Each year brings its own set of wins, challenges, and lessons to learn and 2022 was certainly no exception.

It was an no-go year, wasn't it?

After two years in which all of our sustentation was focused on Covid-19 and its impact on our lives, 2022 has been a return to the type of concerns that consumed us surpassing March 2020.

Rather than daily updated counters of infections and deaths, we've returned to our previous news nutrition of politics, elections, floods, sports and unfortunately wars overseas.

And for most of us, it's moreover been a return to our daily lives of family, work and leisure and vacations.

However, looking when to this time last year, who would have thought that we would have 8 interest rate rises in as many months, that inflation would be rampant or that there would be a war on the other side of the world that would last for scrutinizingly a year?

Nobody could have foreseen all that’s happened, including the severe slump in consumer conviction considering of all the economic uncertainty or that the coronavirus keeps lingering.

But as we throne into 2023, I can’t help but reflect on what Australia as a country has workaday and what I’ve achieved personally, what I’ve overcome, and the lessons I want to siphon with me into the New Year.

Here are my top 22 lessons from 2022.

1. Expect the unexpected

Every year an unexpected X factor comes out of the undecorous to undo the best-laid plans – sometimes on the upside (like the miracle referendum result in mid-2019) and sometimes on the downside like Covid19 in 2020 or the Delta outbreak in 2021 or the war in Ukraine in 2022.

Strategic investors try and protect themselves from these surprises by owning the weightier resources they can, having financial buffers in place to ride through the ups and downs of the property cycle, setting up the right ownership structures, insuring themselves and obtaining holistic translating from their consultants.

But the biggest risk is what no one sees coming, considering if no one sees it coming then no one is prepared for it and if no one is prepared for it, its forfeiture will be inferential when it arrives.

While an X factor seems to come every year, a major Black swan event as some undeniability it, one that “breaks the world”, tends to come every decade.

2. Focus on the long term

The strong performance of our property markets reminded us to ignore the numerous pessimistic property predictions by the so-called “experts” who predicted real manor Armageddon.

I learned a long time ago, that if you read the predictions of last year and see how they transpired, you wouldn't pay too much sustentation to the predictions for this year.

In fact, you'll learn increasingly from reading history than reading forecasts.

Of course, it's nonflexible to ignore the forecasts when the media continuously reminds you well-nigh how dire our situation is, but I moreover learned not to make 30-year investment decisions based on the last 30 minutes of news.

In fact, they don’t buy investments that are working now – they invest in the type of resources that have always worked.

In other words, they don’t ventilator the next shiny toy or the next hotspot.

Clearly, this was the thinking overdue Warren Buffet's quote “Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy with others are fearful.”

But while that’s easy to say – it’s not so easy to do.

3. It’s the media’s job to entertain you – not educate you

Remember… it’s the media’s job to get eyeballs on the advertisers’ content, rather than to educate you.

However, when the pandemic first hit, many of us watched the 6 o’clock news, and then the 7 o’clock news to see if there was something variegated reported and then maybe the 7:30 Report to get flipside wile on what was going happen to our health, our economy and our property markets.

At the same time, my inbox kept dinging with yellow-belly messages that were uninformed or unbalanced.

Think well-nigh it… how many of those experts’ forecasts came true?

What happened to those forecasts of the fiscal cliff, the unemployment cliff or mortgage stress forcing floods of distressed properties onto our markets?

But squint how many people worried and stressed well-nigh the potential outcomes that just didn’t occur.

And unfortunately stuff overwhelmed with misinformation led many people to live in a state of fear and uneasiness and caused some to make disastrous investment errors.

Note: Imagine how much stuff you'd have to make up if you were forced to talk 24/7. Remember this when watching financial news on TV.”

4. Take economic forecasts with a grain of salt

Remember all those forecasts that unemployment would reach 10% or more?

What well-nigh those forecasts of property values dropping 20% or more?

They didn’t come to fruition, did they?

Similarly, if you’re reading something frightening in the merchantry section, or hearing it on TV, or learning well-nigh it from your neighbour, it’s scrutinizingly certainly too late to act — considering the information is once reflected in the market – in either the share price or property prices.

