The best way to beat the property market is to buy in developing towns and laugh your way to the bank

Every so often the mainstream media gets a bee in their bonnet.  They're like a dog with a bone.  Unlike Demi Lovato they don't know how to let things go.  Day after day after day they focus on stories about house prices and how young people can't get into the property market.  They act like spoiled little children who aren't getting what they want.  They fabricate the extent of the property bubble.  Now don't get me wrong folks, property prices in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland are nuts but this is all the mainstream media tells you.

I have a few friends who, like me, are obsessed with property prices and follow it like we follow the stocks, which is pretty much every day.  Anyway, we look at the prices on a regular basis and I have to say I noticed something last night while I was perusing property listings, they actually aren't so bad so long as you don't expect to buy in Sydney or Auckland.  You can get a large block of land in a country town for a very reasonable price.  By reasonable I mean anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000.  You probably wonder what towns I'm talking about here.  I'm not going to tell you that, I don't want those prices to go up and property to be unaffordable everywhere. 

The sensible thing to do where property is concerned is to buy a cheap piece of land in a growing region, or a region that people aren't immediately aware of where there is possibility of development whether it be agriculture or hospitality related industries.  Once you've got the piece of land you can then decide what to do with it.  You can either sit on it, leaving it dormant waiting for regional growth or you could build a nice house on it and then when you are of retirement age you'll have a property to live in and a holiday home.

The cool aspect of buying a cheap plot of land is that you could potentially buy it freehold without any debt, and that's super cool because in the long run you can only profit from your purchase.

It's not smart to buy in a city like Sydney or Auckland.  Sure it's what everyone wants to do but the prices are so overvalued for what you get.  It's better to rent in Sydney or Auckland and buy elsewhere by the time you take into account mortgage fees like interest, the actual fees of obtaining the loan in the first place and the associated legal costs.  You only stand to lose when you think about it.

Then there's the property bubble that everyone is talking about.  What happens when property prices go down?  Well my friends that's when you lose it all.  Buy where nobody wants to buy and you stand to gain in the long term and isn't that what property and housing is supposed to be about, a long term investment?  It's hardly an investment if you're paying too much for something that isn't actually worth the price you pay.