Australian Investors Playbook: How to Navigate Property Investments Amid a Crisis

George Markoski Hello, this is George Markoski coming to you live with the Positive Property Show. I’m here with Christabel Pretlove. Welcome. Christabel Pretlove Hi, everyone. George Markoski Now, tonight we’re going to be talking about the property investor playbook has changed and what smart investors are doing. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you can probably see there’s a lot of crazy world events at the moment and they do affect property prices. So that’s what we’re going to do today. What we’ll do is go to a deep dive. We’re just not going to do just State of the Nation, we’re going to do State of the World. And what’s happening in the world currently, okay, property investor playbook has changed and what smart investors are doing differently in 2026. Let’s go. So, State of the Nation, what’s happening in Australia right now? And I like to add the world. So, so the headlines look scary. Oil crisis deepening. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Consumer confidence has crashed to 73.4%. George Markoski Real wages are back down to 2011 levels. Worst decade for Australian households in 70 years. And everyone’s talking about a property crash. So the Middle East crisis and what it means for Australian property. So what’s happening right now? 28th of February, US and Israel launch Operation Epic Fury. Supreme leader Khamenei is killed in opening strikes. Actually, they’ve recently replaced Khamenei with his son, Khamenei. Sort of reminds me of the Taliban when America spent a trillion dollars in 20 years replacing Taliban with Taliban. Anyway, 1st to 4th of March, Iran retaliates the missiles on Israel, UAE, Qatar. Strait of Hormuz effectively shut down Dubai airport damaged. And Trump recently released a statement and said that don’t worry, we’ve got it all under control. You can move ships through. Two ships got blown out of the water as soon as he said that. George Markoski So he was a bit wrong on that. 5th to 9th of March, oil surges passed $100 a barrel. Shipping drops 95% to refineries in Qatar. Gas facilities are hit by drones. So what happened the last two days? 2,000 dead. Trump says soon, but also not finished yet. Russia advising Iran on drone tactics. So looks like they’re hunkering in. I know Iran is hunkering for a long war. We’ll see how long it lasts. But this is the price oil shock. Before the pre-war oil, crude oil per barrel was $70. Now it’s $110 plus. So it’s a 57% surge. 95% drop in Hormuz shipping. 20% of global oil go through the Strait of Hormuz and 6.7 million barrels a day lost. So how’s Australia? These are the four steps. Well, oil goes from $70 to $110, so that’s an oil shock. George Markoski Australian imports, 90% of liquid fuel and petrol’s gone up 40 cents a litre. CPI could spike 1.5%. The RBA can’t cut. Rates may hike again in May. What does it do for property? Borrowing capacity is hit, sentiment drops, buyers sit on their hands short term. Okay, and this is the consumer confidence has gone right down. Well, 73.4%. Let’s not be crazy. It’s still high, but it’s down a little bit. 3.7 points. Not a lot when you think about it, compared to other countries. So real household income is still 3.9% below COVID peak. So Australian families are going backwards. What that graph talked about is real household disposable income per capita price for inflation. So what does this mean? It’s. It means that inflation is eating away at people’s spending power. I keep talking about this. Your pay is going backwards. George Markoski Real wages fell 0.3% now, 6% below peak, back to 2011. You look at this graph and talk about real wages, right? And this is priced in with inflation, because even if you’re getting more money, if everything’s more expensive, it doesn’t mean it’s real. That’s why we call it real wages, not wages, because wages have increased quite a bit. Real wages haven’t. And we had the highest real wages back in 2011. That was the best we’ve ever had. So where are we now? Well, we’re below that. But when you look at it over the overarching arc, we’re still ahead of what we normally are. But basically your purchasing power is being quietly destroyed. So the public sector is hiring is booming while private sector stagnates. Look at the market sectors, the green, and look at the orange. George Markoski Now we’ve got a Labor government and what’s going to happen with a Labor government is that Labor governments love spending big. And one good thing is they give everyone a job. The unemployment rate is right down. But unfortunately because of that, the RBA keeps pushing rates up because everyone’s employed. But everyone’s employed on the back of our tax dollars. So it’s not real inflation. That’s my take. So Australia is growing faster than India. We’ve got 27.4 million people accelerating and only 2.8% of recent migrants work in construction. Immigration adds demand without adding supply. And we always talk here about supply and demand and how important is to look at that equation. Canada proved it. Canada cut immigration from 500,000 to 365,000 and rents fell 7.8% in 17 