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Reproduced with permission.
I am often asked by young people in particular, what they should be doing so as to learn how to get started in property investment. There are a number of actions anyone can undertake to educate themselves before they start investing in property.
Read Articles/Blogs
What you are doing right now is a great first step. There are many property related articles on websites such as this one (Property Planning Australia), news.com.au and realestate.com.au that are full of useful tips. A number of the newspapers also have regular columns dealing with property and investment. All the property investment magazines also have blogs that you can read and often respond to.
Read Books
Spend a couple of hours browsing in your local book store/library as there are shelves full of property books. There are far too many good books and authors for me to mention in this article but one book that I can highly recommend and regularly refer to in my classes is “Investing in Residential Property: Understanding the Australian Property Market” by Peter Waxman. This book provides a very comprehensive analysis of the property market and how it works.
Attend Seminars
On most nights of the week, there is some form of property investment seminar offered somewhere in your capital city, but beware! Many of these so called “education seminars” are just cleverly disguised selling opportunities for unscrupulous property marketeers. One indication as to whether you are attending an education seminar or not is to find out what they are selling. If it is off-the-plan apartments or new house and land packages, don’t even bother attending. If they’re not selling anything other than education, go along but leave your cheque book at home. Don’t fall into the trap of being pressured and buying something on the spot.
Property Courses
There are two short courses in property investment that I know of that are offered by a TAFE or university.
TafeSA offers a comprehensive short course in property investment covering areas such as tax, finance, renovating for profit, building for profit and it also includes a field trip to the best Adelaide suburbs to invest in. This is a face to face course only offered in Adelaide
Property Planning Australia offer the Victoria University property investment course which is a weekend workshop offered in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Neither of these short courses is diploma or degree level, requiring you to complete assignments and sit exams but they will provide you with an education so as to maximize your opportunities to make money and minimise the chances of losing your money.
In summary, read and do your research before you start spending money on property.
Happy House Hunting!
Written by Peter Koulizos, university lecturer, author and buyers advocate.