Are you worried about buying the wrong property?

Not sure which market is best? Or if you're overpaying?

Worse yet…ever feel like every so-called "expert" is just trying to flog you some nonsense?

If you’ve been nodding along, then I'm glad we're on the same page.

Hey, I’m Adi.

I run Alaya Property, a buyer’s agency that helps investors make data-backed property purchases - without getting railroaded.

You see, I learned long ago that the property market is stacked against everyday investors in Australia.

→ Sales agents work for the seller, not you.

→ Shiny new builds often come with hidden kickbacks.

→ Many investors buy based on hype, not fundamentals, and then it becomes "property doesn't work".

That doesn't make any sense, considering most of the wealthy have gotten that way through property. Don’t you wonder how they did it?

The usual result? Overpriced, underperforming properties that set you back instead of setting you up.

That’s where Alaya Property comes in.

What we do:

We help investors buy smart - so they won’t be relying on the pension later.

→ We deep-dive into market trends, numbers, and long-term fundamentals, because really this is what drives prices.

→ We find underpriced properties with serious potential (not just what’s easy to sell).

→ We negotiate for you so you walk away with equity from day one

And we don’t do it alone.

We’ve got an economist on the team tracking macro trends, spotting suburb shifts before the rest of the industry catches on.

My team is also growing so we have more people on the ground.

This is the exact approach I used to build a $5M portfolio for myself - one that lets my partner & me live a life where we no longer have to worry about money.

We can help you get there too.

Want to find out if we can help you specifically? Here you go.

https://tidycal.com/3e8n2l3/30mins-discovery-call

Adi Chanda

I caught up with my Melbourne team recently.

At one point we were all just sitting around together having lunch.

Nothing particularly exciting was happening. 

My gals and guys were chatting, laughing, maybe decompressing a little after a hectic period.

And I remember taking a brief (very brief because my brain sucks) pause and thinking “damn, this is insane”.

I looked around the room at this group of people and I couldn’t help but be a little proud of what we’ve done in such a short period of time.

This incredible thing we’re building. These beautiful, thoughtful, driven humans I have the privilege to stand by while we change the lives of 100’s of Australians.

For a minute - maybe longer - I probably look stoned and out of it, but I was just sitting there taking it all in.

Because there was a time not that long ago where this was literally just me.

And now there's a shared mission with a bunch of people I would punch a small, defenceless child for.

I don’t know… the only way I can really describe it is that it feels like I’m living inside a dream I didn’t even realise I was allowed to have.

Does that make sense?

No?

Well, don’t worry about it then.

I'll help you build the kind of property portfolio that keeps the pension out of your retirement plans.

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I still get embarrassed talking about Alaya Property.

Especially with friends from before it existed.

A mate asked me the other day how many people are in the team now.

It was such a simple question.

I have 23 people across the business today.

But in that split second before I answered, I felt this weird urge to shrink the number.

I wanted to say, “Oh, well a couple are part-time,” or “some are offshore,” or add details he never asked for, just to make it sound smaller.

That moment, along with many others, has been living rent free in my head for a while.

Why did I feel the need to justify it?

Why did I feel slightly embarrassed saying the actual number out loud?

It feels easy to talk about Alaya with business friends who live in this world every day.

It feels different with friends from before all of this.

Almost like I am worried about sounding too big for my boots.

Which is ridiculous, because I am still the same not-quite-right-in-the-head person who was there before any of this existed.

I’m coming up on 2 years of running Alaya and some days it still feels like day 1.

I look forward to the day I stop apologizing for living out my purpose.

Apparently not everyone’s happy about your progress.

And I’m still trying to come to terms with the whole thing 🥺

Abundance - I’m learning - is also about how I respond to situations where I feel burned.

Life is such a weird thing to navigate.

Why’s there no user manual for this shit? Lol

I’ve had to unlearn some silly shit over the last 2 years.

The biggest one is that resumes mean something.

Running a business has a funny way of stripping away the safety nets I had in corporate life, and hiring good humans who are exceptional is where I’ve been tested the most.

Suddenly there’s nowhere to hide behind the process or brand or “well, they looked good on paper.”

Truth be told, I’m still not great at this because I can’t seem to trust my instincts.

Every single time, the pattern’s been identical.

Something just felt a little off.

And instead of trusting that, I talked myself out of it because the resume was looking goooddd and the answers were on point.

I think it’s one of those “rite of passage” things all business owners eventually need to go through.

If you’ve spent years dealing with people bullshitting you, you’ve probably developed a pretty sharp internal filter without realising it. 