months. Affordability improved from 34 to 29% of income. But Australia is actually doing the opposite. George Markoski We’re 81,000 homes short from Albo’s target. Government target is 240,000 homes a year, which is already 27% behind. Approvals are actually falling, not growing. Too many suits, not enough tradies. New South Wales and Queensland shortfalls the worst. But it’s not all doom and gloom. That was the bad news. But inside every crisis is the setup for the next boom. So what are smart investors doing now? Or why? What’s happening? The opportunities. Let’s talk about the opportunities. More people, not enough homes. Cash rate is 3.85%. Oil crisis could force emergency cuts. Every previous crisis, rates have cut and property prices have boomed. Every 0.25% cut equals $100,000 more borrowing power. So that’s very powerful. And the cycle could be about to turn. Brisbane has doubled and rising. So Brisbane is now the second after Sydney in Australia. George Markoski Now I predicted this 12 years ago that Brisbane was going to overtake Melbourne and it did and now it is second. But see, it’s gone up 116% since COVID and listings are down 22%. But Queensland population growth is not normal. It’s 145,000 above trend. So even though Brisbane’s doubled and looks like there’s nowhere left to go with listings down 22% and the abnormal population growth, that’s still more fuel to the fire. So investors are winning. Investor lending is up to $39.8 billion regional WA yields are hitting 10%. Rents are outpacing wages of five consecutive years. So if you compared a property investor over the last five years and someone working without an investment, wages are. People’s rents have gone much higher than wages and a lot of investors are piling in before the potential capital gains tax changes. George Markoski So let’s have a look at these crises and let’s look at what history shows us. 1983 There was an oil crisis, as you can see on this graph. Australian city housing growth after major crises. So you look at this graph. Sydney went up 35%. Adelaide went up 80%. Perth went up 75% after the crisis. Look at Black Monday and what happened. All the capitals went up. Look at the dot-com. Once again, the bubble, when it crashed, all of them went up. Look at GFC, they didn’t go up as much. And you got COVID. So basically oil shocks, recessions, GFC, pandemic, property powered through all of them. The facts are Australian Property doubles every seven or 10 years and the cost of waiting is enormous. Okay, so the structural shield and why property won’t crash. George Markoski National housing shortage of 262,000, 177,000 versus 223,000 built in demand. The gap is widening. Residential approvals have dropped 7%. Annual population growth of 420,000 people. National rental vacancy rate 1.2% and rent growth for the last five years is 47%. Pretty strong numbers. So the Markoski Method data beats emotion. Buying the top 100 locations, buy brand new, win max depreciation and time beats timing. Seven to 10-year doubles. Three reasons to act before April rates cuts could be incoming. And that means borrowing power is going to increase. Tax changes 1 May, depreciation benefits ending for some listings down 22%. Tax changes 1 May. That’s not correct. The CGT is. They’re looking at the CGT. Let’s move on from there. Okay, your action plan. Buy on top 100 locations, buy brand new and maximize your depreciation and hold. Don’t try to time the market. George Markoski Time in the market wins. When everyone’s scared, smart investors buy. But George, what if you’re wrong? Well, I’ve been buying property for 30 years. Retired at 37. I own 160 properties. That’s not talking theory. I’m showing receipts. And with three and a half thousand clients, we’ve created billions of dollars of equity. Christabel Pretlove Nick has made a comment. Consumer spending tanked in February 26th. Worst since 2020. The RBA will be inconvenienced if they lift rates. The RBA never looked at the big picture. Ludicrous. George Markoski They never do. They never do. Claudio, wtf? What is Albo doing? Look, all right, he’s making all the property investors rich. Christabel Pretlove Craig and Tanya, how much growth do you think is still available in Burpengary and Caboolture areas? George Markoski Yeah, look, as you can see, Brisbane is the second most expensive median price. I feel that we’ve got the Olympics coming up. We’ve got a large than usual, very unusual, massive amount of people going to Queensland and we’ve got people from overseas, from Sydney, from Melbourne moving to Brisbane. As prices become more affordable in Sydney and Melbourne, those people are going to move to Brisbane. See, the areas you’ve mentioned are underneath the median price. So they’ve got a lot more opportunity to grow. That’s what you got to look at as well. And I would say I. I think there’s more growth to be had in Brisbane. I think the train is still going. Christabel Pretlove And Glenn actually said, asked that exact question, is Brisbane looking like going to be the biggest growth in the next few years due to the Olympics? George Markoski Yes. Yes, I think it could be. The fact of it is, what I like to do is