Plenty of regional hotspots to tempt investors as market hovers at five o’clock on property clock: Margaret Lomas

Property investors should look to get into the market now rather than try and time their purchases to when the market bottoms out, Margaret Lomas told attendees at the weekend’s Melbourne Home Buyer & Property Investor show.

Lomas says the property market currently sits at five o’clock on the property clock, meaning it has yet to reach the bottom of the current cycle.

“It’s better to buy at five o’clock, because it’s very hard to time your purchase so you buy at six o’clock. And you don’t want to buy at seven o’clock,” says Lomas, founder of property investor advisory business Destiny and a regular pundit on Sky Business.

With flames flickering on a screen behind her, Lomas then launched into her hotspot list, telling the big crowd that they should be looking at regional markets with strong population growth, and where there a big infrastructure projects in place.

“Some regional centre populations are growing faster than the national average. And there is a growing affluence as well in some of these locations,” she says.

In Victoria, Lomas favours regional centres like Shepparton, Ballarat, Bendigo and Morwell.

She says investors should steer clear of apartments in Melbourne because the market is oversupplied. with prices forecast to fall by around 2%.

Overall the outlook for Victoria is one of subdued growth over the next 18 months.