Corporate systems teach us to ignore that and chase credentials instead, and that’s how you end up rewarding asshole behaviour over character.

I’m learning the hard way that it’s far easier to train decent humans to be exceptional than it is to untrain highly skilled people to not be shitty.

So if you’re doubting yourself, here’s the lesson I keep relearning the hard way - trust that inner voice, my friend.

Even though you can’t describe it fully, it’s there to keep you “safe”.

This business stuff is so hard man lol

You know what genuinely fills my cup?

Spending time with people who are obsessed with improving.

Because they genuinely want to get better.

When I stepped into this role ~2 years ago, I had very little idea what I was doing. 

I was basically figuring out how to survive in business without looking like a complete muppet.

And slowly, bit by bit, I learned.

But there was one thing I refused to compromise on:

Improvement.

That’s not something that came naturally to me, to be honest, having coasted most of my life.

But I made a decision that if my role in the world was going to involve taking people’s hard-earned money in exchange for a service, then that service had to keep getting better.

Consistently.

Daily, weekly, monthly - all of it.

As the business grew beyond just me, that became part of how we operate as a team.

We’ve built weekly rituals around it because getting better takes deliberate and intentional effort.

This photo was after a 2.5 hour strategy session with Miguel, Nathan, Aditya (yes there’s a 2.0 version of me now - rude!)  - and me.

The whole conversation kept circling back to one main idea:

“Let’s get so good at what we do that when someone has to choose who to work with, it’s not even a question anymore”.

That kind of commitment genuinely fills my cup.

And I love that I get to build with people like that.

Yanowhatimean?

You know most of the time when I tell myself I’m unhappy, it’s not happiness I’m missing. 

It’s the icky feeling I get when I can’t control something.

Just dumb stuff.

I’ve put on 6kgs since I got to my folks' place 17mims ago.

Always a fun time  being fed like you’re 4 with the metabolism of an 80 year old.

Anyways, house & land packages - no es bueno.

I make a very deliberate effort to “acknowledge” my team.

I give positive feedback publicly, and give developmental ones privately.

Works a treat (I think).

Redom & I recently sat down with my guy, Simran.

You know what I love more than anything?

Connecting with other humans who’re also on a mission to live their purpose which happens to revolve around making a bigger impact.

Appreciate the chat sir.

Here we both are uncomfortably smiling for a reason I don’t remember.

Ps - The episode will be out next week on the Australian Property Talk YouTube channel 💃🏽

I truly truly believe not all of us are cut out for buying - and more importantly - holding property.

I just spent $4,300 fixing the shower at one of my units. This is not a fun job.

To have 20+ people connect to a singular mission and ensuring they all behave in a way that is consistent with a set of values - takes a HUGE amount of effort.

I don’t think people fully appreciate that 🤔

This brother paid his fee within 23mins of the invoice being sent to him.

Who do I need to pray to guarantee that we only get these clients from now on?

A glimpse into how we run Alaya Property .

It’s how I know we’ll be here for a really long time.

About a week or so ago, one of my guys reached out to some team  members to get some help with a prospect.

He’d bought a property in Melbourne in 2021 and was disappointed that it had done so poorly in the past 5 years.

He never asked us why that was the case - he just lived (angrily) with the “knowledge” that the market just sucks.

Now, here’s the part that makes me incredibly proud.

My team member, instead of trying to show him how we could “save him with his next property” did something simple, yet impactful.

He asked us to use our research & technical skills to put together a “why did this property not pan out the way he’d hoped” for this prospect.

Collectively it took us ~30’ish minutes to put together a:

➝ a comparable analysis report that showed him similar sales in the area and give him a broader picture

➝ a deepdive into the suburb to explain with data why the property had underperformed (bought at the wrong time, at the completely wrong price basically)

➝ a narrative to help explain the whole thing in really simple terms.

Sure, there’s a technical prowess to this - and I’m incredibly proud of how good we are at the whole thing.

But it’s the culture piece that makes me really proud.

Because the immediate reaction to this situation was to arm this person with more knowledge than he expected, rather than force our service down his throat.

Our mission here revolves around creating impact through education as much as acquisitions.

And the best part in all of this?

I have dozens of other examples just like this.

I love my job.

Ps - Akshana & Ashan - I’m so incredibly proud of you, gents.

You know when you know if your BA is worth their $?

See how they act when things get messy with a deal.

A client came to us already owning an investment property and looking to build a portfolio.

Don’t we all, sir.

