‘FOMO; a state of mental or emotional strain caused by the fear of missing out.’
When I woke up this morning, I scrolled facebook and saw something on my news feed. I walked into the office and a colleague was talking about the same thing. I even went to the gym and there it was, up on the TV screen. No matter where I went, there was no escape from…
THE DREADED HOUSING CRISIS! (Cue the horror movie scream)
The latest person to join this hype train has been John McGrath (CEO of McGrath Estate Agents) who’s been saying that the Sydney and Melbourne housing bubble is due to burst and the best place to buy is South East Queensland.
Now that might be true (it might not), but just because something’s a good buy, does that mean you should go out and buy it?
Put it this way, say if you went to the shop to buy an apple but you looked around and spotted a cheap cucumber, do you just buy the cucumber and think, ‘well at least I’ve got some food!’
No.
Too often, when it comes to investing, we let greed, panic and #FOMO cloud our judgement. The news tells us we have to buy now! We see our peers on social media standing beside their SOLD sign, and our parents tell us, “when I was your age…blah blah blah”.
It’s hard to block out all the negativity but if we don’t, it can cause us to make poor investment decisions that are inline with somebody else’s goals, instead of our own.
Borrowing in excess half a million dollars over the next 25-30 years isn’t something to be taken lightly and if the time isn’t right, the worst thing you can do is overextend yourself.
The biggest question you should be asking yourself when looking at a property isn’t how you’re going to afford it, but why you’re doing it in the first place?
Leigh Morris – Financial Planner | Sydney Financial Planning