Note: The problem with economic forecasting is that the things you can predict tend to not matter, and the things you can't predict make all the difference in the world.

5. Don’t believe the Doomsayers

There will unchangingly be someone out there telling you not to invest in property.

At the whence of the pandemic, the doomsayers found their moment and told us how our property markets would crash – they were wrong of course.

Now they're out once then telling us that inflation, rising interest rates and mortgage defaults are going to rationalization the property market to crash.

Don't listen to these Property Pessimistic and Negative Nellies - the so-called “experts looking for a headline” who alimony telling anyone who would listen to them the real manor Armageddon is superiority of us.

There’s nothing new well-nigh these doomsayers who have been peddling their forecasts for a decade or two.

There will unchangingly be somebody wanting to stall the aspirations of their fellow Australians who are looking to take their financial futures into their own hands and do something well-nigh it.

Don’t let them stop you from achieving your financial dreams – the doomsayers are unchangingly wrong, at least in the long term.

Note: Predictions, opinions, and forecasts should be discounted by the number of times the person making them is on TV each week.

6. No one really knows what’s going to happen to the property markets

Be shielding whose forecasts you listen to.

There are 25 million property experts in Australia - everyone seems to have an opinion well-nigh property, don’t they?

But you know what they say well-nigh opinions… they’re like vitals buttons; everyone has one but they’re basically useless.

So be shielding who you listen to.

Of course, in 2020 plane respected economists got their predictions wrong when they predicted significant drops in our property market.

And then in 2021, most economists did not foresee how strong our property markets would grow.

So as a real manor investor, while it’s important to have mentors make sure you’re listening to somebody who has not only built their own substantial property portfolio but someone who has kept their wealth through a number of cycles.

There are just too many enthusiastic amateurs out there offering investment translating at present.

Note: There are two types of information: stuff you’ll still superintendency well-nigh in the future, and stuff that matters less and less over time. Long-term vs. expiring knowledge. It’s hair-trigger to identify which is which when you come wideness something new.

7. There is no such thing as the “Australian property market.”

There are multiple markets in Australia, and each state is at a particular stage of its own property trundling within each state there are multiple submarkets depending on price point, geography and type of property.

This ways that despite all Australians enjoying the same interest rate environment, the same tax system and the same government, some property markets outperformed others significantly in 2022.

But there’s nothing new well-nigh this… local factors have unchangingly driven property market performance.

So stave paying sustentation to commentary that gives wholesale generalisations well-nigh the Australian property market or plane the Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane property markets.

8. Don’t try and time the market

Even though they are armed with all the research misogynist in today’s information age, economists never seem to stipulate on where our property markets are heading and usually get their forecasts wrong.

That’s considering market movements are far from an word-for-word science.

It’s increasingly than just fundamentals (which are relatively easy to quantify) that move markets.

One overriding factor the experts have difficulty quantifying is investor sentiment.

So rather than timing your investment purchases (or sales), if you buy the right investment-grade assets, time in the market is much increasingly important than timing the market.

And if you think well-nigh it, the top and the marrow of the market are really only one or two days or weeks or months in the cycle.

9. The prod is usually wrong

“Crowd psychology” influences people’s investment decisions, often to their detriment.

Investors tend to be most optimistic near the peak of the cycle, at a time when they should be the most cautious and they’re the most pessimistic when all the doom and gloom is in the media near the marrow of the trundling when there is the least downside.

Market sentiment is a key suburbanite of property cycles and one of the reasons why our markets overreact, overshooting the mark during booms and getting too depressed during slumps.

Remember that each property tattoo sets us up for the next downturn, just as each downturn sets the scene for the next upswing.

Note: Beware taking financial cues from people playing a variegated game than you are.

Everyone is making a bet on an unknown future. It’s only tabbed speculation when you disagree with someone else’s bet.

10. Property Investment is a game of finance with some houses thrown in the middle

Strategic property investors have a financial plan to buy themselves not only real manor but moreover time.

They do this by having financial buffers to see themselves through the ups and downs of the property trundling and requite themselves the topics to handle fluctuations in interest rates.

