Episode Details

Who do you ask for property advice?

With so many mixed messages and so many people out there with property advice, who can you trust?

Today I'm going to teach you the ten-meter rule, and suggest you never break the ten-meter rule when getting property advice.

The rule will also stand you in good stead in other situations where people are willing to offer you advice.

Then I'm going to have a long chat with you about the reticular activating system.

At the end of today's show, you'll have some new ideas and tools that will help you take advantage of our property markets. Introducing the 10 Meter Rule

Now that the conversation has moved away from COVID-19, it seems everybody I bump into has an opinion on our property markets.

They're reading all the news and while some believe property markets are going to perform strongly there are still many who believe we are in a bubble or a Ponzi scheme that's about to collapse.

Some are keen on buying off the plan, others are looking at houses and land packages and yet others think it's better to rent and buy.

I saw something similar when I was having a chat with the young lady who came up to me a few weeks ago when I was sitting in Church Street Brighton having a coffee.

She obviously recognized me from my blogs or my photos on the Internet and wanted to ask me some questions about real estate, so I gave her a few minutes of my time.

The conversation started with what I thought was going to happen to our property markets, but then when I asked her what her plans were, she explains to me how she recently paid a lot of money for a course to learn how to be a buyers' agent and was going to help homebuyers and investors.

She was going to make that her career.

I know the course she is talking about because it has produced a whole swag of new buyers' agents, so I asked her a little bit about her background.

She had brought one investment property a couple of years ago in a suburb of Melbourne, which hasn't performed very well, and up until last year, she was a teacher.

But now with her newfound knowledge and enthusiasm, she was going to charge others to buy real estate for them.

As I listened to her story it reminded me of a blog that I read probably over a decade ago by Canadian property commentator Don Campbell where he explained how a comedian made a significant difference to his property investing.

Now investing in real estate is no joke, but a comedian taught him the final 30-foot rule, which I have changed to the final 10-meter rule, and understanding this will make a difference for you.

Okay, in a nutshell, it comes from the comedian, old-school comedian, Buddy Hackett.

My understanding of The Final 30 Feet (or the Final 10 Metres as I'm now calling it) came from a warning given by Buddy Hackett to a young and upcoming comedian on how to deal with the mountains of advice that TV executives, promoters, friends, and family will give him as he built his comedy career.

Buddy's advice was simple yet profound: "Listen politely, smile and allow them to feel helpful… then turn around and seek out and take advice only from those who have walked The Final 30 Feet."

The obvious follow-up question was: "What do you mean the Final 30 Feet?"

Apparently, Buddy said:

"Only take advice from those who have walked the final and most important 30 feet from backstage to being alone in front of a microphone with nowhere to hide. Then, and only then, will you know the advice comes from reality and not theory. They'll understand the emotions, the work it takes to get it right. They'll have made the mistakes and created the laughs, not just read about how to do it."

This sage advice is obviously very relevant about whom you should listen to with regards to property and wealth advice.

In essence, there are a lot