Tell us about the evolution of Hotspotting and the initial thoughts and how it came about.

Yeah.

It's around 2005, 2006, I was r- sort of working as a freelance journalist as well as a consultant in the industry writing reports.

Um, and, um, I was writing a series of articles.

I suggested to Money Magazine, "Why don't I write a series explaining why certain locations in real estate outperform?" You know, what are the characteristics of these places that outperform the general market? I didn't actually know the answer myself.

I, I thought, I'll, I'll re- research it, find out, write about it.

And as I was writing that series, I started to see some common threads, and I thought, "You know, there's, there's actually a business in this." Because the question I kept getting asked by people more than any other was, "Where's the best place to buy? Where should I buy?"

Yep.

And then when the budget was released, Um, that was ultimately the, the final straw, I guess, that, that really just, um, took the wind out of almost like there was property investors that were, or probably buyers that I was speaking to that were like, oh, can you still invest in property? You know, they were like very misled and misunderstanding of how impactful the budget, you know, um, changes, um, was on property, especially around established, um, But then with the interest rate around the corner, or sorry, the Reserve Bank meeting later this month in September, with a potential interest rate increase occurring, is the worst of the sentiment behind us, or is it still potentially going to get a lower sentiment environment from where we are now, and is there still even better opportunity by waiting?

No, I really think that the people who... who put their plans on hold when they were ready to buy and had the capacity to buy and waiting for, you know, a better time, um, they're, they're likely to miss, um, opportunities.

Yeah, I think it's a false strategy.

We saw it happen in the GFC, sorry, the COVID lockdown period in 2020, when media was making even more dire predictions about prices than they are now.

You know, the big banks were saying prices are going to drop 15%, 20%, 25%.

Commonwealth Bank, in one of its forecasts, said prices would drop 33%.

And people who were planning to buy just stopped and put their plans on hold.

They're just... less ideal buying you know a new build in a in a master estate where you know you you're trading off future growth for um something to be new and shiny but with the capital gains tax changes as well as negative gearing against your personal income um what's your thoughts on on the new build space and this is buying good quality property in established areas