because it’s not blue chip property and this term

blue chick gets thrown around a lot which I you know not a big sort of fan of it because it it implies expensive in

you know traditional locations like the northern beaches or the eastern suburbs of of of uh Sydney but there would be an

argument that there is really good assets inverted commas blue chip assets in regional locations you know if you

have the right definition of what blue chip act actually is right um and and and there is some very expensive

properties in in rural and regional Australia absolutely um uh however the

sort of the the the typical uh property that someone would be living in in a in

a in a regional area in a sort of suburban orientated things there’s a common there’s a lot of commonality

around it so the product is cheaper largely however you can still invest with a blue chip mindset in those

regional areas aubry Roonga for those of you who haven’t been there is a pretty big place and you’ve got very different

suburbs there 100% yeah no spot on and I think the definition of blue chip is is

a bit of an unknown i don’t know if there’s a clearcut definition there would be blue chip properties in the bottom quartile correct for example

there’ be blue chip properties in the upper quartile yeah i think perhaps desiraability links back to what

classifies blue chip and what it doesn’t and you touch on you know Aubry Wonga definitely some blue chip areas in that

area in that city that command big prices and the affluent in that city

gravitate to and buy and spend a lot on um so I think your your your answer to

that is yeah there’s blue chip markets in in in any any location right so um

there’s always a desirable end of town and a you know a dingy end of town so um I think it’s just understand having that

local intelligence to to be able to pick out that’s why you’re going to need to be on the ground so think of those two

book ends right you know the top of the top top of the market the top of the price point the bottom of the price point where do you normally sort of aim

and direct your your your buying yeah I’d say the the clients that we work with probably range anywhere from

500,000 to a million that’s the again it’s a big range but that’s where the bulk of our clients um are are

transacting so look for those that have a higher price point uh or entry price or budget then yeah naturally we can you

know go to more expensive or larger regional cities um and and that’s typically what we do and we talk large

regionals could be something like a Jalong could be something like a a Newcastle or or down into Wulingong or

into the Hunter um you know these are large sophisticated regional centers that um that that you know have huge

economies you know spitting out a lot of you know GRP which is a gross regional product or you know economic output um

and there’s there’s a good track record of growth and there’s a lot of h lots happening infrastructure being developed

um unemployment really tight so they’re the kind of markets that we might consider consider for a client that has

a bigger budget and for those with with more entry- level budgets then yeah we’d need to you know consider you know um um

perhaps a suburb a little further out in a regional city um yeah depends on a whole bunch of things I guess yeah and

and in terms of um you know a frame of reference for the type of assets that you like in these location and we’ll get

into to to actual markets because I know this what a lot of listeners got to go okay as sounds great but where um uh

what what do you guys like houses you’re looking for like land large land blocks blocks that you can do developments on

like give me a frame of reference for for for what what constitutes good buying in these areas yeah so it’s just

very simple um freestanding houses on pieces of land you know family homes on pieces of land size depending on

location there’s a lot of locations that we can get some nice you know larger blocks or we can subdivide the back or

granny flats in the rear um but only houses yeah we don’t buy anything else

like no units in regular locations no no and uh how important is it in regions to

be within strike conditions of the high street where all the shops are and the pubs and the amenities and stuff doesn’t

matter not really no absolutely so and that’s something that we get questioned on a lot it’s um you if we’ve picked a

matched a client to a particular location and they say where’s the train station there’s no there’s trains aren’t

used in these areas right so I think it’s just understanding how these people live the demographic um how that society

functions right and you know perhaps in Sydney if you’re not near a metro or a station can be tough but for some of

these regional cities it’s you know you’ve got a car that’s how you how you travel around so it is a big education

thing absolutely yeah and and so essentially the the you need sort of integrity in in the house that you’re

buying so you don’t want it falling down but is there any sort of musthaves when you’re looking at this like you you know

doesn’t matter if you’re not near the train station because what who takes a train to the city for example like um

you know do you got to be close to shopping centers or they’re all close in regional areas like you how do you what

what wouldn’t I guess what wouldn’t you want to be investing near or in or around if you’re in regional areas yeah

