Analysis in the property market is so important, especially when the market is in a state of flux.

You have to be aware of what has happened in previous cycles to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

Speaking at the University of the Sunshine Coast recently, Jeff Southwell of property valuers Herron Todd White put it into perspective by reliving some of his experiences.

In 1972 he decided to get involved in property. Then came the bust of 1974 with such companies as Cambridge Credit and Mainline Building going under.

The industry virtually collapsed.

I can remember a barbecue we threw in the early ’80s and of the 10-12 people there who were involved in the property and the building industry only one had full-time work.

As for Jeff Southwell, he had just started working as a valuer for AMP when the resource boom crashed.

He was asked to value a 50-storey building in Sydney .... that did not have one tenant.

It was a time of Packer, Skase and Bond with even Murdoch having investments on the Sunshine Coast.

Then we experienced the Recession We Had To Have which led into the ’90s.

That decade brought a bit of a run in the property market then another crash.

Prices on the Sunshine Coast remained steady for years due to over-building by developers.

A lot of builders were caught out financially because of too many spec homes.

Then came GST and the First Home Buyer’s Grant was brought in to help dig the industry out of the hole that GST created.

In turn, the FHBG created its own problems by inflating house prices.

So the 2000s – or the noughties – has been a bit of a godsend for people in the property market. Yet many have not known what the Sunshine Coast has been through.

“If you are in a rising market and you get a few estimates wrong, you will still be OK,” Jeff Southwell said.

“Yet in this market, you have to understand what are the sensitivities … rising interest rates, rising costs, a slowing of sales. Get those wrong and it will cost. We are in a flux period, and that very much depends on interest rate rises.”

Speaking at the same seminar, Investa’s Michael Hopkins said the thing he had learned after his years in property development was that whatever you do in property, it’s harder, it takes longer and it’s costlier than you think.

Persistence pays. You do not make money in the property industry quickly.

Yet isn’t that like life in general?