You’ve planned out the clients strategy and it’s time to create their purchasing brief! It’s key that we get all the information right for the purchasing brief, as the acquisition team solely rely on this information to find the right property for your clients. The clearer and more accurate you can be with the brief, the higher likelihood that the client says yes to the property presented to them!
What is a client brief?
A client brief is a detailed summary outlining a client’s specific requirements and preferences for purchasing a property that is required for their portfolio. The brief contains all the relevant quantitative and qualitative information such as the location, budget, yield. This brief serves as a foundation for aligning the property search efforts with the client’s needs to ensure a focused and efficient property acquisition process.
Example screenshot of what the brief details look like on Attio
How are briefs used by the acquisition team?
Our brief allocation process efficiently matches properties with the right clients. The acquisition team reviews briefs, assesses urgency, and makes informed property selections within Attio.
Each member of the acquisition team manages their own pipeline of briefs, which we create as strategists. Since they specialise in specific buying locations, they can easily view all clients needing properties, with the specifics in the brief details.
Here's an ideal scenario: We have an excellent strategy session with a client and outline their plan. After creating their purchasing brief and discussing exact property requirements, we begin the search. Within weeks, we present their first property - one that checks all their boxes. It's in an approved location they like, fits their budget, meets their yield requirements for lending, and includes all their specified details. The client is thrilled, feeling heard and confident in our team's connectivity.
This ideal outcome only happens when we create a precise purchasing brief for the acquisition team to find the right property. Getting these details right is crucial—if clients feel we haven't listened and we present a property that misses their requirements, they'll be deeply disappointed.
It’s important to do this right after your call to avoid forgetting.
Creating a strong property acquisition brief
You'll typically create the brief while planning initial purchase numbers. The Attio brief section provides multiple fields to help the acquisition team match properties precisely to clients' needs.
Creating a detailed brief is essential. The clearer and more specific you are about client requirements, the easier it becomes for the acquisition team to find their ideal property.
Below are the details to collect:
- Purchase Type - This is the entity which the client is purchasing the property in
- Locations - Clients often have concerns about different locations, from capital cities versus regional areas to weather risks, unfamiliar markets, and population sizes. It's essential to identify which factors truly impact investment outcomes and which don't, then tactfully discuss any locations clients might initially dismiss.
- Land tax considerations can be valid when excluding certain locations, though we generally avoid making it a primary factor as we aim to diversify portfolios. Remember to check land tax thresholds for both personal names and different structures, and consider whether clients purchasing with a partner can split land tax obligations.
- Min Price - Some clients have a minimum purchase price in mind. While it's best to ask them directly, if they don't specify, you can typically set this at 100k-250k below their Max Price.
- Max Price - The maximum purchase price the client can afford or is willing to spend. This is typically limited by either borrowing capacity or deposit amount. If deposit is the limiting factor, discuss the option of 88% LVR with LMI if the client is open to it.
- Clients often have psychological barriers around maximum purchase prices, but breaking down the numbers can show these concerns are usually overstated.
- For example, when comparing a $200k increase in budget (based on 4.5% yield, $100k income, 80% LVR, 6.5% interest rate):
- The difference is just $1,500 per year ($30 per week) in cashflow, while providing an upside of $10,000 in capital growth at 5% growth
- Yield (%) - The minimum required yield for this purchase brief. This requirement typically comes from the client rather than the broker. It's important to challenge clients if they request yields higher than what's available in our target markets, as they could miss out on excellent opportunities over a small cash flow difference.
- The cash flow calculator is a valuable tool for demonstrating this point.
- For perspective, a 0.5% difference in yield only amounts to about $35 per week after tax (based on a $600k property, $100k income, 80% LVR, and 6.5% interest rate).
- Renovation Potential - This indicates whether clients are willing to undertake minor renovations that our team and property manager would oversee. Some clients prefer properties needing no work, while others are open to improvements. This is a simple Yes/No field.
- Renovation Potential Max Budget - The maximum the client would spend on a renovation
- Goals - An extremely important field for the PAAs to understand the goal for this specific purchase. This can be equity, cashflow, diversification, etc. and helps them connect with the client on why this purchase is right for their portfolio
- Additional notes - This field is to capture any additional notes that doesn’t fit in the above fields. We only want to capture additional requirements, not preferences as this causes more confusion.
- Finance Status - A field to note if clients can proceed without a finance clause. A great negotiation tool for the PAAs!
- Important to note, if they are going without a finance clause that we explain all the risks of going without a finance clause. They should be speaking to a broker, if they don’t have cash to pay outright.
- Development potential - This field indicates whether clients specifically want properties with development potential. While we communicate to clients that we cannot guarantee development approval, we capture this requirement if they specify it. Default should be ‘No’
- Agreement Status - This field is to capture the status of the agreement, searching, paused, etc.
- Date: Search Started - This is where you enter the date the search has commenced, so we can track how long the client has been searching for
- Pause Notes - Not for creating briefs, but a field so we know why a client has been paused
Tips and tricks
Tailoring brief locations
When discussing locations with clients, use this framework to keep options open while tailoring to their needs:
- First, identify exclusions: locations outside the budget range and areas where they already own property, to maintain portfolio diversity
- Next, explore promising market categories that align with their strategy, and delve into their potential and why they make sense for them
- Keep locations open rather than isolating one specific location in a category
Let the client's preferences guide your approach, but you should still be the one guiding rather than taking their lead.
