G'day, you mob. Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English. The number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So, today I have a Goss' episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news, whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas, in other parts of the world. And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right. If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss'. So, these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So, it is particularly good to improve your listening skills. In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy membership at AussieEnglish.com.au, where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads, and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time. Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time, keep practising and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode, guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it. This works perfectly. I've got Pop and little ripper. ...Little ripper. No. I don't want to be granddad. I don't want to be pop. You don't want to be pop. Pop could be dad as well. Coke's doing well with this, aren't they? With these... Well, it's just- It's a great marketing campaign because you keep buying to get new ones and they seem to be putting different sets out. So, when they first started, it was the same as they had a couple of years ago when they did it. Yeah. And then they put nicknames out, which are obviously these. And now they seem to have slang terms as well, so. Well, that's why recently I harassed you, didn't I? And I'm like, collect all the slang term one's. ...Going to be weird. Yeah, going have to... ...Move the mic away a bit. Rearrange yourself. So, we've just opened some Cokes for anyone thinking about what the hell are we talking about. Exactly. So, we are- What would you call them? Commercial slaves to coke. We are. I've got shares of Coca-Cola, so. I'm just- I get probably every can we drink, I probably get about one billionth of a cent, so. Damn. Just got to keep- and yet you've got to spend fifty billionths of that to get the can. Well, exactly. Or more. Yeah. But yeah, I guess for context, for anyone who isn't in Australia, Coke has probably in the last few years, right. I think they started putting Coke cans out with names on them. Yeah. So, you... Ian. Pete. Yeah. You would obviously get them at a party or something and people- I guess the idea is for you to go and grab one and be like, oh, look, it's Jane. Jane, did you want a Coke? Yes. And then more recently, they've started putting slang terms... And nicknames. And I've got a whole bunch behind me. So, I've got nan, mum's fav, bogan, boof head, legend. So, that was the annoying thing. Originally, I was like, collect them, I want to get all these different slang terms. But they're obviously all slang terms related to what you would call someone. Yes. Because you're not going to have, you know, "flat out like a lizard drinking" on the can. No. Exactly. You can't really go and get that for someone who's got that nickname. But yeah. So, Coke, if you're listening, pay me for the advertisements for free advertising. Just pay him in Diet Coke. Yeah, that's it. So, what are we talking about, Dad? We got number one. This is the latest Goss' episode, obviously. Guys, don't forget, if you want the transcripts and everything, sign up for the premium podcast or academy membership. And we're in the new house. You are. Yeah. First time in the new studio. So, the backgrounds different. I haven't got a... ...Angles are different. ...Me and the angles are different, and- Actually mines sort of the same. Yeah, more or less. You didn't have bookshelves behind you last time. No, I had sort of half a window and a flat wall. Yeah. You've got, I don't know, what have you got a bit more space or you got a bit less space? I've got more width but less depth. Which given that I'm losing a bit of width and depth as well, is this probably doesn't really matter. Yeah. So, what do you think of the new house compared to the old one? It's great. Yeah, I really like it. It's got more running around space for Noah and it's just newer and in better condition, obviously. Maybe we can do the first episode talking about housing and what people should sort of consider, especially if they are migrating to Australia and if they become Australian citizens. I imagine that they are eligible for the first home buyers grant or whatever it is from the government . Because I- So, I guess to give a bit of context, you'll find in Australia nowadays a lot of houses that have been built in the past, obviously through different periods. Most commonly there are lots of these older houses from the 60s, 70s, 80s... Or even from the nineteenth century in the suburbs of the Old Cities. Yeah. And then you'll see new housing developments, especially in the areas- What would you say, in the suburban crawl or sprawl? Around the periphery of the cities. So, you've got developers that are buying up land for, you know, millions of dollars or whatever, and then they turn them into new suburbs effectively, right. They put all the streets in and then they... Infrastructure. ...Divide up all the land. They can sell the land package. They can sell house and land packages. And you tend to have that kind of option, right. So- The government as well, I think pushes people with those grants to try and buy houses that are being built. Yeah, they