Chris and I talk about asset quality more than almost anything else on this podcast. The property you buy today is the foundation everything else gets built on, so getting it right really matters.

So I sat down with someone who does this for a living. Meighan Wells is a buyers agent and the founder of Property Pursuit in Brisbane. She's been recognised as the REIQ's Buyers Agent of the Year and has spent more than 22 years helping people buy well, after starting out on the selling side. She also co-hosts the Your First Home Buyer Guide podcast with Veronica Morgan, and together they built the First Home Buyer Course through the Home Buyer Academy.

What follows is essentially how a buyers agent works through a property. Zoom out first, then work your way in.

In this resource we're covering:

🔑 Why asset quality matters more for first home buyers than anyone else

🔑 What scarcity, supply and demand actually mean when you're assessing a property

🔑 What to look for at a suburb level before you start scrolling the apps

🔑 What to check at a street level before you book an inspection

🔑 How to assess the property itself, and what can never be fixed later

🔑 What makes a good quality apartment or townhouse in Australia

🔑 The mistakes first home buyers make most often, and how to avoid them

This resource supports Episode 42 of the First Home Unlocked Podcast.

The Key Takeaway 🔑

A quality first home is one that's hard to replace and easy for the next owner-occupier to want. That means scarcity in the suburb and the street, a functional floor plan, good natural light and aspect, and privacy. Kitchens and paint can be changed later. Location, orientation, layout and land cannot. Start with your real borrowing capacity, then work down from suburb, to street, to property.

Now let's get into the detail.

Why Does Asset Quality Matter So Much for First Home Buyers?

Because your first home isn't just somewhere to live, it's the foundation of your future wealth, and you usually only get one shot at getting it right.

Capital growth matters even when you're buying a home rather than an investment. That growth might become the deposit for your next place, or the equity you access later, or simply the security of knowing your biggest asset is working for you.

The flip side is the part people underestimate. Buy a poor quality asset that underperforms and you can lose years. You're still in the market, which feels good, but you're not moving forward at the same pace as everything around you. When you go to upgrade, the market has outpaced you.

"Don't just think about buying a property, think about buying the right property." - Meighan Wells

What Do Scarcity, Supply and Demand Actually Mean in Property?

Scarcity means there isn't much of something, and the best performing properties are usually the ones that are hard to replace.

That might be a character home in a tightly held street where nothing else can be built, a boutique apartment in a complex of six or eight, or a townhouse with a courtyard that's uncommon for the area. The common thread is that you couldn't easily create more of them nearby.

Scarcity on its own isn't enough though. The property also needs future owner-occupier appeal, because that's where the competition comes from. Limited supply plus lots of buyers who want that type of property is what drives growth.

There's a phrase we use on the show that sums it up: if it's hard to buy, it's usually easy to sell. Meighan puts the same idea in reverse. Where there are hundreds of the same thing available, the only reliable way to sell is to be the cheapest.

Where Should You Start Your Property Search? Strategy Before You Scroll

Start with strategy, not with the property. It's less fun than opening the apps, but it shapes everything after it.

That means asking some hard questions first. Where do you want to be in five or ten years? Is this a stepping stone or somewhere you'll stay? Might you partner up, have children, travel, or turn this place into an investment later? Those answers change what a good property looks like for you.

This is the part that I can help with. Before you look at a single listing, you need to know your actual borrowing capacity and your comfort limit, which are two different numbers. A calculator on a bank or portal website won't get you there, because there are too many variables in how a lender assesses you to capture in a few boxes. There's no point shopping in the wrong price range.

The Three Ps: Position, Property and Price

Once you know your numbers, you can work backwards into the suburbs and property types that actually fit. Meighan and Veronica call this the three Ps, and it works as a trade-off framework. If your price is fixed, then something between the position and the property has to give.

It's also a very good conversation starter if you're buying with someone else. You'll quickly find out that one of you would happily take a unit in a particular suburb and the other absolutely would not, which saves you months of looking in the wrong place.

Once you have a good understanding of your comfortable price range, that’s when you can start looking at properties with confidence. That doesn’t start at the property itself though, this starts with an out to in approach. Starting with the suburb.

What Should You Look For at a Suburb Level?

Look for strong owner-occupier demand first. You want to be selling to a future owner-occupier one day, and that's where your growth potential comes from. An area dominated by investors doesn't give you the same buyer pool.

From there, Meighan looks at:

Lifestyle appeal. Cafes, parks, transport, employment and schools. You might not have children now, but your future buyer might.
How much land is left to develop. More available land means more potential supply.
Zoning and planning changes. Anything that could increase density or change the character of the area.
Oversupply or undersupply risk. Undersupply can be positive for prices. Oversupply is the opposite.
Demographic trends. Who lives there, and is the area becoming more desirable over time?