If they strongly prefer capital cities, challenge, but if it’s what they want and their budget allows, then we can go with it while flagging with them the implications.
For undecided clients, you can share research showing that regional markets can perform just as well as capital cities, and explain how focusing on market data rather than location type often leads to better outcomes.
Strike a balance between encouraging clients to consider new possibilities while respecting their strong preferences if they won’t budge on them.
Using brief requirements to open discussion
These fields for the brief serve as conversation starters to discuss preferences with clients while respectfully challenging any requirements that might make the brief difficult to fulfil.
Consider property condition as an example: If a client wants a property needing few repairs, explore their reasoning and explain the potential benefits of minor improvements. For instance, you might say: "I understand you'd prefer a property that doesn't need work, but what if we found one where improvements could increase its value? Say we purchase a property for $500k, invest $10k in painting, and increase its value to $520k. Would you consider small cosmetic renovations if we managed the project for you and you gained that equity?"
This approach allows you to create a brief matching their preferences while helping them understand how certain requirements might limit their options.
Opening Clients up to a New/Unknown Market:
When introducing a new market to a client mid-search, the conversation should acknowledge any extended timeframes, reinforce confidence through data, and offer the new market as a new aligned opportunity — not a compromise.
Suggested Framing:
We’ve been searching diligently in your preferred locations, and while we’re still within our expected timelines, things have been taking a little longer than usual — stock levels are tighter and good-quality properties are hard to come by, and that’s totally normal. That said, we’ve recently seen some really interesting signals in the data for the new location we’re now buying in.
- Link back to their brief goals — affordability, cash flow, capital growth, etc.
We’re seeing some very exciting things with this location, and I think it’s something we should seriously consider opening up to. We can absolutely continue searching in your original areas, but adding this location increases our chances to find a strong asset that aligns well with what we’re looking for. Are you happy for us to explore this and have a few more options to flow through? And look there’s no pressure, but it’s my job to make sure you’re updated with the data and trends because this is what we do every day.
Common Objections to Prepare For:
- “I haven’t heard of it before” → Use data to build confidence in trends we’re seeing, and other smaller locations that have done well
- “It’s too far/regional/small” → Educate around population growth and lack of correlation to growth, strong economy and infrastructure
- “Will it be hard to sell later?” → Discuss relative supply and demand
Opening clients up to lower budget and renovation properties:
Clients can often be a bit hesitant with older properties and think that newer properties are best. But usually they need some explanation and framing around the upside of these opportunities.
Suggested Framing:
So we’re focusing on properties in the $X budget range in these locations. At that level, we’re targeting assets that are structurally solid, on good land sizes, and aligned with your brief — but they’ll often be more original in condition.
Now, I want to set expectations here — when you see the nice, modern brick veneer homes with four bedrooms and big facades, that’s not what this budget typically buys in this area. But let me show you a few real examples of what is common.
Action: Show listing examples – ideally one standard original, and one slightly better or worse*
This one here is a really great asset — it’s a three-bed home, rentable from day one, sitting on a strong land size, and in a solid location. Not fancy, but functional — and that’s what makes it such a good investor-grade purchase.
There are some variations too, in some cases we might find slightly smaller land but nicer condition, or the reverse. Either way, the foundations of being a great investment is there.
Now, if we did need to make a few cosmetic upgrades — say $10K to $20K on paint, flooring, or minor fixes, that’s something we’d help coordinate with the property manager. We’ve done plenty of these and know how to keep it efficient and hands-off for you.
And what that opens up is huge, we can go from properties we’d normally pass on, to one that could be exactly what you’re after, especially when off-markets or underpriced deals come up.
So if a strong property came up, but it needed $10K to $20K of light reno work and that spend could boost equity or rental yield, would that be a concern for you?
Opening clients up to a lower yield
Clients can often be hesitant with lower yields and think that cashflow is the most important thing for their purchase.
Often we need to support in explaining the tradeoffs of chasing yields as below:
- Comparing to their strong savings and how they still have lots of savings leftover
- Comparing the best case scenario of yield to the worst case - e.g. 0.5% increase in yield, best case scenario, $50 per week, $2500 difference
- If it takes a month longer at a 1% growth rate, you’re missing out on $7500 of growth on a 750k purchase
- How we’re cutting down on our options and some of the best options, suburbs or LGAs, where we see some other pockets have stronger data from a growth side and where the market is moving
- How it still aligns well with their plan and goal we’re looking to achieve, potentially faster with stronger growth opportunities
- Positioning the negative cashflow when 105% LVR, and the growth outweighing that
See Arjun’s video below on opening up yields
If you need any information about our current buying markets, you can refer here:
One key part of the above sheet to make note of is the minimum and maximum budgets.
To ensure we don’t create budgets for areas that are too difficult to achieve, when you see the minimum price this is the entry level price. What this means is this is the smallest, oldest properties that require a bit of work and will have a lot of competition due to affordability.
The max prices are the top end of properties that are investment grade properties, where the numbers only just made sense, any higher and it would become owner occupier types of properties.
All the analysis is done based off areas we buy in and only considering properties that pass our due diligence.
If we are considering SMSF briefs, we would be factoring an additional $75k roughly to the minimum budgets to allow for low maintenance assets.
Now that you’ve completed the brief, make sure you tick off the ‘Brief Created in Attio’ task in the client workspace!