He’d worked with another buyers agency previously and while the start of that journey was solid, over time the “strategy” conversations faded and the follow-through just didn’t match the promises.

So when he joined us the brief was refreshingly simple.

“For the love of all of the gods, please just be who you say you are.”

No theatrics and big promises.

No disappearing after settlement.

Just clear strategy, honest advice, and people who actually have your back when things get a little complicated.

We eventually found a property that already looked strong on paper.

Solid fundamentals, good tenant profile, and already heavily discounted compared to nearby sales.

Then the building and pest report landed and ruined a perfectly good time.

Enough grey areas that the deal needed proper navigation rather than someone blindly pushing it across the finish line.

This is where the lads - Sam & Ricky - started working through the details with the client, breaking down what actually mattered versus what inspectors sometimes flag just to protect themselves.

The silly part?

We’d bought the property really well already.

But after working through the inspection findings, Ricky somehow managed to negotiate an additional discount anyway.

The client summed it up perfectly in his review:

“The guys have your back throughout the process and help navigate tricky elements. They even negotiated a nice discount on a property that was already heavily discounted after the b&p.”

That line - *they have your back* - is the entire job, I feel.

Finding properties is the easy part.

You earn your keen when the deal gets messy, the Q’s get harder, and someone needs to calmly work through the moving parts without losing sight of the strategy.

Samuel and Ricky Dicky for the win, indeed.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

If a $30k holding cost is killing your soul.

Then you’re in the wrong market, my silly friend.

I set myself goals I’ll probably not be able to hit.

That way I’m forced to become a different version of myself rather than staying exactly where I’ve always been.

We don’t gatekeep at Alaya Property.

That includes the way I do things inside of our company.

Man you know what’s a sucky thing to learn about yourself?

That you’re kind of just like everybody else - always chasing the next thing.

The growth that we’ve seen at Alaya Property hasn’t exactly made me feel “ahh this is noice, I can kind of cruise now and live a cute life with my partner”.

It’s been more like “that’s nice, what else can we do now?”

I was naive enough to genuinely believe that once I hit a milestone, I would feel settled.

I do not.

Despite the ridiculosity of 2025, my 2026 plans are just a bigger version of it. No doubt 2027 will be the same.

What I didn’t see coming was how quickly each “win” would become normal.

You hit one number and your brain immediately starts calculating the next. 

You grow the business and start thinking about scale. You achieve something you once obsessed over and within weeks it feels like the new baseline.

The goalposts just keep farking moving.

And the version of you who sacrificed sleep, health, and time to get there does not magically transform when you get there.

If you neglected your body on the way up, there’s a good chance you’ll keep neglecting it.

I am deeply ambitious and I love building things, but I am starting to question the quiet assumption that more will somehow fix what discipline and presence are meant to handle.

If you make yourself miserable on the journey, the destination will not rescue you.

At some point you have to ask whether you actually like the person you are becoming while you chase what you want.

I still don’t have an answer to that one yet.

Buyer's First Agency

Buyers Agent

Self Employed

Construction Specialist

Alpine MDF Industries Pty Ltd

Construction Supervisor

Buyer's Agent | Data-Driven Deal Hunter | No-fluff Wealth Builder

I got into property over a decade ago, not by accident, but because I was hungry to build real wealth.
Since then, I’ve tried (and succeeded with) just about every strategy under the sun: renos, subdivisions, dual occs, buy and holds, you name it.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but every deal taught me something.
Now? I use that experience to help my clients sidestep the rookie mistakes and fast-track the kind of portfolio that actually gets them somewhere.

At Buyer’s First Agency, we do things a little differently:
We don’t follow hype. We follow data.
We don’t play nice in negotiations. We play to win.
We don’t push one-size-fits-all strategies. We build a game plan that works for you.

-> We track vacancy rates, inventory, stock levels, and growth cycles like nerds on a mission.
-> We buy in high-performing markets before they make headlines.
-> And if a deal doesn’t stack up? We’ll tell you. Loudly. (And with a raised eyebrow.)

This isn’t about flipping for fast cash.
It’s about smart, sustainable investing, guided by experience, driven by data, and backed by the best negotiation in the game. 

If you’re ready to stop guessing and start growing, shoot me a message.
Let’s build something worth bragging about.

Dan White

Granny flat chat. 

This one always starts a debate.
Some people swear by them. Others think they’re a mistake.

I sit somewhere in the middle.

