Marking their 50th episode (first published 7 November 2023), Damien and Jeremy reflect on what's changed in the property landscape over the past two years, revisit market data city by city, and share key lessons from the show's first 50 episodes.
The Expanded 5% Deposit Scheme
Damien and Jeremy discuss the Australian Government's 5% deposit scheme, expanded from 1 October, which allows eligible first-home buyers (or those who haven't owned a home in the past 10 years) to purchase with just a 5% deposit, avoiding lenders mortgage insurance, provided the property is owner-occupied, not an investment. Property price caps were also raised (for example, Sydney's cap rising from $900,000 to $1.5 million, Melbourne's from $800,000 to $950,000, with Queensland regional markets up to around $1 million and Western Australia around $850,000).
Damien expects the scheme will likely add competitive pressure and push prices upward, particularly benefiting buyers with strong income but limited savings, such as high earners in expensive rental markets like Sydney, who can now enter with a smaller deposit and avoid both LMI and stamp duty (if eligible), without giving up too much serviceability scrutiny, since lenders still assess the borrower's ability to service the loan regardless of deposit size.
Jeremy is more openly critical of the scheme, describing it as, in his view, a "win vote" measure rather than a genuine housing solution, and drawing a comparison to the lead-up to the US subprime lending crisis, arguing that the underlying issue, housing supply, isn't being addressed by a scheme that instead increases demand. He raises a hypothetical risk scenario: a buyer entering at 95% LVR who later loses their job during a market downturn could leave a shortfall that ultimately falls back on taxpayers if the government needs to facilitate a forced sale. Both agree the scheme could be genuinely useful for buyers with strong income but limited accumulated savings specifically, while flagging their broader concerns about its downside risk.
Renewed Interest in Data-Driven Investing
Both note a broader shift over the past two years toward data-backed decision-making, away from more emotionally or reputation-driven property advice, consistent with the show's own focus throughout. Jeremy shares a concrete comparison illustrating the value of upgrading to the newer DSR3 algorithm: back-testing the top 100 suburbs ranked by DSR Plus against the top 100 ranked by DSR3 each month, then tracking five-year outcomes from randomly selecting any suburb within each list, showed DSR3 selections outperforming by an average of roughly $40,000 more capital growth on a $500,000 property. His point: even without factoring in any of the platform's newer features (heat maps, additional data points), the algorithm upgrade alone represents a substantial, measurable difference, especially set against a data cost measured only in the hundreds of dollars.
Rentvesting: Now Mainstream
Both note rentvesting (renting where it's convenient or desirable to live while investing in stronger-growth markets elsewhere) has become far more normalised over the past decade than it was previously, partly enabled by far greater access to comparative market data than existed 10–20 years ago, making interstate or "borderless" investing feel far less risky than it once did.
Jeremy also shares a broader personal view on housing affordability commentary generally, arguing that most affordability modelling doesn't account for the significant intergenerational wealth transfer likely to occur as older property-owning generations pass on, which he believes will meaningfully ease affordability pressure over time in ways current models tend to overlook, alongside the option of renting while still building wealth through property ownership elsewhere.
A Frustrating Industry Forum
Damien shares his experience attending a NSW Fair Trading property agent forum, part of ongoing continuing professional development requirements for real estate licensing (with Queensland reportedly introducing similar requirements). He found much of the session underwhelming, including a segment on how agents should treat clients respectfully, and was particularly frustrated by a panel of buyers agency professionals who spent time criticising borderless buyers agents in favour of the "know your own backyard" model, rather than addressing genuine industry issues.
Both push back on this framing: while acknowledging a genuinely local buyers agent has real value once a target market has already been identified through data, they maintain that defaulting to "buy in your own backyard" without a data-driven basis for the recommendation is exactly the kind of practice they've consistently cautioned against throughout the podcast. Damien also notes that the underlying licensing course content (a sales-agent qualification, not specific to investment strategy) doesn't actually cover capital growth or yield analysis at all, despite being a prerequisite for operating a buyers agency, something both find a notable gap given it's core to what clients are actually seeking from the service.
A Recurring Frustration: "Life Coach" Property Experts
Jeremy pushes back firmly on property professionals branding themselves broadly as life coaches, arguing genuine expertise (in his case, built over roughly 20 years focused specifically on property data) doesn't translate into credible expertise across unrelated areas of someone's life. He compares the only kind of "life coach" he'd respect to a GP, someone who refers a person to the right specialist, rather than claiming personal expertise across every domain themselves.
Market Snapshot: November 2023 vs. September 2025
Comparing capital city DSR3 scores from the podcast's first episode (November 2023) to the most recent data available (September 2025), Jeremy and Damien note Perth led the pack at launch (DSR3 around 80), followed by Darwin, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, and Sydney, and subsequently delivered strong, sustained growth over the following two years.
By September 2025, Darwin has moved to the top of the rankings, with Perth still performing but no longer leading. Vacancy rates remain tight nationally across the board. Melbourne, despite having a lower overall city-wide DSR3 (around 58, up from around 45), contains individual pockets showing much stronger scores, prompting Damien to note their own team has been actively purchasing for clients in both Darwin and select Melbourne pockets recently. Canberra has also picked up somewhat (DSR3 moving from around 51 to 60), though without dramatic price growth to match. Perth continues to show strong yields despite its earlier run. Jeremy highlights Darwin's yield (around 5.6%) as a standout compared to other capitals, though notes Darwin's insurance premiums run somewhat higher, a cash flow consideration worth factoring in alongside the strong yield figure.
Three-Year Growth Snapshot: Regional Standouts
Looking at local government area-level data over the past three years, several regional Western Australian markets have delivered standout growth (Gosnells around 83%, and other examples in the high 60s to 70s percent range), alongside Townsville at around 54%, several still sitting at comparatively affordable price points (some in the $330,000–$620,000 range). Jeremy and Damien note that investors who instead held flat or negative-growth properties over the same three years, potentially via a locally-focused buyers agent, missed out substantially by comparison.
Key Lessons From the First 50 Episodes
Damien's takeaways: data matters, but only when the underlying story and context behind it is properly understood (rather than superficially citing metrics like population growth or infrastructure spend without genuine predictive value); fear of missing out can be costly, but so can "free" data, since acting on unreliable free information can be far more expensive than paying for reliable data upfront; and the strongest investors build a clear personal framework and strategy first, rather than jumping straight to a purchase without understanding their own underlying goals (early retirement, reduced working hours, more travel, and so on).
Jeremy adds that, in his own reflection, the episodes featuring genuine data analysis have been his personal favourites, though he notes some of the more opinion-based, free-flowing episodes have proven more popular with the audience, particularly ones that challenge commonly-held beliefs with hard data, teasing further debate-style formats and potential future guest episodes as the show continues to grow.
Closing Thoughts
Damien and Jeremy thank listeners for their support in reaching 50 episodes (including crediting the team member behind their new studio setup), and note the show has grown to over 2,000 YouTube subscribers. They float the idea of moving to a weekly publishing schedule if audience engagement (framed as a YouTube like-count milestone) continues to grow, and close by encouraging listeners to like, comment, subscribe, and share the podcast.