The Cost of Waiting: Why Delaying Your Investment Can Hurt Your Long-Term Wealth

Think waiting to buy is safer? Current Australian property data says the opposite. We break down real cost of waiting, showing how a two-year delay can mean a bigger loan, higher repayments, weaker cash flow, and thousands in missed equity growth. Using a simple scenario—$600k then vs $726k now—we reveal how holding costs rise by about $6,048 per year for decades.

We explain why long-term metro house growth, tight supply, and policy settings outweigh short-term fear and media noise. You’ll hear how prices across major capitals have shifted, what that means for borrowing capacity, and why cheaper rates on a larger loan still hurt your returns.

You’ll also get a clear framework: get finance-ready, focus on supply-tight, high-growth locations, and commit to a 10–15-year plan where compounding builds real wealth. Ready to stop paying procrastination tax and start investing with confidence? Follow and share.

Chapters

• 0:00 Framing The Cost Of Inaction
• 0:57 Fear, Noise, And Missed Growth
• 3:51 Long‑Term Data And Investor Mindset
• 5:30 Media Doom Loops Vs Reality
• 6:30 Capital City Growth And Borrowing
• 8:20 The $6k Per Year Holding Penalty
• 11:39 Summing Up: Act Early, Think Long
• 13:53 Clear Next Steps And Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

