Victorian home investing: Ex-Buyer’s Agents Cate Bakos’ grim property investment assessment

Cate Bakos is the former Real Estate Buyer’s Agents of Australia president, who owns 11 properties in Victoria.

Victoria’s investment rating:

3/10

Where she would invest:

Character homes that are liveable and rentable, with land but in need of work in established middle and inner Melbourne suburbs.

Victoria is unfriendly for investors. Capital growth and opportunity, I’m not going to get upset about. But in terms of the ease of investing, it’s about a three out of 10.

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We also burned through a lot of good property managers across the state during Covid as it was just too hard for them, particularly with the evictions moratorium and the Premier and the PM saying sort it out yourselves.

They dropped like flies and went to other industries and now agencies are paying $100,000 to get a junior property manager.

The former Buyer’s Agents president says the ease of investing in Victoria has slumped, but character homes are still liveable and rentable.

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Massive delays in VCAT are also an issue, and while the government has gazetted plans to provide a dedicated housing arbitration forum as part of the Victorian Housing Statement, there has been no movement on this since it was announced in September last year.

But the biggest turn off for investors is the loss of a 120-day notice to vacate option to allow landlords to evict dodgy tenants, an option available in every other state.

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And the temporary land tax increase needs to go, it’s the straw that broke the camels back for a lot of people.

Otherwise, I think property investors will turn to other states and it’s understandable.

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Despite this, looking at the long term prospect for property values to grow, I believe there will be big rises as Sydney continues to look more and more unaffordable compared to Melbourne.

I’d be investing for capital growth, buying in established middle Melbourne looking for a character house on a decent whack of land that’s liveable and rentable, but that needs a heap of work as they are going cheaper than many other homes because construction is so tricky right now.

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