I think the same philosophy that we would have buying in a capital is is relevant to to a region so avoiding busy

roads avoiding backing onto schools or uh shopping centers or commercial sites

or something like that so very traditional family homes in nice quiet streets um that um you know are occupied

predominantly by owner occupiers again it’s the same way we would invest in a capital um I guess there’s a few quirks

with with buying in some of these regions where um the house in particular you’ve got to make sure that you got heating and cooling um evaporative

cooling in in in a lot of these these cities because your winters are ridiculously cold um your your your

summers are quite dry and hot so um things like um you know heating and cooling to to a certain degree is really

important um but buying in these areas that traditionally comes with that comes with a bit of maintenance from that

perspective too um so it’s just you know being being mindful of of um you know of those kinds of things what about

property management in the regions is it easy to get a good property manager do they charge more do they operate

differently or is it largely all the same yeah very similar they do charge more yeah absolutely um so I think you

know Sydney is historically a the cheapest area for for property management um but you go out to some of

these regions they can be upwards of seven eight nine% um so it is quite high in terms of finding a good one yeah like

everywhere you’ve got to really understand who who’s the who’s the best PM in town um so for our clients we

typically refer them on to one or two or even up to three you know interview each of them we give them give them our

suggestion and then it’s you know picking the right one um um so but yeah

from a cost perspective it definitely is a little higher m yeah and it’s all the stuff that you need to consider as a

regional investor and you know no doubt you do a lot of strategy work at the front end and work through all these numbers to to determine what constitutes

good or bad or connected with someone’s um uh strategy um in terms of locations

and and you know we’ve got to remember the I was only chatting with someone from cans the other day and and uh again

I sort of I gave the anecdote for our our listeners and our viewers that the distance from Brisbane to hands is the

same as the distance from Melbourne to Brisbane it’s huge yeah like big city

australia australia’s a big place right like it’s a it’s a really really really big place so there’s so many regions to

to choose from uh and a lot of people sort of just get bamboozled bewildered by the fact of like how do you actually

identify what constitutes really good investing in regional towns when you’ve got empty number of states and numpy

number of different regions and number of different local governments and you know number of different ways that

people manufacture money and live in these regional areas so it can be tough um but let’s give our listeners some

actual locations uh we’ll go to a break bit of suspense when we come back we’ll get stuck into that back in a moment

welcome back Phil from Smart Prop Investment Chat with Ben over at BFP property group

now five locations for 2025 you got to give us you got to give us the uh the

skinny on where they are like a lot of buyers agents wouldn’t they’d be holding on tight saying “I’m not telling you.”

Um uh but you know again there’s two schools of thoughts of that you know it there’s so many different locations and

everyone’s got a view on it um you tell someone where they they should invest that’s a location obviously we have our

fast 50 report which tells you what all the experts say you know knowing where and then doing something about it are

two very very different things yeah 100% and that’s what I found too i think clients don’t necessarily come to us for

that those specific locations they’re coming for the the time saving and the

support and the guidance I think so so in terms of sharing locations yeah there’s no no issues with that so let’s let’s start with some of these locations

give us uh number one yes so I think they’re not in order of preference and um and some of them are very different

in terms of size and scale but the first one I’ve got here is Aubry Wadonga um so down in the the the New South Wales

Victorian border the the old Murray River um breaks it um goes through the

center of it so it’s the 20th largest city in Australia the 20th largest city yeah yeah so it’s got a population

combined so the twin cities both of them um of around 100,000 um and it’s earmarked to grow you know probably up

to 150,000 in the next you know 10 15 years has it got two governments or Yeah

yeah so I think there’s a bit of Yes you’re right so even dealing with real estate agents in Aubry they’ve got to be

licensed in the Queensland side and it it can be you know a bit of a painful process new side New South Wales and Victoria both yeah so it can be complex

um but um I think it’s just one of those things that they’ve just grown up and dealt with and they move on so why Aubry

