How to weather the storms of your investment journey

“It always comes back to the actual investor to make the right decisions. They’re in charge – they’re the captain of the ship,” said Tarrant.

Just like a sea captain, property investors must constantly navigate through unexpected challenges.

“Using the analogy of sailing, you can’t predict the weather; you can only react to the weather. You have a destination, but you don’t always get there in a straight line,” Tarrant explained.

As Kumar observed, property investment requires an inherent degree of risk – but knowing when to draw the line is also crucial.

“A lot of people jump onto the bandwagon of investing after they’ve seen social proof in their own network, in what they’ve read and consumed in the media. And more often than not, they’re jumping into areas that they shouldn’t really be because it’s too late to get into those areas.

“So if I stay with the ship analogy, it’s after the tide has gone out, so you no longer have deep enough waters to navigate it. You will still be able to get out of port, but it may be more dangerous,” said Kumar.

Being able to accurately intuit the state of the market is a skill that comes with time and experience, and requires a lot of mistakes to be made along the way.

For those who can’t afford to make costly mistakes, buyer’s agents can offer a helping hand – with Tarrant comparing this role to a pilot that guides a ship safely out to sea.

“You guys rock up, if it’s a big tanker, in a little pilot thing and come on board – the person that knows the harbour better, someone that sits behind your shoulder and tells you, ‘Steer left, steer right’ to get a ship that you might not be in a familiar harbour with through the sandbars and into port.”

“You guys are the pilot in many ways,” he concluded.

Listen to the full conversation with Right Property Group here.