spread my bets and have properties in different cities. But I know one thing for sure. Every seven to ten years, properties double. We’ve got a crisis coming up at the moment. This crisis may impact market sentiment and may slow people down. I personally think when the market slows down, I think that’s great. I personally love a little break from a massive boom so I can get all my borrowing capacity together and get more properties because it just keeps growing. So if we have a pause or a small correction, I see that as good news because we can get into that market, buy more properties before the next big boom coming along. Because after each crisis there’s usually a boom. George Markoski And what’s happening in the Middle East, this could affect inflation because we need oil for everything. So we need oil regarding transport, bringing, moving things backwards and forward. Manufacturing oil is the glue that keeps the country together. Christabel Pretlove Got a question here. What about Melbourne? Weir Views potential. George Markoski Yeah, Melbourne is undervalued at the moment. So because Melbourne’s undervalued, you can get some good buying. That’s what I like about Melbourne. Now, the thing with Melbourne, you’ve got to be careful because an undervalued market has got some suburbs that are falling knives and some that are going to go up. But the fact of it is there’s good buying there. I Wouldn’t be buying, you know, in some of the near city and city locations, but further out it’s working well. So what’s happening with the AI revolution with Starlink, solar power and all that sort of stuff, if people don’t have to be living in the city anymore because you can actually live further out, you can have internet, you can work on your laptop. It’s a lot easier for people now. So the urbanization trend, we’re going to go in a different trend now. Christabel Pretlove Would having properties in each city be a part of a good strategy or do you pick the best you can at the time? George Markoski We pick the best we can at the time, but we also want to try to spread you out as well, if we can. So what. Ideally, what I’d love to do is buy property here, go to the next city, go to the next city. That’s not always possible because we’ve got a very short supply. So what you can actually get is more important. So a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So ideally you want to spread them out, but ideally you want to get the properties quicker in order to get the growth. Christabel Pretlove And there’s a comment here, bank said rate increases today, possibly another three. And you’re saying a possible decrease. George Markoski Yes. What happens is there could be an increase because inflation. But if you look at crisis, whenever there’s a crisis, there’s a decrease. So if the war in the Middle East gets extended, that will create rate cuts. If it’s short and doesn’t affect the economy too much, then we’ll see what happens. But we’ve never had a crisis in history in Australia without rates dropping soon after. That’s just what they do. Because the one thing’s going to happen if we have a crisis. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. One, they’re going to print shit ton of money. It’s going to create more inflation, but they’re also going to drop the interest rate because the government’s going to borrow more money and put it into the economy. When the government borrows extra money, they like the rates low because it’s cheaper for them. George Markoski Could there be a rate rise? Yes, there could be. But if the crisis continues, there will be a rate drop. Christabel Pretlove With a war looming in the Middle East and Australia seen as a safe zone, do you envisage more? George Markoski Australia is in a very lucky situation where we are away from any wars in the world. You got Ukraine up in Europe, you’ve got the Middle East. We’re just not around wars. This part of Oceania, we’re part of Oceania. Oceania is a very peaceful place. And there hasn’t been any wars in Oceania since World War II. And that was a world war, right? So I think so I really, I mean, you look at Dubai now, what’s happening now at the moment is the Americans and Israelis hit a desalination plant in Iran. Iran have gone in Bahrain and hit the desalination plant in Bahrain. Now Bahrain, one of those kingdoms, one of those rich kingdoms they rely on. 90% Of their water comes from desalination. Now, if they bomb that and destroy it, they won’t have water to drink. This could be really bad. George Markoski They’re mining the Straits of Hormuz. So even if they agree to a ceasefire, they have to clear those mines. People just can’t get ships through there. What’s happening at the moment in the Middle East is catastrophic. It’s going to have massive impacts. It’s crazy. I’m surprised they did this. I think the economy, world economy was going so well. It’s a shame they did this. They should have negotiated their way out of it instead of attacked each other. So at the end of the day, I think there’s going to be a lot of influencers leaving Dubai and other places and Bahrain and going somewhere else. And Australia is a safe haven. Definitely. Christabel