The cost of sitting on the fence, doing nothing, and not taking action is going to cost you$6,000 per year in holding costs. My name is Casey Taylor. I'm the host of the Tailored Property Wealth podcast. And in today's episode, we are breaking down the cost of not taking action. There's a lot of people out there that think not taking action is playing it safe. But when you really understand and break it down, it is far more risky not to take action than to take action, especially when we see property prices continue to grow in value over time. We're going to break down a scenario today of what just two years of property prices and continuing to grow can do to your cash flow, which is going to cost you over a 30-year period. It's a massive amount of costs if you don't take action sooner. So let's get into this one today. And we're going to talk about some of the data of property prices, some of the noise that's been out there and why people don't take action. Being in this space and looking to help clients and prospects, there's people out there that sometimes start to listen to family and friends who have never invested. They think it's property prices are going to crash, don't purchase now. They sit on the hands, they wait years, and they miss out on a massive amount of capital growth. And that is a net wealth base for their family, for their future. So, first off, property prices went crazy from 2020 to 2022. That was when we had the last massive boom where there was a massive amount of FOMO. And if you can remember early 2020, that's when COVID came around. People sat on the fence and didn't really do much while that first lockdown took place. However, towards the end of 2020, because rates started to drop and cash was so cheap from in terms of borrowing, we got that rate down to 0.1%. It started to really stimulate people taking action to purchase property. And that's where we then saw over that 12-month period some suburbs and some locations doing 40%. Crazy, crazy amounts of growth. Now, that asset, the quality of the asset didn't change. Nothing really changed with that asset apart from it being more expensive than it was the year before. And people, there were some people that could have taken action, they could have purchased potentially two, three properties based on their borrowing capacity at the time, but they they let fear affect them. They didn't take that opportunity and be greedy while others were fearful. So it is important to always take action. Don't listen to the big hype. If you look at the long-term data, which we are going to touch on today, and you can understand that doesn't matter what time in the cycle. Be greedy when others are fearful, and be fearful when others are greedy, is a great saying by Warren Buffett. And if you can adopt that one, it's a really powerful one because you can eliminate competition uh because there's not a lot of people at that time, like we were seeing at the start of COVID. I purchased my first property. Uh I settled on it in April 2020, and that was where people really just started to stop doing anything. And then that property was purchased at a good time before it started to really grow in the end of that year. Now, long-term data from Core Logic, formerly Core Logic, now known as Catality, houses in metro locations have grown 453% over the last 30 years. And this was an article that Core Logic at the time released in 2022. So if you can go out and secure a property today and know that in 30 years' time it's going to do 453%, that's obviously not a guarantee. Things are going to change, but we can look at past data, look at history, and understand what it does over time. And we know that property increases. Residential Australian real estate is heavily tied to the Australian economy. And with that, we know that the government's always going to intervene with some of those corrections to make sure it's not massive. Securing property today and knowing that it's going to be significantly higher in value in a decade's time, in two decades, or in 30 years' time, it's a matter of getting in as soon as you can when you have that borrowing capacity. There's a lot of investors out there that get to where they are, they build a multi-million dollar property portfolio, they build a massive portfolio over time, and it's simply because they are action takers. They might not have the highest income, they might not have that best paying job, but it's simply because when they have the capacity, they go out and they take action and they don't let fear cripple them. That is just so important. Leading into the next one, and this is something that people are always talking about, they're always fearful of property prices are gonna crash. One of my favorites was back in 2018, and you can go and find this, I believe, on YouTube. 60 Minutes done multiple episodes on how prices were gonna drop 40%. There was a crash coming, there was doom and gloom. And some people bought into that. They go and find these terrible one in a million scenarios and they interview someone and really create this doom and gloom. But if you can push all that aside and think back to that long-term performance, what's it gonna look like in 10, 20, 30 years? It's not that scary. You are worried that you might lose 10, 15%. But if you're holding long term, it's it's going to wipe out any risk of that taking place. And we're gonna get into how it affects cash flow long term in just a moment. Now, if we simply look at the performance in the last 12 months of some of these capital cities, you can see that it's now a premium to pay for property today versus 12 months ago. And because you have to go out and pay more for the same asset, if you're borrowing at 80%, you've got to borrow more to be able to secure that same asset. And then your holding costs are going to be higher over 30 years. And we're gonna break down a scenario today. Sydney is 4% higher than what it was 12 months ago. Melbourne is 3.3% higher than it was 12 months ago. Brisbane, double digit growth, 10.8% higher, Adelaide 6.7% higher, Perth 9.4% higher, Hobart even 2.4% higher. No one cares about Darwin, but it's 15.4% higher, and Canberra 3.2% higher. Every single capital city is higher in value today than it was 12 months ago. Now, yes, a couple of those locations, the growth hasn't been significant, but if you break that down to an individual level, some of these areas have still done 15-20% if you're purchasing in those right locations. It's a massive amount of increase in price, and people simply do not take the action. They might not want to sacrifice on those monthly costs that's going to be associated. And that comes back that I always bang on about is lending and sophisticated lending, building those buffers out. But that's a big thing as to why people don't take action. Because I'm scared, I can't afford it. I don't want to give up the 20 beers on the weekend and a bag or whatever it is they go out and spend their money on, those discretionary expenses that you can rein in. Now let's go through and break down this scenario and what it means for cash flow if you sit on your hands and do nothing. Now, for this scenario, we're taking into consideration an investment purchase of$600,000. And we're assuming that that property grows in value 10% year on year for the first two years. So if you could secure a property two years ago for$600,000 and it's now done 10% and 10%, the total growth,$126,000 over that two-year period. So now you've missed out on that capital growth, that net wealth base, and that tax-free equity that you can extract that you don't pay tax on. But you've got to now take into consideration at a$600,000 purchase, assuming you borrowed 80%, you would have a loan of$480,000. And we're not taking into account purchase costs, just to keep this simple. Now, two years down the line, because that property's grown in value, that$126,000, the property value is$726,000. 80% of that is$580,800. You are now borrowing$100,000 more for the exact same asset that you could have secured two years ago. Now, if we assume an interest-only repayment of 6% on that$480,000, your monthly repayments would be$2,400 a month. The annual interest would be$28,800. Now, for the scenario where we're purchasing at$726 because we fumbled the bag, we took two years and then decided to take action because we saw that growth. You now are borrowing$580,800. Your annual interest repayments are$34,848. Your monthly interest-only repayments are$2,904 a month. Same property, only that it's grown in value. Your holding costs are now$504 extra per month. That is an additional holding of$6,048 on an annual basis because you simply did not take action. Now, six grand a year might not sound like a massive amount, but when you think about that now over a 30-year period, that is a massive amount of cash flow that you have to hold to get that same asset that you simply could have avoided if you took action two years ago when prices were lower. That is a prime example of what many, many people decide to do. They could have purchased, they don't, and then later on they go, shit, I should have purchased property prices, grew in value. But now the debt they're holding is larger because they didn't take action sooner. This exact scenario will continue to go on and go on and go on and go on. If you have the borrowing capacity now and you don't take action and you take action later, you have locked yourself in for higher debt, higher holding costs that simply could have been avoided, assuming that you had the borrowing capacity at the time. So in summation, you've missed out on$126,000 growth over two years, which is capital growth. It's increasing your net wealth base, and it's tax-free equity. You now have to borrow$100,000 more for the exact same asset, which is additional holdings of$6,048 on an annual basis. As soon as you start to break this scenario down, it's just so obvious what you need to do, and it's take action as soon as possible. What does it matter if you're still waiting for interest rates to drop even a little bit to have a savings? But then you have to go out and borrow 100 grand more for that same asset. Because on an annual basis, you're solidifying that additional cost over a 30-year period. Rates, ebb and flow. That is part of being an investor, thinking long term, and being a successful investor in property. It is a long game. You have to do this for a 10, 15 year period at minimum. This is how you avoid the bigger loans, the higher repayments, even lower yields, because as you solidify that lower purchase price, you get rental income growth over time. Your yield increases. The answer is always taking action as soon as possible. So you can secure that lower purchase price, secure the lower debt level. Because property in the right locations, short to medium term, if you're securing in those areas prime for growth, are always going to be higher in value. If you stretch this out and you don't take action for a 10-year period, you could have purchased at 30 and you decide at 40 fuck. Now is the time I need to get in. Imagine how much more in holding costs you're going to have on additional growth in a 10-year period. This is the cost of not taking action. Everyone thinks it's safe to not take action, but it's just getting you further and further and further behind. If you want to change your future, if you want to build a portfolio and get towards financial freedom, you have to get your finance in order. You have to take action as soon as you can. Property prices are not going backwards. They're going to continue to perform, especially over the next couple of years, things are really going to ramp up. We're seeing that growth last month really ramping up. It's the highest growth in the last two years. Now is the time to get in and take action and reap those rewards. If you don't know where to begin with purchasing an investment property, or you want to make sure you go out there and you get this purchase correctly so you can continue to build off that first property and build a multi million dollar property portfolio, reach out, book in a discovery call, and we can see if you share the same values and we can see if you might be one of the limited clients we work with each and every month. Thanks for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this one. I hope it's been insightful, and we'll see you on the next episode.