Lower Mitcham · strata title
Freshly renovated and faultless in photographs, but carrying a continuous horizontal crack 1.5 to 2 metres long. The worst case ran past $100,000 in underpinning. We set the walk-away ceiling at one million dollars.
Home / Track record
The ones we recommended,
and the ones we advised against
There are two ways to show a track record: what a client made, and what a client didn't lose. In this business the second is the more useful number, and it is the one nobody publishes.
Acquisitions
Four bought on behalf of clients
Different hold periods, different markets at the point of purchase. We have not selected these to make the column look even. The one that has done very well and the one that has barely started are both here.
| Property | Config | Acquired | Purchase price | Current estimate | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hectorville RoadHectorville, SA | 4 bed / 4 bath | 2021 | $535,000 | $1,100,000 | +105.6% |
| Hallett RoadBurnside, SA | 4 bed / 3 bath | 2023 | $1,640,000 | $2,200,000 | +34.1% |
| Grey StreetPlympton, SA | 5 bed / 3 bath | 2025 | $835,000 | $970,000 | +16.2% |
| Fairleys RoadRostrevor, SA | 4 bed / 2 bath | 2026 | $1,070,000 | $1,200,000 | +12.1% |
| Four properties | $4,080,000 | $5,470,000 | +$1,390,000 | ||
Current estimates are derived from CoreLogic RP Data as at August 2026. Figures show the difference between purchase price and estimated market value and do not account for stamp duty, foreign purchaser surcharge, conveyancing, interest, land tax, management or maintenance costs. Past movements in value are not a guide to future performance. Nothing on this page constitutes investment advice.
Case by case
Four properties, four different stories
2021Hectorville · 4 bed 4 bath+105.6%
Acquired at $535,000, currently estimated at $1,100,000 — more than double in five years, or roughly 15 per cent compounding.
Greater Adelaide rose around 115 per cent over ten years, so this property ran well ahead of its market. The market did much of the work, but the configuration helped: four bedrooms with four bathrooms is uncommon stock, and it widens the buyer pool at resale as much as the tenant pool while held.
2023Burnside · 4 bed 3 bath+34.1%
Acquired at $1,640,000, currently estimated at $2,200,000. About 10 per cent a year across three years.
Burnside is established eastern Adelaide. Suburbs like it rarely spike, but they hold when the market turns. For a client whose objective is preservation rather than growth, that is the correct kind of asset.
2025Plympton · 5 bed 3 bath+16.2%
Acquired at $835,000, currently estimated at $970,000, held around eighteen months.
Five-bedroom stock is thin in Adelaide. It suits a large family and it suits letting by the room, which means two separate sources of demand — a useful thing to own when it comes time to sell.
2026Rostrevor · 4 bed 2 bathRecently acquired
Acquired early in 2026 at $1,070,000 against a current estimate of $1,200,000. On the table that reads as 12 per cent in six months, and that is the wrong way to read it.
The market did not rise 12 per cent in half a year. What the number records is simpler: the property was bought below what it was worth on the day.
Save a client $130,000 at purchase and the fee has already paid for itself.
This is the work, stated plainly. Establish fair value from comparable evidence, negotiate beneath it, and decline when that isn't possible. Not waiting for a market to rise — taking the margin at the point of purchase.
Honest accounting
Why we don't publish
the big return figures
Overseas property marketing runs on multiples — “four times your deposit”, that sort of thing. We don't use them.
The reason is straightforward: those calculations leave the costs out. Stamp duty, the foreign purchaser surcharge, conveyancing, inspections, mortgage interest, council rates and land tax every year, management, and capital gains tax at the end. Put all of it back in and the picture is a different one.
Leverage makes the arithmetic more flattering still. Twenty per cent down, so the return on your money looks enormous. That framing omits the interest, and it omits the fact that a fall is magnified by exactly the same multiple.
If our numbers look smaller than someone else's, it is because we subtracted the things that get subtracted.
We have worked the full cost of an $800,000 purchase on the fees page. In a consultation we run the same calculation against whatever property you are actually looking at.
The other half
And the ones we advised against buying
Showing only the purchases shows half the work. Some of our reports conclude that the client should walk away.
Kensington · arterial road frontage
A blue-chip suburb with a median above $1.4m, but a 150 square metre allotment fronting a busy commercial road. We forecast growth below the suburb trend and set the ceiling accordingly.
And when we assembled a shortlist of thirteen properties across Adelaide for one client, three earned the top grade. Every other grade came with its reasoning attached.