You're not just buying a home, you're buying into the suburb's future.

What Should You Check at a Street Level?

The street can make or break a property, and it's not just the street itself. It's which side of it you're on and where you sit along it.

Flood risk comes first. At Property Pursuit it's the very first check, before anything else gets assessed.

"We don't even bother looking at anything else until we've done that first piece of elimination." - Meighan Wells‍ ‍

After that the list is practical. Is it a busy road, and where is noise coming from? What's the topography, because a home elevated above a highway catches far more noise than one sitting below it. Is the street steep, is parking a problem, are there overhead power lines? Are there commercial or industrial properties nearby bringing smells, noise or after-hours activity? Could the houses around you be replaced by higher density?

Then there's street appeal and the quality of the surrounding homes. Being the best house in a street of neglected ones isn't the position you want, for growth or for living there.

The most useful tip here is the simplest. Visit the street at different times of day. A street that's quiet at 11am on a Saturday can be completely different on a Tuesday near a school pickup zone, or during peak hour.

How Do You Assess the Property Itself?

Separate what can be changed from what can't. That single distinction does most of the work.

"Separate the prettiness from the bones." - Meighan Wells

Paint, kitchens and bathrooms can all be changed. There's a cost, but it can be done. Location, orientation, the layout and flow of the floor plan, natural light, privacy, room proportions and the land the property sits on cannot. You can't turn a house around on its block.

What Makes a Floor Plan Functional?

Generally, the living areas sit together, the bedrooms and bathrooms sit together, and the living spaces spill out to the outdoor area.

Meighan has seen plenty of homes where the living area is at the front and you have to walk through a bedroom to reach the backyard. Being told you can go around through the laundry door doesn't fix it. That's not how people live, and your future buyer will feel the same way.

Light, Ventilation, Storage and Privacy

A few things worth doing at an inspection that most first home buyers don't think to do:

Turn the lights off. If every light is on in the middle of the day, you can't judge the natural light.
Open the windows and doors. Check whether they line up in a way that creates cross-ventilation.
Look for real storage. Cupboards, drawers, linen space, and whether the laundry is functional and where it sits.
Step outside and look back. A property can look beautiful online, then you walk onto the deck and there's a block of units looking straight into your entertaining area.

Meighan shared a good example of how this stacks up. A student was weighing up three similar two bedroom apartments. Two looked directly at other complexes. The third looked out at green space that couldn't be built on, and only a handful of apartments in the building had that outlook. That one had scarcity, privacy and a feature nobody could replicate.

Structural condition matters too. Your building and pest inspector is the expert here, and their job is to tell you whether what they've found is a cheap fix or a serious one.

What Aspect and Orientation Should You Look For?

In most of Australia, north or north-east facing is the ideal, because it gives you good natural light through winter while helping manage heat through summer.

Good orientation improves natural light, helps with cross-ventilation and improves energy efficiency, which can show up in your power bills. But the biggest thing it affects is liveability. Meighan lived in a west-facing home in Brisbane for eleven years and the back deck was hard to use between about 1pm and 4pm, no matter what she tried. It was colder in winter too.

Down south the calculation changes. A south-facing aspect in Melbourne can be genuinely cold and dark through winter, so think carefully about how that would feel to live in.

Elevation and a good aspect both attract a premium, which brings you back to priorities and compromises. Some buyers accept a more modest property to secure a great position, because the property can be improved later and the position can't.

What Makes a Good Quality Apartment?

If you are looking at specific property types, this section is for you.

Apartments can make an excellent first home if you choose carefully. Meighan looks for a boutique complex, smaller in overall size, in an area where there's low risk of a lot more being built nearby.

Beyond that: larger floor plans, good natural light (a corner apartment often does well here), good cross-ventilation, and a functional layout where you're not walking straight into the kitchen. Body corporate costs should be reasonable, though there's no magic number. You have to research what's normal for the area and what those fees cover.

The single biggest risk is buying one of hundreds of near-identical apartments. Meighan calls these cookie cutters. Where lots of the same thing can be for sale at once, you have no scarcity and plenty of supply.

Are Townhouses a Better Option Than Apartments?

Meighan describes townhouses as the sweet spot, the in-between option, though not automatically and not everywhere.

You generally get a bit more land content, a courtyard rather than just a balcony, and fewer neighbours because you're not stacked on top of each other. That usually means better privacy, and townhouses tend to have stronger owner-occupier appeal than apartments, particularly with young families.

The quality rule still applies. As Meighan put it, she'd rather buy one good quality townhouse in a boutique complex than a cheaper house in a large estate where everything's the same and the supply is endless.

How Do You Choose Between an Apartment, a Townhouse and a House?

Start with your goals and your budget, then use the three Ps to work through the trade-offs.

