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Having the right buyer’s agent on your side is important at the best of times. Throw in all of the intricacies of tax time, and it’s a no-brainer for investors to ensure they are teaming up with a buyer’s agent who can harness your goals and provide a kicker strategy that’s easy to not only understand, but to follow.
Sam Gordon, the founder and director of Australian Property Scout, and winner of the Buyers Agent of the Year award at the 2024 REB Awards, knows a thing or two about scaling a property portfolio. Since buying his first property in 2009 as a low income earner at 19 years of age, Gordon has built a 60-plus property portfolio over 15 years of investing.
With tax time the perfect time for investors to re-assess their strategy moving forward, Gordon stresses the importance of investors finding ‘the right fit’ when it comes to selecting a buyer’s agent to work with.
“The first thing to look for in a prospective buyers agent, is someone that is practising what they preach,” says Gordon.
Not only that, “have done what you’re trying to do? Did they also do it from a similar starting position?”
The buyer’s agent says this is really important as property is as much a game of strategy and finance as it is sourcing the correct properties.
“Property is as much a game of strategy and finance as it is sourcing the correct properties”
Says Sam Gordon - Founder and Director of Australian Property Scout
From Gordon’s perspective, “if someone has walked your path before, this allows them to pass on the knowledge and guide you through the process of building a successful portfolio both from a strategy and sourcing perspective.”
All-in-all, property investing is fraught with dangers. Having a mentor in your buyers agent, and someone that can lead you down the correct path with understanding what you need in your portfolio and then executing on that brief for you at a high level, will ensure an investor can maximise their position in the market.
But they aren’t the only questions to ask!
Beware: Gordon says one of the biggest mistakes he sees is buyers agents not taking an individual’s circumstances properly into account. The end result? A low income client with an expensive and heavily negatively geared property that doesn’t fit their profile, or a higher income client with a super cheap product that might not suit their brief/profile.
According to Gordon, there’s a few questions to ask when doing your due diligence (especially when dealing with investment-focussed buyers agents)::
Gordon says investors should be able to expect direction around how to maximise their specific property and specific situation from their buyer’s agent.
He believes having a clear gameplan in regards to tax time and maximising deductions, especially in a higher interest rate environment like we’re currently in, “could mean the difference between many thousands of dollars and having a nice return to allow you to hold your property portfolio more easily heading into next year.”
With so many deductions available, Gordon touts good buyer’s agents as able to provide introductions to quality accountants, which can help mitigate any missed opportunities and allows an expert in this field to take lead on this for you.
“Bringing forward tax deductible events like impending maintenance, ordering depreciation reports and paying any bills that might be due on the other side of the financial year will allow you to bring forward some deductions and claim the most possible in this financial year.”
A great buyers agent would have walked your path before, and may be able to show you what you have been missing in your strategy, says Gordon.
“I couldn’t count the amount of multi property investors and those who have been investing for 10+ years that I have tweaked their strategy and shown them the light within their existing portfolio and some key moves they may have been missing to continue to build their portfolio and also maximise their current position,” the buyer’s agent says.
“The simple truth is that we don’t know what we don’t know.”
Says Sam Gordon - Founder and Director of Australian Property Scout
Stressing that all the greatest sports people in the world have coaches, and so too do all the best CEOs and business coaches, Gordon says “it should be no different in property.”
“If you’re aiming for great results you may need to employ others to get the best results and coach you towards this.”
According to Gordon, by going down this avenue, you are stacking the deck in your favour and giving yourself the greatest chance of winning there is.
For anyone wanting to build $100k / $200k / $500k net passive income from their property portfolio, Gordon again stresses the need “to be working with someone who has walked that path and can handhold you down the same journey”.
Not only that, the buyer’s agent is of the belief that “within Australia over the last few years, we have moved into a country where you really do need a buyers agent on your team, for any purchase.”
With so much property now transacted off market, “if you aren’t using a high level buyers agent whether it’s for investment in residential or commercial, or even for your own home, you aren’t seeing a large portion of what is actually transacting in the market.”
Gordon shares: “A great operator in any market should be able to see what is being transacted off market and also have access to the correct selling agents and even directly from sellers themselves, to get access to as much property as possible.”
At Australian Property Scout, the team averages 90 per cent-plus of their deals, each month, off market. With massive value to be found by taking the heat out of the transaction and negotiating away from “the masses”, find out more about the work being done by Gordon here.
Sam Gordon - Founder And Director Of Australian Property Scout
