7 Indicators That Actually Drive Property Value.

The "Property Fundamentals", this is what it actually means.

We’re AUS Property Investors, the only property newsletter that loves you back.

This Month’s Run Down:

• 😵‍💫 Cheap & Easy - Unlikely If you Want More Growth!

• 😱 How To Build a $3 Million Portfolio

• 📗 Financial Freedom in 10 Years

• 💵 Unpacking Unlimited Borrowing Capacity: Fact or Fiction

• 🤠 How This Investor Bought 4 Properties On Less Than $100K Income

• 📈 7 Data Indicators Pointing to Capital Growth

• 🧰  FREE Property Tool Of The Month

“Just Buy Something Cheap…” Said No Successful Investor Ever

You know that one mate who always says, “Just buy something cheap and hold on, it’ll grow eventually”?

Yeah, nah.

That’s how you end up owning a lemon in the middle of nowhere that’s about as exciting as watching paint dry in winter, but it’s far more costly!

The truth is, not all cheap suburbs are created equal.

As prices have moved so much as of late, these affordable areas are becoming harder to pick.

And picking the right area isn’t just about affordability, it’s about the fundamentals.

This word is thrown around quite a bit, but we’re here to simplify it for you, because there are only really 7 key factors to bother with when it comes to in successful property investing.

And if you can spot the signs early, you’ll be surfing the growth wave while everyone else is still paddling or their catching the whitewash of a previous boom.

So what are those signs?

There’s seven. And they’re game-changers, read below!

For The Newbies

A very warm welcome to all the new subscribers! We’re thrilled and honoured to have you as readers and truly appreciate your thoughts and feedback 🙏.

Each edition of this newsletter will contain a deep dive into the property experts, investors, and all-around legends that grace us with their time and energy for the Facebook lives we run in our Facebook Group Aus Property Investors.

Now Australia’s Largest Property Investment group with over 81,000+ members!

For those who need a catch-up when they aren’t free for an hour [or sometimes 2] at 7:30 pm Wednesday night (we know we’re not), we created this newsletter, along with recording the sessions on our Youtube channel.

March 2025 Live Guests!

Ester Beattie

Ester Beattie is a passionate property investor, entrepreneur and skilled painter and decorator. She has built an impressive $3 million property portfolio from humble beginnings through sheer persistence, strategic renovations, and smart investing. A wife, mother of two, and business owner.

Ester's journey is proof that success in the property market doesn't require being a millionaire to start, it takes hard work, adaptability, and the ability to spot value where others don’t. With a keen eye for potential, she transforms "ugly duckling" properties into valuable assets, all while balancing family life and a thriving business. Ester’s story is an inspiration for aspiring investors looking to break into the market and scale their portfolios with determination and strategy.

During this session, our discussion centred around How This Everyday Investor Has Done Exceptionally Well To Build A $3 Million Portfolio With Persistence And A Touch Of Painting, with the juicy details unpacked along with heaps of practical key insights 💎!

Ester: "Our strategy long-term which is a tried and true strategy not super exciting, but why we're sticking to it is because we've seen other people do it successfully is to accumulate as many properties as we can. "

This is a teaser of the gold 🏅 discussed in the Investor Story Persistence Painting & Pain Flipping To A $3 Million Portfolio💰 episode with more found by clicking the link below 👇

Jef & Joe

Joe Tucker is one-half of AUS Property Investors and the Founder & Head of Research at Property Principles Buyers Agency. He is a preeminent buyers agent that specialises in residential and commercial property investing.

Jef Miles is one-half of AUS Property Investors. As a person with 10+ years of experience in Financial Services incl Mortgage Broking & Building His Own Multi Million Dollar Portfolio. He is a talented Renovator and Property Developer, constantly breathing new life into tired and rundown properties, turning them into prized investments.

The gents are now helping you do it for yourself with their guidance and mentoring, step by step, deal by deal with Level Up Property!

This session’s conversation revolved around The Blue-print To Building A Play By Play Property Portfolio To Be Financially Free In 10 Years: The Steps, The Types Of Deals And The Approach! 💎

Jef: “What you want to do is buy high growth capital value assets at the beginning, and then what we're doing is we're selling down those four initial properties.”