want the money to be used in the building industry, so that you're employing people rather than just employing real estate agents. Not there's anything wrong with real estate agents, but they're the only people who, you know, get money transferred through them if you're buying an existing property, whereas if you're buying a new one, then you're really just supporting the building industry as well. So, that's the incentive, is it from the government? It's we will give you, I don't know, whatever it is, 10, 14, $20,000 is the grant. But the idea there is that the money will sort of come back to the government by giving people jobs who are going to be building the house, doing the plaster, plastering the plumbing, the tiling, everything related to that. So, what- When you were growing up, was that scheme around? No. And so, what was the kind of advice that you would get when you were- Probably younger than my age, you would have been 25, I guess, or -ish around there when you bought your first house. What was the kind of advice you were getting from your folks when it came to first house ownership and, you know, searching and buying it? Yeah, well, it was funny because there's the whole idea of buying a block of land and building a house or- And that house and land package thing just didn't exist. Yeah. Yes, you could have done it. But nobody thought that was what you did for your first house. Yeah. It was always just buy an established house. And the advice that my grandfather gave me, and my parents gave me, and a lot of other people always gave me, and it probably stands now if you're buying an existing house, is buy the worst house in the best location. And why is that? Because the value of the land is going to continue to go up if it's a really good location. Yep. Whereas you can improve the house thats on there, but you can't improve the value of the land because that's purely related to location. Yeah. And so, how do you think that that's changed through time? Because it seems like, obviously not- There are probably a substantial amount of people in the population who still live by that kind of rule and are happy to sort of take a hit in living conditions and have a crappier house in a really good location or a better location. But there also seems to be these developments where the location is, you know, crappy in terms of it's no different from just suburb anywhere. Yeah. But people want the good quality- the quality of living where you do have a new, big, large house. And on top of that, too, to make that question even more complicated. How have you seen houses change? Because they tend to, today, I think, take up much more of the block than they used to. Yeah, well, I think the two things are related. People now seem to have an expectation, even first home buyers seem to have an expectation of having a large family house, you know, with a double garage, four or five bedrooms, two or three bathrooms, two living areas ... I'm raising my hand, guys. I'm raising my hand up. Well, that's what your expectation is. Yeah. And at the same time, developers are trying to maximise their profit by putting as many blocks as they possibly can into a development area . With the biggest houses on them possible, too. So, they have smaller blocks and bigger houses. Yeah. And so, you know, when we grew up, everybody had the, you know, the Australian dream used to be a house on a quarter acre block in suburbia. And how big is a quarter acre roughly for people? ...Roughly 50 metres deep, 15 metres wide, rectangular. And most of the developments up until the 1980s were just straight roads with rectangular blocks. And now most developments are little cul-de-sacs and curvy roads and things because they're actually much more pleasant to live in. Because you don't have- Even if you've got cars coming and going, you don't have these straight road thoroughfares where cars are going faster and they're louder and so on, so. To pause you there quickly. Cul-de-sac. Cul-de-sac. That is a great word from French. Yes. And in French it would be cul-de-sac, which is the arse of a bag. Yes. At the end of a bag. Yeah. So, it's as if you got a sack and you try and put your hand in and there's nowhere for the hand to go. Once you get to a certain depth, that's the arse of the bag. Or the arse hole of the bag. Dead end of streets, really. Yeah. Courts. Yeah. Courts. Yeah. Yeah so, it's interesting that there's that shift then, right. That people my age now are kind of sacrificing location for living standards. And I'm sort of at that point now, trying to save for a house loan where I'm trying to work out what's the best option. Do I want to sacrifice house size and liveability within that house for location, or do I want to sacrifice location for that? Because that's the most difficult thing, especially working from home. Yeah, well, working from home. In the end, the location is probably less important because you're going to need a bigger, more comfortable space and you're going to be spending all your time in it. So, you, you know, you want that to be enjoyable. You don't want it just to be a trial. Yeah. How have you noticed things changing down the Bellarine Peninsula where we live? Because I guess it's probably a microcosm that's, you know, being replicated all over the country at the moment. Yeah, well. When I was a kid, we came down here a couple of times on holidays, even just for day trips, but. And Ocean Grove, where you used