On the hit Lifestyle show, Bryce and his co-host Veronica Morgan scour the country to find properties that fit the often extremely demanding brief and then pull out all the stops to seal the deal.
Whether upsizing, downsizing, retiring or relocating, house hunting seems to bring out the best and the worst in people, and Veronica and Bryce have their work cut out making these property dreams a reality – often with plenty of fireworks along the way!
“A lot of professional independent females are making these decisions on their own – whether they’re single or in a relationship, they’re quite often the ones making the initial enquiries, doing the research and ultimately driving the decision.”
Originally from Perth, Bryce’s day job as a director of property advisory firm Empower Wealth has seen him help home buyers and investors buy in every state and territory in Australia over the past 15 years.
And in that time he has witnessed an increase in women taking control of their financial future and becoming more active in property.
“We’re definitely finding more and more women are driving the enquiries with us,” he says. “A lot of professional independent females are making these decisions on their own – whether they’re single or in a relationship, they’re quite often the ones making the initial enquiries, doing the research and ultimately driving the decision.”
Ahead of his appearance at Vitality this October where he will be explaining the simplest way to secure and grow your wealth through property, we sat down with the real estate guru to discover some home truths.
As the host of Location Location Location Australia (and in your day job as a buyers’ agent) you help desperate house-hunters find their perfect place at the perfect price – or more often than not, break it to them that they may need to compromise! You must’ve dealt with some difficult customers and a few sticky situations. What have been some of the most memorable over the past four seasons?
This season I helped a real estate agent in his own back yard – his own patch and he and his fiancée were about to get married. The analogy I’d use is it was kind of like me driving a taxi with the cab driver in the backseat watching me, it was really strange. And the other interesting one this year was a couple who’d been saving frantically for eight years! So they’d meticulously planned their life and saved and they had a significant cash deposit – but what I don’t think they’d planned in the whole process was how they were actually going to let go of this money. So you can imagine being frugal and disciplined for all that time and then underestimating your ability to part with the cash because you’ve tried so hard to get it. It was kind of the property version of ‘Bridezilla’ – you know how everything leads to that one day when you get married? It was kind of ‘Propertyzilla’ because everything they’d done for the past eight years had kind of manifested itself in that very moment and that one transaction. So that was a bit of fun.
How did you first get into property?
Believe it or not it was the Ray Martin Show, which was a daytime show back in the early to mid-nineties. There was this woman called Jan Somers who came on the show talking about residential real estate and her book Building Wealth Through Investment Property. She got up on the whiteboard and started chucking some numbers around and to me it sounded really intriguing. I thought, why isn’t everyone doing that? I was studying accounting at the time and that kind of ignited my passion for property. I was working in accounts by day and I started a property business by night. I quickly found I was earning more money in property at night time than I was as a graduate accountant during the day. I was also enjoying it more and I was talking to people and getting up and doing presentations. That was back in 1998 and here I am 16 years later as the host of the show.
“It was kind of ‘Propertyzilla’ because everything they’d done for the past eight years had manifested itself in that one transaction.”
So how did the TV thing come about then?
By accident – they found me. The producers really wanted someone who understood the technical side of property so they could teach them television rather than someone who knew television but needed to learn about property because it would’ve been harder the other way around. It was just an audition process of I think between 100 and 120 people over a five day period. I didn’t go in there talking about granite bench tops or polished timber floorboards, I spoke about what I liked to do in my spare time. I guess that struck a chord because that effectively is the theory of the show. While we sometimes talk about the features of the house, it’s really more about what the buyers are experiencing, what their thoughts are and we peel back some layers to find out what’s really going on. At the end of the day, that person sitting at home with a glass of red watching the show doesn’t really want to know about the tiles or the carpet, they want to know the back story. So that must’ve worked for me. It was a four audition process and here I am four seasons later.
Has it had an impact on your role as a buyers’ agent and director at Empower Wealth? Does it work in your favour when people recognise you at auctions for instance?
I bought a property for a client in Bondi recently and I had $1.1m to spend but I actually ended up getting it for $980,000 because as soon as I walked into the room the people I was up against in the auction recognised me. Their comment to the agent was that they were defeated before they’d begun! Going to auction is two part strategy, one part bluff so if you can have something like that helping you it’s great. People don’t throw away their last $15,000 if they feel defeated so if I can save my clients some money all the better. And in this case I actually ended up saving them well over $100,000. But sometimes the opposite happens. Nine out of 10 times if I bring a camera crew it usually works in my favour but then there’s that one time when someone wants their 15 minutes of fame. That’s actually happened twice, where I’ve still got the property but they’ve played it up a bit so it probably was a neutral rather than an advantage.
“The producers really wanted someone who understood the technical side of property so they could teach them television rather than someone who knew television but needed to learn about property.”
Have you found that more women are buying houses and getting into property investing these days?
Absolutely. We’re definitely finding more and more women are driving the enquiries with us. A lot of professional independent females are making these decisions on their own – whether they’re single or in a relationship, they’re quite often the ones making the initial enquiries, doing the research and ultimately driving the decision.
Why put your money in property?
It’s the great Australian barbeque topic. There’s nothing as secure as bricks and mortar and I always think the banks are a pretty good umpire on what makes the best asset class in the country. I think it’s arguably Australia’s greatest wealth creator since the banks are prepared to lend such a high loan to valuation ratio on them. If you compare asset classes that all performed exactly the same in terms of percentage return, the fact that you can get more leverage on residential real estate I think puts it ahead of other asset classes. Also, property is easier to understand than say shares (which can actually be a double edged sword because people assume that just because they live in a house they automatically qualify for mastery of asset selection) and it offers great leverage for people.
“Nine out of 10 times if I bring a camera crew it works in my favour but then there’s that one time when someone wants their 15 minutes of fame.”
What do people need to be aware of? What are your top tips for property success?
I think that asset selection is misunderstood in terms of how much science there is in choosing a good property. Bear in mind there are more properties on the market at any one time that don’t make for a good investment than do. Most people are quite comfortable at getting onto the internet and having a look at real estate, but being able to filter them before you even get out of your seat to determine which ones you need to look at is a real art and a real science. We think location does 80% of the heavy lifting and then property selection provides the rest. There are two different mindsets to buying your own home versus buying an investment property and I think people misunderstand that the most.
We’re thrilled to have you joining the line-up at Vitality in Sydney this October. What can we expect from your seminar?
I’ll be revealing how to create a passive income using residential real estate with five properties or less. I will show you the four key areas that make up the property investment formula and what you need to do to master each one. I’ll also be sharing tips on how to identify an investment grade property and demonstrating the five essential steps that every property investor needs to go through, whether they’re a nervous first timer or experienced portfolio builder.
And finally, what’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Always use the handbrake on a hill.
This article originally featured on Vitality.
Don’t miss Bryce on the Canon Main Stage at Vitality, 10-12 October at Sydney’s Royal Hall of Industries + Hordern Pavilion! To check out the incredible line-up + to purchase tickets, visit vitalityshow.com.au.