Joe: “Cash and equity on one hand, borrowing ability and serviceability, and then your portfolio cash flow that's what we need to balance here”

There are incredibly valuable insights in the How To Reach Financial Freedom in 10 Years episode. Explore the wealth of information by clicking the link below 👇

Aaron Christie-David

Aaron Christie-David is an MFAA approved Mortgage Broker with over 8 years experience helping clients He is the Managing Director of Atelier Wealth, which he co-founded with his wife Bernadette several years ago. Aaron is highly qualified and has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the Finance Industry.

As the Managing Director of Atelier Wealth, Aaron has been ranked among Mortgage Professional Australia Magazine's Top 100 Brokers for the past four years

In this session, we focused on The Highly Debated “Unlimited” Borrowing Capacity & Whether It Is Fact or Fiction 😮

Aaron: “Infinite borrowing capacity… I don’t think that’s the challenge. I don’t think it’s a problem to solve, I think it’s the cash flow problem”.

This is a glimpse of our discussion on Unpacking Unlimited Borrowing Capacity & More Fact or Fiction episode. Dive into the many gems 💎 by clicking the link below 👇

Marce Wilde

Marce Wilde is an amazing Property investor, former nurse & now chef who moved to Australia with little to her name & has scaled an impressive property portfolio on less than $100k income! Her investment properties have subdivision potential, instant equity and high cashflow.

This session’s conversation revolved around How This Property Investor Built an Impressive Property Portfolio on Less Than $100k Income! 💎🍎!!

Marce: “You literally go to the bank, find out how much you can borrow, punch in a bit of data, and make it happen. It's that simple.”

There are incredibly valuable insights in the How This Investor Bought 4 Properties on Less Than $100K Income episode. Explore the wealth of information by clicking the link below 👇

What Are These Magic 7 metrics? Capital Growth in Focus 🧘‍♀️

1 . Population

Let’s talk population growth, because it’s one of the clearest signals we’ve got when it comes to property demand.

Perth’s been the poster child lately (remember where we were telling you guys to buy back in 2022 and 2023?)

In 2023–24, its population jumped 3.1%, the fastest growth in the country, and property prices followed suit, climbing around 24% in just one year.

It’s what happens when too many people chase too few homes.

Simple.

But here’s the bit people miss, this data is looking back, not ahead. Jumping into the Perth Market right now, will probably give you a $50K boost in the short term, but is probably not the ideal investment.

Perth’s already had its moment, the influx has driven the boom, and it’ll likely start to cool. Nothing can grow 24% year on year forever. Remember that

We bought hard and some investors that listened have made over $300,000 of equity on a $400,000 purchase.

That wave has crested.

Now, shift your focus to Victoria. It didn’t grow as fast in percentage terms, but it saw the biggest numeric gain of population, 142,600 new residents in one year. That’s a huge number.

And when you’re talking about sustained, long-term pressure on housing demand? That’s the kind of growth you want to track.

Population growth above the 10-year average has always been a reliable clue for future capital growth. So don’t just chase the current headlines, watch the underlying trends.

Perth’s been hot, but Melbourne might just be the next one to heat up?

2 . Employment Growth

Jobs drive housing demand. Simple as that. But why?

When an area creates jobs, it not just shows a low unemployment rate, it pulls people in. More workers, more income, more confidence to rent or buy. That’s what really moves a property market.

Perth’s riding that wave right now. Resources and infrastructure jobs have been drawing in families, and housing demand’s followed.

Brisbane’s next, with Olympics projects like Cross River Rail and the new arena pumping out thousands of jobs.

But not all jobs are equal.

High-growth sectors like tech, health, defence and finance create long-term demand. Sydney’s tech scene is set to grow 15% in three years. Melbourne’s fintech and bio-med hubs are expanding.

Adelaide’s defence boom is just kicking off.

So the tip is, follow the jobs. Where employment’s growing, property demand usually isn’t far behind.

If you see the opposite, run!

3. Real Wages and Income Growth

Kinda sounds like Employment growth, but it isn’t. It’s not just having a job that matters, it’s how much that job pays.

They call it “Real wages”, meaning income growth after inflation.

When people earn more (and that money stretches further), they can borrow more.

That means they can bid more.

What is property? Well, property is just land, and land is where folks put their capital. Land soaks up the economic activity of the area it sits within.

When folks earn more and can afford to push prices higher, they typically do. Which means prices start climbing. It’s that simple.

More disposable income = more competition for homes.