Roonga what do you like about it um so so it’s got a real strong stable population base it supports about 50,000

jobs um it’s got a GRP so for those that aren’t familiar with that it’s gross regional product so it’s economic output

about 7.6 billion on an annualized basis so so that that area contributes 7.7

billion bucks to the national economy correct yeah um a mix of industry so again a big thing of when we’re

selecting a regional location we want to understand that there is multiple economic drivers multiple industries

that support jobs etc so um for something like an Aubry Wonga you’ve got multiple you know interest sort of

industries propping up jobs and and supporting economic growth um vacancy rate so when you’re you’re getting a

tenant in place this place historically is around half a percent okay so it’s tight very tight very tight so we had a

property that settled in Aubry yesterday um we had the property manager take a

tenant through 5:00 yesterday and they got an application by 7:00 that evening

again that’s a you know just one example but but good properties lease extremely quickly and it’s just families in just

demand 100% families mostly families are they locals who are sort of born and bred or are they sort of coming in for

work type people yeah look I think there’s um again my understanding and again I I rely on my buyers agent down

in Aubry Lisa Wood but um I think there’s a lot of people that you know would grow up in places like Aubry they

may go to Melbourne to study um but then when they’re ready to have a family they typically come back so um which is which

is quite interesting um infrastructure so again looking at these types of cities we want to see that there is

investment both public and private aubry Wonga is part of the $ 31 billion inland

rail project again that’s a project that’s been going around for a while but so the inland inland rail project is is

moving goods correct on rail in land

yeah from Melbourne up to Bris and it meanders through a whole range of key um regional cities through Vic so it’s

trans transport infrastructure yeah yeah um there’s a big hospital redevelopment um in in the city as well um so so yeah

that’s that’s the first one off the off the um I’d be thinking out loud what the key industries down there would be

probably healthare tax offices down there do yeah you got defense so they’re um in bandana on the um the wadonga side

you got two universities on both sides um um construction is is quite high

transport so it is the hub between sort of Sydney and Melbourne so it has a all your large transport all roads lead

to I got mate that lives down there and it’s it’s great access to like you know lots of things to do on the weekends

very livable city it is yeah uh the next one I got is Toumba oh yeah regional

regional Queensland hour and a half or so west of Brisy straight west isn’t it

yeah so it’s the 16th largest city in the country okay tomba so it’s a bit larger than than Aubry Wonga does Quanis

fly there direct i believe so cuz I know Quantis flies or Quantis link flies to Aubry Wonga yeah and Rex Rex still go I

guess as an administration but I always fly connoisse yeah no it’s um but that’s another good indicator right like give

you a sense for the size of a yeah so you can look at you know incoming you know passenger numbers in terms of how

how many people if you want to crunch it that come and come and go in into the city but um but it’s got a very large regional airport Aubry but Touumba again

yeah 16th largest city in the country population is uh 184,000 people thereabouts so it is a bit larger than

Wonga um it’s a major to give some sense for that like like what’s the what’s the do you

know the population of Darwin it’s about 250 from yeah like so they’re big cities

correct yeah they areities they are big cities um um so Toumba’s got um a gross

regional product of 16 billion again across multiple industries uh health and

educational it’s a major health and educational hub in regional Queensland it’s got a university um it’s got um It

actually supports all the surrounding farming areas yeah big agriculture out the way big time yeah it’s huge um

current vacancy rate one of the tightest in the country um again about.5%

see a lot of people look at that and say the real estate market’s broken there if the vacancy rate is only 5% something

good if you’re investor yeah correct yeah so there incoming supply is just inexistence so these types of cities

have very low levels of incoming supply um which just props up um you know demands is always demand will always be

strong um it’s um it’ll always support it it’s also on the inland rail project

um freight route as well um big hospital redevelopment um and a billion dollars I

think to the tune of yeah re redeveloping that hospital um and I’ve got a fun fact here 42% of dwellings are

rented investor friendly mix so again it’s um 42% are rented yeah so you got

you know closer to that 60% mark is owner occupied and that’s a nice mix too right you want to see you want to invest

in a city that is dominated by owner occupiers as opposed to investors um so

yeah that’s another one that look it’s probably at the fast approaching its peak of the market um so I think