11. You need to plan

While the property markets will create significant wealth for many Australians, statistics show that 50% of those who buy an investment property sell up in the first five years.

And of those who stay in the investment game, 92% never get past their first or second property.

That's considering attaining wealth doesn’t just happen, it’s the result of a well-executed plan.

Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something well-nigh it now!

Just to make things clear...buying an investment property is NOT a strategy!

It's important to start with the end game in mind and understand what you need and what you want to achieve.

And then you have to build a plan, a strategy to get there.

The property you sooner buy will be the physical manifestation of a whole lot of decisions that you will make, and they must be made in the right order

That's considering property investment is a process, not an event.

If you’re a beginner looking for a time-tested property investment strategy or an established investor who’s stuck or maybe you just want an objective second opinion well-nigh your situation, I suggest you indulge the team at Metropole to build you a personalised, customised Strategic Property Plan

When you have a Strategic Property Plan you’re increasingly likely to unzip the financial self-rule you desire considering we’ll help you:

• Define your financial goals;
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• Measure your progress towards your goals – whether your property portfolio is working for you, or if you’re working for it;
• Find ways to maximise your wealth megacosm through property;
• Identify risks you hadn’t thought of.

And the real goody is you’ll be worldly-wise to grow your wealth through your property portfolio faster and increasingly safely than the stereotype investor.

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Your Strategic Property Plan should contain the pursuit components:

1. An windfall unifying strategy
2. A manufacturing wanted growth strategy
3. A rental growth strategy
4. An windfall protection and tax minimisation strategy
5. A finance strategy including long-term debt reduction and…
6. A living off your property portfolio strategy

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12. Invest for Wanted Growth

Capital growth should be the key suburbanite for your investment decisions, rather than mazuma flow.

Sure mazuma spritz is important and will alimony you in the game, but it’s wanted growth that gets you out of the rat race.

So smart investors first build their probity and then they convert it to mazuma flow.

At Metropole, our 40-year wringer of investment returns shows that properties with higher rental yields often unhook low overall returns for investors.

Our wringer proved that over the medium to long term, properties with lower rental returns (but stronger wanted growth) delivered significantly higher overall returns (i.e. wanted growth rental return), while “cash spritz properties” with upper rental returns delivered lower ones overall.

What this ways is those who invest in the increasingly affordable suburbs that unhook a upper level of rental return, with the expectation of strong overall returns, unzip exactly the opposite result.

This moreover highlights the significant opportunity forfeit of having underperforming resources in your portfolio.

If you can only sire to own 2 or 3 properties, make sure they are all “investment grade” properties that are working nonflexible for you.

Moving forward I can see we were going to have a two-tier property market.

As the markets pick up later in 2023 they will be fragmented.

It’s likely that upper interest-rate and inflation will alimony eating yonder at the stereotype Australian's household upkeep for some time making the property less affordable or many.

Of course, Australia is a big country and there are many remote locations where properties remain very affordable - the problem is that no one really wants to live there.

If Coronavirus taught us anything, it was the importance of living in the right type of property in the right neighbourhood.

In our new “Covid Normal” world, people will pay a premium for the worthiness to work, live and play within a 20-minute drive, velocipede ride or walk from home.

They will squint for things such as shopping, merchantry services, education, polity facilities, recreational and sporting resources, and some jobs all within 20 minutes' reach.

Residents of these neighbourhoods have now come to fathom the worthiness to be out and well-nigh on the street socialising, supporting local businesses, stuff involved with local schools, and enjoying local parks.

As obtaining finance becomes increasingly difficult moving forward, it will be the people with money that momentum property prices.

Not just locals living in the zone but people who want to move into these largest locations.

You see...there will unchangingly be wealthy Australians who will be worldly-wise to and prepared to pay increasingly to live in these largest locations – rich people don't buy unseemly properties.

Currently, the upper end of our property markets is leading the growth in property values and the gap will only widen between the increasingly expensive aspiration.

13. There will unchangingly be reasons not to invest

Every year brings its own set of crises and lots of reasons not to invest.

You can go when as far in history as you like and there won’t be a crisis-free year.