But now inflation’s easing, wage growth is picking up, and certain sectors, tech, engineering, medical, are still short on talent. That means more upward pressure on wages and housing.

For investors, this is gold. Watch the wage data.

Cities where incomes are rising (above inflation) are where people will start upgrading homes, borrowing more, and pushing prices higher.

Sponsored By The Level Up Property Course

Remember when Homer decided he was going to be an inventor?

He quit his job, bought a shed, chucked on a lab coat and somehow came up with a makeup shotgun, an electric hammer, and a chair with extra legs for tipping back.

And he was so sure he was onto something.

That’s exactly what the average property investor looks like when they dive into property investing. A lot of energy. A dream in their head. And absolutely no idea what they’re doing.

”What’s your forrrtss on Perth?”

The result are….

Painful. Chaotic. And expensive.

In the Property game, enthusiasm isn’t enough. You can’t wing it with a few YouTube videos and a podcast episode. That’s how people end up:

• Spending months researching but getting nowhere

• Skipping due diligence, because it sounds boring or complicated

• Buying out of fear, just to say they’ve finally “done something”

• Regretting it all, when the numbers don’t stack up and the growth stalls

Too many people are building portfolios that look great in theory, but in reality? It’s a shotgun blast of makeup to the face.

That’s why we built the Level Up Property Course. So you ace it every time!

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After 15+ years in the game Jef and I, you know the guys who have bought over $100M+ in property deals, and leading Australia’s largest property community (that’s 81,000+ investors, by the way), we’ve packed everything we know into one powerful course.

The guys that have literally created millionaires through property investing!

It’s not hype. It’s not guesswork. It’s the system we wish we had starting out. This is what I am using every single day in my Buyers Agency business for clients. You get it all, and much cheaper than my service.

Here’s what you get:

• Step-by-step frameworks for spotting high-growth markets (no more guessing)

• The 3 Phases of Due Diligence, explained simple so you can crunch deals fast

• Negotiation strategies to help you buy under market value

• Free 6-month HTAG subscription (valued at $1,100+) for real data-driven decisions

• Group Coaching Calls with us every 3 weeks

• Private Facebook Mentoring Community, run by us directly

This isn’t theory. These are tools that have helped 1 investor unlock up to $768,000 in equity in under 3 years.

So, if you’re ready to stop DIY-ing your way through one of the biggest financial decisions of your life, it’s time to level up.

The first 20 people get direct mentorship, so don’t sleep on it.

No more chaos. No more electric hammers.

Let’s build a portfolio that actually works.

*This newsletter is sponsored by our friends at Level Up Property Course.

4. Tight Supply (Low Vacancy and Low Stock)

Anyway, onto the here to talk about Capital Growth and how to spot it.

Supply is the unsung hero (or villain) in the property market.

Even if demand stays steady, when supply tightens, prices go up. Right now, we’re in one of the tightest markets in modern history.

Rental vacancy rates are under 2% across every capital. In Perth, Adelaide, and Hobart? Closer to 0.6%. That’s basically nothing on the market and when there’s nothing to rent, rents spike.

Then investors jump in. Then prices follow.

Same story with listings, national housing supply fell to just 1.8 months in mid-2023.

For context, a balanced market usually sits around 5–6 months. Less than 3? That’s when buyers panic, bidding wars break out, and values start climbing fast.

In 2024, the country built 62,000 fewer homes than needed to accommodate population growth.

And this isn’t a one-off. We’ve had years of underbuilding. Rising construction costs, builder collapses, and planning delays have made it worse.

Meanwhile, we’ve added over half a million new people in the past year and haven’t built nearly enough homes to match.

Until supply catches up (which will take years), cities with ultra-low vacancy and stock, think Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Victoria are likely to keep seeing upward pressure on both rents and prices.

Watch the numbers!

5. Undervalued Housing (Value Gap, Investor Activity & Renovations)

Sometimes a city just sits there, quietly undervalued.

Prices haven’t kept pace with incomes. Yields are high. And compared to similar markets, things look cheap. That’s when savvy investors start circling, and that’s often when prices start to move.

Perth’s a textbook case.

After years in the post-mining-boom wilderness, by 2021 it was seriously affordable, Sydney’s median house price was nearly double Perth’s.

Investors noticed, guys we bloody noticed and screamed it from the roof top. Those that listened made millions, those that bitched and moaned, got nothing.