investing in a market like that you know be go ahead with caution um so so why

would why would a to that point why would buying an asset in that area be a

sensible thing to do so if it’s sort of reaching the end of its current cycle no doubt the yields are probably pretty

strong you’d be parking dough in there for cash flow yeah it could be yeah I guess look in terms of um what what’s

your investment horizon if you are you know looking at investing for a long period of time 10 15 20 years look

buying into a market like this you’re going to do relatively well yeah um it’s always a bit iffy of trying to time a

market cycle perfectly um but um look it might not be the first one that we’d be putting clients in we probably haven’t

bought there for for a little bit of time um because of that fact it has you know kind of reached um reached its um

close to peak and um um it’s good to to look elsewhere does does Tumba flood i

know Aubry Woodonga has its challenges with flooding and no doubt that would be something you’d need to be because a lot

of these regional towns flood for some reason they’re always on a river yeah so back to Aubry yeah the the Murray River

does does flood so you’ve got places like South Aubry it’s a a big blanket no um and there’s a few pockets on the

Wonga side that you’d need to avoid um to Womba as well yeah it’s it sits it’s a city perched in the middle of a flood

plane um so you’ve got to be really really careful of um you really understanding your flood mapping and and

and buying you know well and truly outside those those flood maps um next

location Jalong jong yeah home of the deputy prime minister deputy prime

minister i was going to say the jalong cats but um um so 12th largest city in Australia okay so it’s um it’s one of

our bigger ones population big airport there at Avalon big I’ve I’ve mistakenly gone to Melbourne trying and and booked

a flight to a Avalon you got to make the trek back into it’s a bit of a hassle it’s a pain but um about 290,000 people

so it’s quite large and supports about 130,000 jobs um um the medium price

median house price has doubled since 2013 but a lot of that was well and

truly you know quite some time ago because it was early on it just plate right that’s right so you know since co

jalong in line with with broader Melbourne hasn’t done much um which there’ve been argument of like a

parallel of Melbourne to Jalong as Sydney to Newcastle you know it’s like

Jalong is a it’s a metropolitan area which just isn’t in Melbourne yeah it’s

probably a little closer than what Newcastle is to to Sydney um so commute from Jalong in the town absolutely yeah

absolutely um it’s uh it’s GRP is 21.9 billion so we’re we’re starting to talk

you quite quite a sizable economy um vacancy rates again hovering around that sort of 6.7% mark so very tight in some

of these suburbs that we uh we’re very active in um infrastructure $14 billion

currently being spent across road rail port upgrades um renewable energy projects as well um that we’re seeing um

in in the city um and I’ve got here 24% rise in remote worker relocation since

2020 so there’s been a lot of people that have relocated back to Jalong um um

for um you know it’s probably that post postco period so people moved out and thinking and then went back not really

practical it’s interesting sly remote worker relocation like I don’t know what that those dynamics are elsewhere but um

no doubt you you see it in you know this flight to regional communities during co

a lot of seaside type places um uh but I think the realization of not living

where you work or what your requirements of work are probably changed quite a lot so you know it’s an interesting stat to

consider but you know Jalong is a large region if you’ve never been to Jalong like get down there you It’s a just a

It’s like being in a a small capital city it is yeah absolutely yeah um next

up is probably one of my favorites it’s Newcastle so you’ve got the seventh largest city in the country um we do a

lot of buying up there we’ve got a property management business up there as well okay um we’ve got 176,000 people in

the city of Newcastle alone but if you take city of Newcastle city of Newcastle but then if you take Lake McQuary and

the Hunter certain parts of the Hunter it comes up to about 680,000 people so if you’re going to draw a a bubble

around Newcastle would it be sort of from like I don’t know Lake McQuary Swansea so Swansy Belmont to Nelson Bay

yeah so Nelson Bay Port Stevens is classed in that sort of greater Newcastle statistic um and then it goes

out to certain parts of Cesto would that be part of I think mainland Mainland would be that’s called the I think it

might but places like um Thornton Chisum the newer parts definitely part of those

stats but um but the city itself of Newcastle quite large but then if you you know you capture those surrounding