to live and I still live, was tiny. It probably had a thousand houses, most of which were holiday houses, and they were little shacks on blocks of land because people, all they wanted was somewhere to come and, you know, dump their things. So, they can go to the beach because it was a beach holiday place. And you'll still see that if you... ...See some of the old places. There'll be holiday hou- A lot of the houses that are there, that are old are holiday houses and you'll see that they take up barely any of the land. And they're quite often minute, you know, probably one or two bedrooms. Exactly. But a lot of them are getting bought up, smashed down and then turned into these massive monstrosity townhou- Double townhouses on a separated block of land. Exactly. Sell it for a million and a half or whatever. Yeah so, and then when we moved in 25 years ago to Ocean Grove, it had become much more residential. But still half the houses there were holiday houses. And the rest of them were blocks of land with no houses. Exactly. And most of those little isolated individual blocks are now sold. There's really only a few of them left. And so, most of the development now around Ocean Grove has been in that periphery, you know, the boundaries around the old ocean grove, which were farmland when we moved in, and that farmland has been reclassified as residential and developers have bought it up and they've built those. So, there's two or three new housing estates, which are really like outer suburbs of the town that have grown up. And they're are all building those, you know, four-bedroom, double story, big houses on them. Do you think the farmers that own that land kind of get screwed over? Yeah. They make a lot of money. Yeah, when they... ...Don't necessarily want to sell. Yeah. And so, why do they have to sell? Because with rates, you- Everyone who owns some land anywhere in the country, there's certain rates on that land based on where it... Basically paying a tax to the local council. Yeah. And it's the only way that the council can tax people because you pay- You don't pay income tax or any other form of tax to local council. So, it's really just the landowners that are paying a land tax on that. And then you pay a services component to that as well for the, you know, the water and the garbage collection, which are really the only two things that, you know, the local council is providing, except in some cases they're managing roads which aren't part of the state's responsibility. So, yeah, you're paying for that. But then you pay according to the value of your property and the value of your property is dependent on the zoning. So, if you're in a purely residential place, obviously a small block of land is worth quite a lot amount of money. If you're in a rural designated area, then... Farmland. Yeah. Farmland. Then the individual rate per, you know, the area of the land isn't that much. And councils, of course, on the periphery or on the- I keep saying the word "periphery", it must be the word for the day. On the outer edges of the town are councils are going to want to convert that into residential land. And so, they rezone and then it's impossible for a farm... Unless they're millionaires... Well, they have to be a lot better than millionaires, because all of a sudden, I don't know what the rate is on a rural property, a farm property. But if all of a sudden, you're effectively going to be paying probably 10 or 20 times or more the amount of land tax on them when it gets rezoned, but at the same time that then gets sold off. So, they'll make a lot of money by selling, but effectively changes what, obviously, what they can do with the land in that interim period where the zoning change comes in. Yeah, it seems crazy. We had someone come in here to value the house yesterday and I was chatting to her and she's like, everything around here has gone nuts after COVID with people moving down. Absolutely. Yeah. And this house, when I was looking online, it was sold in 2011, I think, off the plan for $160,000-$155,000. And the one across the road just sold for $800,000. And that's a change in ten years, you know, a growth of whatever that is, 700% or something stupid. And your just like, do you, I guess there's two things I wanted to ask, do you think that it's going to get harder and harder for people to buy houses? And do you think that- The second question to that is, do you think that the feel of towns like Ocean Grove is going to change dramatically with this new influx of people from Melbourne and the prices going up? Yeah, well, there's two things in that one. One is that the prices of land and houses in, say, Ocean Grove on the Bellarine Peninsula or any other sort of close country town to big cities has always been much cheaper than living in the city. You're effectively, you know, ocean groves probably a population of between 15,000-20,000 people now. So, it's about the size of one or two suburbs in the city of Melbourne. And for most people, unless you're living up on a cliff top overlooking the beach, you're really living in a place the equivalent of most of the suburbs of Melbourne. But it used to be about half the price to buy a house. It's rapidly closing on the prices of houses in the suburbs of Melbourne now because of the demand and so many people are moving out of the city. Particularly with COVID, when people have worked out that, you know, I can work from home, I can live in a more pleasant place. What