At Property Pursuit they'll sometimes run a three-pronged search at once. In a premium suburb an apartment might be an acceptable compromise to get into that location. In a middle ring suburb, a townhouse might be the right call. Further out, a house comes into range. Same budget, three different combinations of position and property.

A quality townhouse five kilometres from the city can outperform a house thirty kilometres out if demand is stronger and supply is tighter. There isn't one correct answer, there's a process, and you'll refine it as you get out and inspect. Changing your mind partway through is normal, and it's actually step five in the Home Buyer Academy's ten step process: revise and correct.

What About New Builds?

New builds have a place, and the government incentives attached to them can make them attractive. Some buyers simply prefer somewhere nobody has lived before.

The mistake is assuming new automatically means good quality or trouble free. New doesn't equal quality, and you still need to assess the location, the land value, future supply and the underlying fundamentals.

Meighan's preference is infill development in established areas, where a single house has been replaced with two, or a few homes have made way for a small boutique complex. In those cases the supply of land isn't increasing.

The caution is greenfield estates. If you buy where more land is still to be released and more stages are planned, ask the key question: who is my future buyer? A twelve year old house surrounded by other twelve year old houses, with newer subdivisions nearby and fresh product still being built, is a harder sell.

What Mistakes Do First Home Buyers Make Most Often When Looking For Properties?

The big one is falling in love with how a property looks or feels, and letting that override the assessment. You do have to like the home you buy. But you also have to engage the logical part of your brain, because agents are trained in presentation and styling and it works.

The other recurring mistakes:

Overvaluing renovated finishes rather than what actually matters, like layout, room dimensions, aspect and ventilation.
Ignoring location problems because you really like the house.
Underestimating future oversupply. Meighan pointed to Nundah in Brisbane, where rezoning around a transit hub led to a wave of very similar apartments in a short period, and some owners ended up in negative equity.
Buying cheap rather than buying good value. Veronica could have afforded a two bedroom apartment when she bought her first place, but a one bedroom felt safer because it cost less. She outgrew it quickly.
Rushing because you're afraid of missing out. Fear makes for poor decisions.

"It is about being comfortably uncomfortable sometimes." - Meighan Wells

Is Any Property Better Than No Property?

You'll hear this advice a lot, and Meighan doesn't agree with it.

She understands where it comes from. Time in the market genuinely matters, because capital growth compounds over the years you hold. But every property is not equal, and buying the wrong asset can be expensive and very difficult to recover from.

Her preference is that a buyer slightly adjusts their expectations, whether that's on finishes, size or property type, and buys a higher quality asset, rather than stretching into a poor quality one simply because it's available.

Final Thoughts

The theme running through this whole conversation is fundamentals. Love the home you buy, but assess it with a logical brain and look honestly at the things you don't love as well as the things you do.

Your first home is unlikely to be your forever home, so match your thinking to how long you'll actually be there. Meighan made the point that she once chose a property with children in mind, in a place they only lived for two years before it became an investment. She was making decisions for the wrong life stage.

Focus less on what's fashionable today and more on what buyers have always wanted, and think about who your future owner-occupier is, even if that's someone quite different to you.

If this has you thinking about your own plans, the best place to start is getting the finance side sorted, because that's what turns all of this from theory into a real shortlist. You can book a Get to Know You Chat with me. I'm a mortgage broker and I work with first home buyers every day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Asset quality describes how well a property is likely to hold and grow its value over time. It comes down to scarcity, whether more of the same can be built nearby, and future owner-occupier appeal. A quality asset is hard to replace and easy for the next buyer to want, regardless of how it's presented today.
Work from the outside in. Start with a suburb that has strong owner-occupier demand and limited room for new supply. Then assess the street, including flood risk, noise and surrounding homes. Then the property itself: floor plan, natural light, aspect, storage and privacy. Cosmetic finishes come last.
An apartment can be an excellent first home if you choose carefully. Look for boutique complexes rather than large high-density buildings, larger floor plans, good natural light and cross-ventilation, a functional layout and reasonable body corporate fees. The biggest risk is buying one of hundreds of near-identical apartments, because that removes any scarcity.
Townhouses often sit in the sweet spot between apartments and houses. You usually get more land content, a courtyard instead of a balcony, fewer immediate neighbours and better privacy, plus stronger appeal to young families. But a large estate of identical townhouses has the same oversupply problem as a high-density apartment block.
North or north-east facing is generally considered ideal, because it brings good natural light through winter while helping manage heat in summer. A west-facing rear can be very hot through summer afternoons and darker in winter. In the southern states, a south-facing aspect can feel particularly cold and dark through the colder months.
Time in the market does matter, because capital growth compounds over the years you hold a property. But not every property performs, and a poor quality asset can be expensive and difficult to recover from. It's usually better to adjust your expectations on size or finishes and buy a better quality property.

How to Choose a Quality First Home: A Buyers Agent's Checklist