On one hand, they can be a great tool. If you’re holding a heavily negatively geared property, that extra rent can make a big difference. It can ease the pressure on your cash flow and, in some cases, help you keep pushing forward with your portfolio instead of tapping out early.
From a pure numbers perspective, more income is rarely a bad thing.

But there’s a flip side.

You are giving up backyard space. And in a lot of markets, especially ones driven by owner occupiers, that big backyard is part of the appeal. If your plan is to sell in the short term, you will be narrowing your buyer pool.

That’s why I think this is a strategy decision, not a blanket yes or no.

If you’re planning to hold the property long term, say 10 years or more, it can make a lot more sense. Especially if you go down the path of a transportable granny flat.

Let’s say you spend around $200,000+ putting one in. Over a decade, building costs rise, inflation does its thing, and replacement costs increase. During that time, you’ve been collecting extra rent, which helps your serviceability and potentially allows you to scale further.

At the end of that hold period, there is actually a market for second hand granny flats. You might not get every dollar back, but you could recover a solid chunk of what you paid while having benefited from the cash flow the entire time which allows you to purchase more assets.
That’s not a bad outcome.

Like most things in property, it really comes down to your plan, your timeframe and your tolerance for risk.

There isn’t one right answer.
I’m genuinely curious though. Are you for them, against them? Give me your reason why!

Buying properties like a tightarse, So you don’t have to.

Success gets measured in strange ways on here.

Revenue screenshots, car photos and watches that cost more than a house deposit.
That’s never really been my thing, I live a pretty unexciting life.

I dont have a fancy car or a designer watch. The one I wear looks like it’s survived a small explosion. I’ve replaced the band three times. If it still tells the time, it stays.

That’s how I’ve always lived.
If it works, don’t replace it.
If it matters, protect it.

Before I had kids, I was clear on one thing. I didn’t want to build a business that owned me. I wanted to be at the school stuff and the random assemblies. The small moments you don’t get back.

All the revenue in the world will never buy back time with your family. It won’t buy back missed dinners or bedtimes. The weekends you said you were “too busy.”
Money is useful. It gives you options and it reduces stress.
But it doesn’t give you time.

When you’re genuinely happy in your own life, you show up differently for others.
I’m not burnt out and I’m not resentful. 
I’m present.
Which means when I’m on a call with a client, they get my full attention. When I’m reviewing a deal, I’m not rushing to squeeze in three more. When we’re mapping out a strategy, I’m thinking long term, not just about this quarter.
That energy matters.

If I was building this business purely for money, I’d probably structure it very differently. 
But that’s not what I want.

I want to do good work for people I actually care about. I want to be sharp, focused and clear headed when it matters most.

And the reason I can do that is because I’m fulfilled outside of it.
So in a strange way, prioritising my family and my own happiness doesn’t take away from my clients.
It improves their outcomes.

One of the shitty parts of this job is having conversations that people don’t really want to hear.

Last year I helped a client buy an investment property. At the time, they already owned three units they’d picked up over the previous ten years. Those units had basically done nothing. No real growth, they just sat there.

The property we bought together last year has gone up by over $80,000 in six months.
They’re stoked and rightly so.

But when we laid everything out side by side, that one purchase had outperformed their entire existing portfolio. Ten years of building and holding three properties, and one well-bought asset eclipsed all of it.

So they made the call. It’s time to offload the units and move that capital into assets that actually perform.

They asked me who they should use to sell. I’ve got contacts in the area, so I organised two separate appraisals on one of the units. They bought it four years ago for $585,000 and at the very least just wanted to break even.

Both appraisals came back at $520,000.
On top of that, both agents told me the same thing. Sell now. There’s a large development being approved to be built right next door. An already oversupplied pocket is about to get even more stock dumped into it.

Oversupplied, cookie-cutter unit markets can look fine. Good rental yield, low maintenance and easy to buy. But when supply keeps increasing and demand doesn’t match it, prices stall. Sometimes they go backwards, case in point.

This is why I talk about supply and demand so much. It’s not because I like hearing myself talk. It’s because this is how people end up going sideways for a decade without realising it.

Are there unit markets that make sense?
Absolutely.

But not all units are equal and not all markets are healthy. 

Sometimes part of this gig is helping someone accept a loss so they can reposition and move forward properly.

Before making a move you need to understand what you’re buying and why you’re buying it before you sign anything.

Unwinding a poor decision is always harder than making a smart one upfront.

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The Battle

Adi Chanda

Dan White

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The Battle

Adi Chanda

Dan White

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Adi Chanda's LinkedIn Performance

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