areas it does become a very large center um so we’ve got

um GRP of 24.6 six billion so so so that sort of boundary is okay so it’s a

pretty pretty big um economy on its own right um vacancy rate again depending on

where you look you know anywhere from 0.5 to 8% in some of those uh wellestablished you know suburbs um

infrastructure we’ve got you plenty of um investment in defense you know hospital upgrades the new Newcastle port

logistics hub’s been recently upgraded the airport I believe has also been um

extending the runway yeah and I think there’s going to support Southeast Asia from memory so um there’s going to be a

lot more direct flights up into Asia obviously it’s a extending it also for the purpose of um you know it’s a big

military base up there in Williamtown but you know there’s a lot of um yeah lot of direct flights out there now and

the and um the much talked about highspeed passenger rail when’s that what’s going on with that that’s been

talked about since I was a boy but um it sounds sounds like it’s it sounds like something’s happening now right and this is an interesting point around highspeed

rail um there’s the high highspeed rail authority which is a government body and

I think the guy who’s in charge of it the CEO of that was the the bloke who was in charge of um the Sydney Metro so

they got a real deal sort of executive in there now and I think they’re drilling holes in the Hawks River to try

and work out where they’re going to dig a tunnel at the moment but um that’d be groundbreaking infrastructure um makes

sense you know makes and I think that’s the first bit between you know this idea of a Melbourne to Brizzy sort of fast

rail the the first bit will be Sydney to Sydney Newcastle so who who knows who

knows but if you if you go and have a look around Lake McQuary Lake McQuary sort of um you know is the the sort of

eststery sort of just south of Newcastle like it’s gone nuts there like you know new developments everywhere it’s really

gentrifying y it was like a sleepy um you know place for retirees once upon a

time but now it’s it’s it’s definitely changing it’s really shifting really shifting in the gear definitely and the last one’s Waga Waga Waga so very

similar to Aubry Wadonga it’s actually quite close um it’s the 28th largest city in the country it’s very hot for

investors at the moment um there’s quite a few buyers agents that we’ve been competing with um in in Waga Waga of

recent um population of about 70,000 people on its own um you see you get

nice rental yields of circa 5.6 or thereabouts for for good assets in in

Waga um supports about 36,000 jobs a GIP of about 5.4 billion um again across a

mix of um a mix of different industries uh vacancy rates anywhere as low as.3%

wow really tight that’s really tight very tight um infrastructure a lot of investment both public and private at

the moment you got 2.3 billion spent on the energy connect project um two

billion in renewable energy projects and there’s also a billion dollars spent in defense projects there’s a big defense

presence in in WA yeah um so so yeah that kind of um yeah it’s it’s a good

robust market uh entry prices we can get in there circa 5 to 550 upwards of

closer to 600 you get a better asset um you get tenants in at the drop of a hat um and they’ve sustainably grown over

the last say 10 years anywhere from seven to 9% compound growth every year

um so yeah definitely a definitely a good uh a good option so there’s good buying in all these regions you

mentioned sort of from half a million or a million bucks they’re getting some absolutely yeah probably wouldn’t go look I think if you’re going up to a

million bucks it’s probably a bigger city like your Julongs or your Newcastle um for some of these smaller ones we

we’d cap it a lot lower but um but just as we were touching on earlier around

you know you people always ask you know how is regional Australia investing performed when you compare it back to

capitals but um just these stats that I’ve got in front of me over the last 10 years and this is from the the April

Hyonic home value index combined capitals have returned 61.7% but your

combined regionals over that same period 87.5 fiveyear grow was a five year 10 year 10

year growth So it’s um Yeah okay so so pretty much nearly doubled in in regions yeah

correct yeah and that’s a it’s a big sort of collection sample from that but

it’s it’s obviously before been better but by right you got to get the you got to get the location right yeah and look

there there’s merit in investing in any capital city or regional city but I think it’s about you know opening eyes

and opportunities in you know regional locations um considering that it would be a good option for everyone’s

portfolio most people um and um you’re not just sort of you know pigeon holing

yourself to your capitals um there’s a lot more potential and opportunity you know outside it’s much easier to build a

