“I just want to wait three months.” Pamela Philips and Michelle White from Chase Wealth Australia hear it constantly, and in this episode of Confessions of a Property Investor they ask the obvious question back: what exactly do you expect to change in three months?
Waiting rarely holds a price still. Chase Wealth Australia used to put clients into strong growth locations under $500,000. Then it was $600,000, then $700,000, then $800,000. Waiting does not stop you buying, it changes what you can buy, usually a weaker location with slower growth and a smaller yield. Sometimes that slower property is the right call as a stepping stone when borrowing capacity is tight, but that is a decision made deliberately rather than one arrived at by hesitating.
The second half tackles the opposite mistake: selling too early. Clients who are years into a growing asset start wondering whether to cash out and clear the mortgage, and local agents ring weekly telling them to sell while the number looks good. Pamela’s answer is that paying down a mortgage almost never requires selling the asset that is still growing, and that the honest answer is usually to restructure rather than exit. Selling is the last resort, not the first idea.
That is the question Pamela Philips asks straight back, and the episode turns on it. Most people waiting are waiting for a signal they cannot describe: a rate cut, a policy announcement, or a fall that confirms holding off was right. If the waiting period has no stated condition attached, it does not end when the condition is met, it ends when something else forces the decision. The discipline that helps is to name what would have to be true, then check whether that is a thing which arrives on a three month timetable.
Not exclusion from the market, but a downgrade within it. You can still buy after waiting. What changes is which location is reachable, and with it the growth potential, the rental demand and the yield. Michelle White frames it as diminishing the location rather than losing the chance, which is a more honest description of what waiting does and a harder one to notice, because the property you end up with still looks like a purchase.
Yes, when borrowing capacity is the binding constraint. Pamela Philips is explicit that a slower asset can be a sensible way into the market and a base to move from later. The distinction that matters is whether it was chosen for that reason or arrived at by default. One is a strategy with a next step attached. The other is what is left after the better options moved out of range.
Because the position has worked and the number now looks like the answer to a different problem. Clients several years into a growing asset start weighing whether to sell and clear their own mortgage. The impulse is understandable, the conclusion usually is not. Selling ends the growth that made the number attractive, and paying down a mortgage rarely requires disposing of the asset still doing the work.
Treat the call as what it is. Pamela Philips describes clients fielding weekly calls telling them their property has done so well they should sell now, or that it is worth less than they think. Both versions are approaches for a listing rather than assessments of the client's position. The response is to check the property against the client's own reporting and the plan it was bought under, before acting on a valuation offered by someone who benefits from the sale.
Usually, and this is the load bearing point of the second half. The episode is direct that selling should be the last resort rather than the first idea, and that the honest answer in most cases is to restructure. Circumstances do change, sometimes inside the client's control and sometimes not, and the plan is expected to move with them. Very rarely is a sale the move the plan requires.
No, and the attempt is what produces the cost. The position taken in the episode is that trying to time the market is not an available strategy, so the practical choice is between being in the market and watching it. Both of those are decisions. Only one of them is usually made deliberately.
"We used to be able to help clients get into strong growth locations sub $500,000. And then it was 600,000, and then it was 700,000, and then it was 800,000."
Michelle White, 2:33
"Trying to time the market is not the answer. Don't sell unless you absolutely have to."
Michelle White, 8:22