Sure some years are worse than others, but there is unchangingly bad news and much of it is unexpected.

Where investors get into trouble is that rather than focusing on their long-term goals, they see these crises as once-in-a-generation events that will yo-yo the undertow of history, when in reality they are just the normal path of history.

14. Property investment is risky in the short-term, but secure in the long term

The last year reminded many property investors that real manor is not a way to get rich quickly.

Property values don't unchangingly increase.

But this is the way the market behaves.

Looking back, there was a long period between the previous property trundling peak 2017 and October 2020 when the recent tattoo commenced, and in that intervening time property prices remain unappetizing and in fact fell in many locations.

Yet those who stay in the game goody from the power of compounding growth which builds wealth but takes time.

Note: Every past ripen looks like an opportunity and every future ripen looks like a risk.

I found it takes the stereotype property investor virtually 30 years to wilt financially independent, but most don’t make it considering they can’t stay the loftiness in part considering they don’t have good mazuma spritz management.

Many people get into property investment to modernize their mazuma spritz position, but if they don’t have good money habits to start with taking on increasingly debt only compounds the problems.

15. Plan for the worst and squint forward to the best

As a property investor, I protect myself from the challenges to our property markets brought well-nigh by the pandemic by:-

• Owning the right resources – investment-grade properties in desirable locations.
• Having multiple streams of income from a diversified portfolio of residential, commercial and industrial properties as well as shares.
• Owning my resources in the correct structures that protected my interests and were tax efficient.
• Having set up financial mazuma spritz buffers to see me through difficult times.
• Protecting myself and my resources with unobjectionable insurance policies.

Fortunately, I didn’t need to rely on these protections I put in place long surpassing the current challenging times, but having them in place helped me sleep much better.

You see... I've learned to protect myself and my investments considering I don’t make forecasts - instead, I have expectations.

Now there’s a big difference between forecasts and expectations.

I expect there to be flipside recession in the next decade.

But I don’t know when it will come.

I expect the property market to remain unappetizing for a while and then prices will tattoo again.

But I don’t know when.

I expect that some investments I will make won’t do as well as others.

But I don’t know which ones they will be.

I expect interest rates to once then waif when a little.

Probably not for a number of years.

In fact, I don’t know when.

And I expect flipside world financial crisis.

But I have no idea when it will come.

Now, these are not contradictions or a form of a cop-out!

As I said…there’s a big difference between an expectation and a forecast.

An expectation is an vaticination of how things are likely to play out in the future based on my perspective of how things worked in the past.

A forecast is putting a time frame to that expectation.

Of course, in an platonic world, we would be worldly-wise to forecast what’s superiority for our property markets with a level of accuracy.

But we can’t considering there are just too many moving parts.

Sure, there are all those statistics that are easy to quantify, but what is nonflexible to identify is exactly when and how millions of strangers will act in response to the prevailing economic and political environment.

Then there will unchangingly be those X factors that yield up.

So I plan for the worst but expect the best.

Note: Planning is important, but the most important part of every plan is to plan on the plan not going equal to plan.

16. You can't rely on one stream of income

You've probably noticed that successful investors, merchantry owners and entrepreneurs enjoy multiple streams of income.

They strategically go to unconfined lengths to make sure they have money coming in from all directions, or in other words "they don't have all their eggs in one basket."

Unfortunately, many Australians learned this lesson the nonflexible way during the years of the pandemic, with some losing their jobs, others having their work hours cut when and yet others losing their life savings as many small businesses went broke.

There will unchangingly be issues to contend with.

It may not be a pandemic next time, but it could be personal health issues or your inability to work.

Sure, it's nonflexible unbearable for some people to icon out how to create a single source of income, let vacated multiple streams, but in my mind, you have no choice.

Rather than relying on your job as an income source wilt financially fluent, learn to invest and develop multiple streams of income.

17. There are unchangingly risks associated with investing

Don’t be wrung of failing, considering the biggest risk is not doing anything to protect your financial future.

Sometimes negative experiences, mistakes and failures can be plane largest than success considering they teach you something new that flipside win could never teach you.

