Meet Gareth Kent – Certified Property Valuer

Hello all, and welcome to my very first column!

Hopefully, I will provide you with some insight, tips and information on our local property market.

I am a Certified Property Valuer; most people will only know what a valuer does from seeing my colleagues on The Block, the movie The Castle or when you were applying for your home or investment loan. A Valuer is a professional in land economics; our job is to form an unbiased legal determination of value. We get exposed to a lot more property and detail than any other profession in the real estate industry.

People often get confused between agents’ and valuers’ roles; however, in the most basic of terms, an agent is an expert in marketing, and a valuer is an expert in values. Where an agent may market and sell a dozen or so properties a month, a valuer will look at more than 100 properties and transactions each week!

To qualify as a valuer, I spent four years at university to undertake a degree in property valuation; then, two years doing a cadetship (traineeship) and completing examinations to become professionally qualified.

As a commercial valuer, I get to dive into the nitty-gritty of the incomes, expected rentals and financial models behind the values. To be frank … this rocks my boat! And yes, I’m popular at parties as everyone wants to know about their particular market and property! I have run my own business in Geelong for more than 15 years, and we have more than 30 valuers in this region working daily.

I’m excited to share my (and my team’s) knowledge and experience through this column, and my first bit of advice for all property watchers is to beware of the idea of big data propaganda!

There is no such thing as a “median house price”. The property market is made up of thousands of small niche markets, and like The Castle, each person’s home is unique. The market comprises many different submarket groups (SMGs), that can move quite differently from each other, and each has its fundamental drivers of value.

Each street can demonstrate different values to the next, for example, Skene Street in Newtown is in a far different market than that of a property located in Clarendon Street in Newtown. Factors such as access to schools and shopping, infrastructure, roads, quality of other houses in the street and topography all impact the demand for an individual property.

My second little golden nugget is that property values are always driven by demand and supply. Our region has had some of the most seismic property changes on record in the past 18 months, but this is driven by the massive change in population.

An influx of 26,000 people coming to live in our region, coupled with low-interest rates means demand has never been stronger, and supply has not been able to keep up.

I look forward to sharing with you all the nitty-gritty and inside information of our local property market. In the meantime, if you would like a teaser, why not tune into our Youtube channel Propped by the Bar? You can hear Michael De Stefano and myself, together with our many and varied special guests, take a deep dive into Geelong property over a glass of wine.

Happy property hunting, GK