if I want to go live on the beach or if I want to go and live out in the bush somewhere, I can live where I want to live and still do the same job because I can work from home as long as I've got an Internet connection. And so, that's meant that people are coming down and they will pay the Melbourne price or the Sydney price or the Brisbane price of a house because, or a little bit less, they go, oh, for 80% of the price of a house, I can move away from the city. And so, that puts the... Local people under stress to some degree... Demand is higher, and people are willing to pay more for houses and... The house across the road from us, we were paying $450 a week in Ocean Grove and the house across the road was listed at $650... Yeah. ...For a similar sized house that had been renovated but had things like no aircon, there was no garage or anything and it was $650 a week and it disappeared after a week and people have already moved in. And you're like, if- You know, I would bet a million dollars those people are from Melbourne and were probably paying more than that in terms of rent in Melbourne. Exactly. And have sacrificed it to come down here. Whereas if it had just been someone locally looking to rent that house, they would have been like, dreaming, there's no way. So, do you fear that it's gonna- There's going to become, you know, this kind of class differences in these towns? Ocean Grove feels like, I don't know if I want to use the word "gentrified", "gentrified", but it feels a lot richer than it did when I was a kid. There tends to be a vibe now of just really well-off people. You see a lot more expensive cars. You see a lot less of the kinds of people that I grew up with at school and everything like that. They seemed to move to different suburbs. They've been priced out. Yeah. So, do you think that that's going to happen more and more, or it's just a shuffling effect where...? Look, I think it is in some highly desirable places to live, then they are going to get disproportionately higher land prices and house prices. I remember when we moved, you know, in Ocean Grove, we've been there for 25 years, as I said, and I remember the first house that- It probably wasn't "the" first house, but the first time I had heard of a house selling for a million dollars... In Ocean Grove. Yeah. And that was outrageous. That was crazy. Our house is probably worth a million dollars now. It wasn't a year ago, but it probably is now. Well, I think... ...Nothing special about our house. If it got sold, people would just bulldoze it and build another house on it. Or two. Or two. Exactly. It would be hard to find a house now in Ocean Grove for under $700,000-$800,000, right . Exactly. It's just gone bananas. Soon they will all be over a million dollars. And that's just because of that desirability of a place to live. Yet there are still plenty of places out in, you know, country Victoria, away from the coast and away from the mountains that you can buy in farm country. You can buy a house for $100,000. And if you want to live close to a city or in a place that is geographically desirable from a point of view of access to the beach or parks, all those sorts of things, then, you know, you got to pay a lot of money. But there are still plenty of places to live around, you know, most of Australia that are 3 hours' drive away from a big city, there in a small country town, but there's nothing wrong with small country towns... Yeah. ...It's in fact, there's something, you know, highly desirable about small country towns. If you like the sense of community, you move into a community where everybody knows each other and they're looking out for each other. They wave at you and say, g'day, Pete, when you're walking down the street. That doesn't happen in Ocean Grove. No. You might know 1 in a 100 people, but. And even in country towns, I know I've just spent the last couple of times, or two days over the last couple of weeks travelling around central and north west Victoria of doing family history research. And I walk down the street in these little places and people wave at you and say g'day. Well, that was Lord Howe Island when we went on a trip there because it had a population of like... 350. 350 people, including the tourists or whatever. And you were like, Jesus, it's so weird when you're in a place that has such a small population. The thing I guess that that is sort of the existential crisis that I'm faced with is, you know, do you try and live somewhere like that? Which I would not have a problem with but sacrifice proximity to your family and to where you grew up. Because that's the trade-off for me at least. There are obviously plenty of places in Australia that I'd have no problem living in. But for the fact that I don't want to be 3 hours, 5 hours, 10 hours, 24 hours' drive away from my family and where I grew up and everything. So, what would you suggest? Finishing up this episode for people that are listening and who are either thinking of buying a house in Australia or are Australian citizens and have access to the kinds of help from the government. What would your suggestion be for people buying their first home? Look... I mean, it's a broad question. Yeah. Very broad. Everyone has different circumstances, but what's sort of some good advice for people thinking about that stuff? Well, I think- And we've intimated it in the conversation around the world has changed over the last 12 months in so many ways. And