You should buy the Level Up Property Course Now! so you’re not reading the same thing in 5 years time.

Anyway, rents were rising, yields were strong, and locals started renovating. The result? Perth’s values jumped 50% in a few years, including 24% in the past 12 months.

Same thing happened in Hobart around 2015, and in Brisbane and Adelaide during COVID, undervalued markets suddenly surged once the right catalyst hit (migration, low rates, economic recovery).

Undervalued doesn’t mean instant growth, you still need a trigger. But when you spot a market that’s cheap and starting to stir, that’s your window.

Right now? Parts of Melbourne and even Darwin might be next. The value gap is where the upside lives.

6. Demographic Mix and Market Depth

A strong market isn’t built on just one type of buyer it needs a mix. First-home buyers, upgraders, downsizers. When all three are active, demand stays steady through any phase of the cycle.

Take Brisbane since 2020, it’s seen a major shift with younger families moving up from southern states, while still retaining a solid retiree base. That balance has helped support both suburban housing and inner-city townhouse demand.

Adelaide is another one. Traditionally older, but between 2016–2021, its 25–39 age group grew by 12%, bringing new life to the first-home and upgrader segments, and it’s shown in the market.

Sydney and Melbourne are textbook examples of demographic depth. Sydney’s set to add 650,000 people by 2034, driven by young professionals and international migration.

Melbourne’s population mix includes students, professionals, families and downsizers, supporting every rung of the property ladder.

Why does it matter? Because when one group pulls back, say, investors or first-home buyers, others keep the market moving. That’s what protects against volatility and drives steady growth.

If you're investing, look for markets with that balance. Because demographics shape demand. And demand shapes price.

7. Education and School Quality

This is one we don’t hear too much in the investing circles?

Why? I am not entirely sure but our eyes are on it.

What keeps showing up in the data is one core thing that consistently drives property demand, through boom, bust, or anything in between, it’s being near a good school.

And it makes sense right? You’re moving your family somewhere new, you want the best for them, which includes good schooling. People with money really want good schooling and are willing to pay for it. .

Proximity to high-performing public schools is a very reliable drivers of price growth. Families will stretch their budgets, investors will circle, and properties in the right zones become hot commodities.

There was a super interesting article called “Domain’s 2023 School Zones Report” found that in parts of Sydney, house prices in top public school catchments grew up to 10× more than homes just outside the zone between 2021–2022. So if a neighbouring area saw a 2% rise, homes in the school zone jumped closer to 20%.

That’s not a fluke, it’s fierce competition for access.

Same story in Melbourne, being zoned for Balwyn High or Glen Waverley Secondary has been worth up to $425,000 more on the sale price compared to nearby homes outside the zone. And in Brisbane, over 50% of primary school zones outperformed the wider suburb average in capital growth.

For investors, it’s a powerful filter. If a suburb is zoned for a high-performing public school, especially one not fully “priced in” yet, it’s worth a closer look. Because education is one of the few non-monetary drivers that translates into serious property growth.

So there it is

The seven magic metrics that actually move the needle.

Capital growth doesn’t just happen by accident. It shows up where the signs are screaming “Look here!”

But only if you know what to look for.

The truth is, the best investors aren’t lucky. They’re just better informed. They track the data, understand the trends, and move before the crowd catches on.

If you’re ready to stop guessing, and start investing with clarity, these metrics are your cheat sheet.

The makeup shotgun days are over.

Now it’s time to build a portfolio that makes sense and actually grows.

Join the Level Up Property Course Now!

FREE Property Tool Of The Month!

Open Stats is a serious free resource for Property Investors. It’s a newer one for us but the punch line of providing “free, interactive data visualisation tools to help Australians gain insights into their local areas” had us hooked!

It is a great and easy resource to navigate around and find the “hot spots” from the “not spots” taking a peek 🫣 under the covers for housing commission pockets and highly concentrated renter pockets in most areas of Australia. I am sure we have only scratched the surface on this tool as well.

It’s got a fairly easy-to-use interface and has a lot of insightful information to help you build that passive income Empire! Note that yes it is from 2021 Census Data but it is a great start 😎!

That’s another Newsletter Wrapped up! Thanks for reading this Aus Property Investors Edition. Let us know your thoughts, share with friends & family to get the word out to the Property Crew! 🔥