Pretlove What about the suburbs just outside of Brisbane and the Gold Coast borders? George Markoski There’s a lot of good buying there. There’s a lot of suburbs there. And you know what? We need more influencers in Australia. We should invite all those Dubai influencers to come here. Christabel Pretlove How do you think AI will affect the property market? George Markoski Yes. Well, I talk about this a lot. AI is going to be bigger than the Industrial Revolution. So if you look at what’s affected the property market over the last thousand years, property didn’t go up in value for thousands of years. It didn’t go up in value. Why? Because the GDP of every country stayed the same. So, you know, the GDP of England in 1200 was the same as 1300, was the same as 1400. And the only times GDPs went up is when the Europeans went and colonized other countries and stole all their gold and got all their resources. Until then, nothing went up. So that’s when it first started going up in value. The Industrial Revolution hit. And when the Industrial Revolution hit, before that, 95% of people worked in farming and producing food. George Markoski Now about 1.5% of people work in producing food. So AAI is going to have the Same effect that the Industrial Revolution had, but it’s going to be ten times more powerful. So Industrial Revolution created property to double every seven or 10 years. AAI is going to do a lot more than that. Christabel Pretlove That’s about all for our questions for the moment. George. George Markoski Great. Let’s go through. Our client wins. This is a picture of our clients at one of our events. And as you can see, they’re wearing belts, holding belts up. So when you join our program, you start the white belt. And then when you get your first property, you start with a white belt, then you get a yellow belt, and you keep going up. And when you get 10 properties, you end up with a black belt. And once you retire, you get the katana, that sword in my hand. So what happens? We celebrate people that retire. Because when you retire, you’ve created money for life. And this program is all about creating money for life. It’s not just about buying a property. It’s more than that. It’s about buying the right property that’s going to double every seven or 10 years. George Markoski That’s going to create cash flow. That’s going to keep you safe and create money for life. Okay, so Luke and Wendy from Queensland. There’s a picture of them, their green belt. Green belt equals four properties. One of their properties here, down there, they bought in Caboolture. They paid $550,000, a deposit of $55,000. Current value is $700,000. So they made $150,000 profit, return investment 273%. Okay. Michael and Kelly, they bought Redbank Plains in 2024. $594,000 Deposit, $55,000. They’ve got a yellow belt. So this is their second property. There’s a picture of the property down there. Now, it’s worth $710,000. So they’ve made $115,000. So on a $55,000 deposit, they’ve made 209%. Tara and Ross. Now, this is exceptional. Tara and Ross have got a brown belt, so that means they’ve got seven properties. They’re close to getting their gold. Right? George Markoski They bought at Raceview in 2023 and paid $482,000. A deposit of $48,000 and current value is $720,000. They made $237,000 profit, 492% return. So what they’ve done, they’ve joined this program and they followed the system. Because that’s the important thing, right? The important thing is you’ve got to use every tool in that you’re available to create the money you need to correct and they’re buying in the top 100 and just doing and have a look at that picture. It’s beautiful development, amazing. And I guess, I mean they’ve made $237,000 profit. That’s pretty good money because you think about how much people save in a lifetime. Some people never going to end up with $237,000 profit in their lifetime. And that’s just one property. Imagine the other six put together. Okay, we’ve got four new Street Smart investors. George Markoski For some reason we don’t have their names and photos here but that’s okay, they’ve joined this week. Congratulations. They’re part of our community of three and a half thousand plus Australians building wealth on the road to 10,000 property millionaires. So let’s give you the key. Key takeaways. Key takeaways. Oil crisis could mean cuts and could mean boom. Two-speed market. Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide doubled. Sydney, Melbourne stalled population. India growing fast, India but only 2.8% build homes. You know why our population is growing faster than India? Because all the Indians are coming here. 81,000 Homes short. So we’ve got a supply crisis. It’s structural and it’s not getting fixed. Wages are falling back to 2011, but rents are outpacing. So what does that mean? Well, I’d rather be an investor than a worker. If you’re a worker, turn into an investor. George Markoski Because once you create passive income, that is the way to go. Property doubles every seven to 10 years. We got 50 years of proof. So the question is, will you own one when it does? But it does what when it doubles? Okay, thank you everyone for watching. Thank you, bye.