a slightly larger portfolio when you know matching up areas like that that have better yields etc um and if your

growth profile is still there then you it makes sense for a lot of people and a long-term play for for these locations is is buy and hold would you be sort of

really transactional to regional markets or would you be looking for a longerterm sort of time horizon look we’ve had

clients that have you know gone in and and out in in short space of times be it buying renovating and then you know

flipping they’ve done done reasonably well in that um in that respect a lot of clients have done you know sort of

subdivisions you chopping off the back block or building a battle axe in the rear um we’ve had some clients that have

been really creative and opportunistic where they’ve you know done a little little development and and sold off some

to have a free piece of land or um yeah that’s it’s for different types of investors granny flats also you know can

be quite popular in some of these cities well those rental yields are so rental um vacancy rates are really low so you

know if you’re manufacturing sort of more product through granny flats I reckon that’s not only get a a big uplift on your yield you’re probably

contributing to to to help people out with some housing as well right which is a big deal absolutely that’s good i I

I’m very familiar with all those locations i I must admit I haven’t traveled to some of them for a little while but um

uh there’s a lot of commonality and what you’ve mentioned from them they’re vibrant diverse economies they’re large

cities um the the demand for for rental accommodation is strong not once did you

use the term it’s a mining town you should be there so you know absolutely so there’s it can be you know there’s a

lot of risk in picking the wrong one absolutely um so um just talking about

you know risky regional cities I think there’s a lot of you know evidence with you know the boom bust of some of these

regional cities where they are reliant on BHP or Riotinto still you know

pulling out minerals from the ground and when they do um you know disappear it’s like well you know what happens to those

areas um um even places like you know Broken Hill where you know what happens in Broken Hill what’s I don’t even know

what kind of industries are out there other than mining but um um you’ve got to be very very careful of you know

picking the wrong type of city and I even think you know population right I think it’s got to be of a certain

population size and you want to see that growing in in the right direction um because that comes with you know

scalability economies of scale etc um you’ve got to be you mindful of of which

one you pick political masters will will have us believe that the future is regional and uh they’re coming up with

um schemes to try and get people out to the regions and and and put some sort of

a lot of the government um capabilities in the regions to attract people into regions uh there’s a big argument you

saw it take place through the last election cycle about you know affordability for for Australians and a

lot of that reality is that you know you can your money goes a lot further in the regional areas both in terms of buying a

house but your livability and and maybe the um the appeal of that uh so you’ll see the governments putting their

shoulders behind regional investing i don’t know if there’s any direct incentives yet around sort of getting people into the regions through housing

you know that’ll be the next iteration of a first home buyers grant you know you get more if you do on the region unless it’s already there good policy

idea by the way not doing it um anyway no it’s good thanks for coming in it’s I like talking about regional trade a bit

it sort of reconnects me of what’s going on and maybe shapes my you know a lot of my investment thinking is still around

the the capitals and so yeah need some more in regions yeah absolutely no it’s um yeah it’s opening up people’s eyes up

to different opportunities and then yeah make an educated decision and and um and

and make a call and get stuck in absolutely yeah how do people track you down mate what’s the best way to find you uh look yeah jumping on the website

bfpropy.com um all the stuff’s there you can book it a call directly with myself um if you’d like to have a chat but um

yeah the website’s best way okay nice one well thanks for coming in thanks for sharing all those insights mate really enjoyed it i hope you enjoyed that and

more on regional Australia as we sort of pull apart the the fast 50 as well where to put your money today for the best

capital growth in 2026 so a lot of regional locations and I think I’m going to sort of invest in one of these

locations just as a bit of an example uh for those people who are little bit byware around it uh we’ll get stuck in

and and see how we go um remember to go and check out bfpropy.com uh any questions I’m sure

Ben’s happy to answer them and just have a yarn it’s it’s not a bad way to start uh thanks for tuning in everyone or

whether you’re sort of watching this or listening to this uh remember please those reviews if you don’t mind if you can keep them coming that’d be cool

smartpropyinvestment.com.au is where you can find us just if you’re a social media person just look for us and you can follow us as well keep connected

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