one of those is, you don't necessarily need proximity to work. Yeah. And depending on the type of work you're doing, you know, there's still going to be plenty of places where, you know, if you're in the service industry, you can't do that virtually. You have to actually be in a location. I'll serve you at the restaurant that's online. Online. Exactly. I'll take your order online. Just, you know, log into the app. And that's it. And robots bringing it to your table. .. That's right. So, I think that will- If you're in a work position where you don't need to be in a workplace, you can work from home, then that changes your perspective completely over where you want to live. And then you've mentioned the family issues and so on. But take all of that aside, what sort of location do you want to live in and what are you willing to compromise on? I would love to live somewhere down the Great Ocean Road with a clifftop view of the beach and things, but there is zero chance I will ever be able to afford to buy there. If I'd bought a house 40 years ago, I could have afforded it, but nobody wanted to live there, and I didn't want to live there because I was working 3 hours' drive from there and I was a schoolteacher. And you can't be- Yeah. Well, you can be a virtual school teacher these days, but certainly couldn't be 30 or 40 years ago. So, I think that's it, is what are you willing to compromise and what are you not willing to compromise? And then it comes down to price. And the other piece of advice, and I think this is no matter where you are in the world, if you- If residential property purchases is a standard and a lot of places in Europe, it's not. A lot of places in Europe, people just rent. And that's the standard thing to do, but you never think of buying a house or an apartment . But just assume that this is going to be the biggest expense of your life, but you're- You're only going to have to spend it once, because once you're in, then you're going to be able to use the equity you've got to buy another house afterwards if you need to move. And just bite the bullet and do it. Because realistically, unless something really dramatic happens, you're never going to lose money on real estate. Well, they were saying even, the woman that was checking this house out and valuing it, she was just like, I said to her, "what advice do you have for me as a first-time owner, you know, wanting to get out there and buy a house?" And she's just like, buy anywhere here, buy anywhere if it's in, you know, St Leonards, which is sort of a town that's kind of getting developed and it's further away from the surf coast at the moment and everything. ...From Geelong. She's like, you buy a house off the plan that gets built by Metricon or one of these other developers. And she's like, when it's built, it'll be worth $30,000-$40,000 more than what you paid for it. So, you could literally sell it there and make a profit, although you'll have to pay stamp duty and everything. But she was just like, just get in the door, even if it's one of the cheaper ones, just get something, get started and then move on to, you know, wherever you want to end up. So, is that one thing, too? You need to kind of try and take into account getting in as soon as possible, maybe not in the place you ultimately want to get, but just get something that you're paying off that you can then leverage later on to end up in a place that you want to be... Or you can leverage the finances you've got to renovate. We bought a very cheap house in a beautiful place, but not a residentially desirable place, when our first hou- When we bought our first house up in the hills, the mountains outside of Melbourne, and not many people want to live there. So, it's not that the property value is going to continue to go up, but I was working there, so that's where we wanted to buy. And in the end, we didn't move from that place when we needed a bigger house ... Just made the house bigger. We borrowed more money, and we doubled the size of the house with a renovation. And, you know, that's the other thing to look at is, buy somewhere where you can easily renovate if you think you're going to want to expand rather than having to sell it and buy somewhere else. And there are plenty of places where that's going to be difficult or very expensive to do... If you bought through a developer. And there are other places where it's going to be easier. Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much for the knowledge bombs, Dad. And I hope you guys... Opinion bombs, anyway. See ya. Bye. Alrighty, you mob. Thank you so much for listening to or watching this episode of The Goss'. If you would like to watch the video, if you're currently listening to it and not watching it, you can do so on the Aussie English TV channel on YouTube, this is different from the main channel. You'll be able to subscribe to that, just search "Aussie English TV" on YouTube. And if you're watching this and not listening to it, you can check this episode out also on the Aussie English podcast, which you can find via my free Aussie English podcast application on both Android and iPhone. You can download that for free or you can find it via any other good podcast app that you've got on your phone. Spotify, podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, whatever it is. I'm your host, Pete. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you have a ripper of a day and I will see you next time. Peace.