However, we are often so driven to get things right that we goof to see the value in the things we get wrong.

Instead, we spend our time wishing we had washed-up it differently.

Or not doing anything at all considering the fear of making mistakes paralyses us.

If you get it wrong, learn from your mistake and make it count by doing it differently next time.

One “failure” can – with time – help you create many successes.

Note: Risk management is less well-nigh how you respond to risk and increasingly well-nigh recognizing how many things can go wrong surpassing they unquestionably do.

18. Cautious optimism is largest for your investment health than perma pessimism.

Life is not pearly – get used to it.

But having said that, optimists are increasingly successful in all areas of life than pessimists, or so-called realists (who are just pessimists in disguise).

And this includes the realm of investing.

Now, this doesn’t midpoint that you will necessarily be happy and smiling all day.

But it does midpoint that you have the worthiness to squint at a situation and while it might be tough, you’re worldly-wise to see virtually that corner and see the possibilities...rather than the difficulties.

Those who have upper expectations usually rise up to meet them.

Note: Pessimism unchangingly sounds smarter than optimism considering optimism sounds like a sales pitch while pessimism sounds like someone trying to help you.

19. Time is a limited resource – don’t waste it

We all have 1,440 minutes every day, but some of us squander it, waste it or don’t use it efficiently.

Living through over 260 of Covid related lockdowns in Melbourne reminded me how truly valuable time is.

You can lose money and get it when again, if you’re sick you can often get your health when again, but once the time has gone it is gone and is irretrievable.

Start to capitalise on the time you have and get a whole lot increasingly done.

The problem is many people misplace moving with progress.

Just considering you’re doing a lot doesn’t midpoint you’re getting a lot washed-up – I found many people just seem to be running in the same place.

Interestingly working from home has made me much increasingly efficient, I get a lot increasingly washed-up in those 1,440 minutes I have every day.

Another way of looking at time was brought home to me in 2022 and that is that life is short.

On some level, most of us know that life is short, but 2022 taught us and solidified the fact that we don’t get a second endangerment and the importance of truly appreciating what and who we have in our lives whilst living to the fullest.

20. The only certainty is change

We all squatter changes every day – whether it’s as simple as a transpiration in the weather or something as significant as flipside wave of the coronavirus.

Changes are a normal part of life; the problem is most of us don’t like transpiration – we like certainty.

However, learning to expect transpiration has brought me hope during challenging or unexpected life events.

I’ve come to realise that it’s not the circumstances or the changes that dictate how my life will go, but rather how I handle those changes and disruptions.

Rather than worrying well-nigh all the changes occurring, I’ve learned the concept of having a useful belief well-nigh the changes that are happening to me and seeing what good will come from them.

The increasingly I finger in tenancy of the life my life, the increasingly well-appointed I finger and the largest I perform in all areas of my life.

21. Worry Better

Fact is, most things you fear will happen never do.

They’re just monsters in your mind.

And if they do happen, they’re most likely to be not as bad as you expected.

But forget the saying “don’t worry be happy; instead worry the right way – it’s largest than not worrying at all.

You see…worry can play important role in your life, and it doesn’t have to be destructive.

We’re all wired to worry.

That’s considering worry had an evolutionary benefit, it drew our sustentation to the fact that there were some things that you should be doing while there were other things that should be avoided.

Those who worried correctly survived and evolved.

But today time spent worrying is time that you could spend identifying opportunities and taking action.

Worrying well-nigh the right things can motivate you, but if you find it unproductive, try to take your mind off things by getting engaged in other activities:

I’ve learned the trick of limiting the value of time I worry.

I was taught the concept of telling myself to put a limit of say 5 minutes or 10 minutes on my “worry time” and then forcing myself to move on by focusing on other tasks or engaging in other activities.

It’s a good trick to learn.

22. This too shall pass

How often do we need to hear the world as we know it is coming to an end surpassing we realise that the world as we know it has not come to an end?

I've learned that making long-term investment decisions based on short-term concerns is not a recipe for success.

The lesson?

2023 will bring its own events that will dictate our lives and financial market sentiment for a few months.

I recommend you prepare yourself to see these for what they are; a distraction.