Uncle specufestor, a success story

Rightly, the bogan hates being told what to do, hates having its movements restricted, and hates feeling obliged to anyone. This is an important reason why it loves purchasing investment properties; so it can tell someone else what to do, restrict their movements, and have someone feel obliged to them.

This free-thinking, independent creature is informed by its convictions, exhaustive research and by Brent down the pub. These resources have led it to believe that the best way to stay in the pink of financial health is to invest in property. Various credible people and publications have told the bogan that the only safe bet in the world is houses, because, well, they are ‘safe as houses, mate’. This message is reinforced by Brent who reckons ‘God ain’t makin’ any more of it is he?’. What, asks our libertarian crusader? ‘Land, mate. Laaaaand.’

The bogan has heard these same anachronisms being belted out by many a non-ivory type and knows it to be true. God ain’t making any more it, he’s retired and making less, all the time. Convinced of the endless profits and jet skis to be made from the property market, it decides to re-mortgage its McMansion and its right kidney to purchase a 3-bedroom townhouse in a leafy suburb only 25 minutes from the heart of the CBD.

It knows that Australian cities are growing rapidly, even if that growth is being driven by those queue jumpers they talk about on the telly. Hence, only a few short weeks later it begrudgingly rents its new property to 3 students from ‘God knows’ at $250 per week, per room. Upon signing the lease and quitting its job, the bogan immediately begins making plans to repeat this fool-proof process.

Shortly after making its first investment in this ever-blossoming property market, the bogan is heard to mutter frequently about how well ‘geared’ it is, and how it had its kids move into the house so it could access the first homeowners’ grant for one more tilt. It also began paying studious attention to how well its investment was performing, and saw graphs like this:

Assuming that this was entirely normal behaviour for a housing market, the bogan rapaciously acquires as much brick, mortar and debt as it can lay its overly-leveraged mitts on. By the time it reaches house #4 and flat #2, it decides that despite having a debt/asset ratio of 300 to 1, it needs just one more.

At the seventh property it has done it. The bogan had beaten the system and worked out a way to stay rich for eternity without ever having to kow tow to Roi, its know-it-all cousin.

Not satisfied, however, the bogan launches the coup de grace of its retirement plan. It’s had enough of taking and now wants to give back. It’s heard that the national economy needs to sell more stuff overseas so its going into the export business. It’s sole product: itself.

The bogan relocates to a Thai tropical paradise, smug in the satisfaction that a single weeks’ rent will be more than sufficient for a month’s worth of drinking, shagging, hair braiding and maxtreme tats.

Then: A year or two down the track, the Federal Government reluctantly accepts that it can no longer fund policies designed to artificially inflate residential property values. Prices at first fall moderately, sending the bogan’s bloated and astoundingly leveraged portfolio into a tailspin. The bank then calls in some negative equity loans, and the bogan is forced to abandon its export business, fly home, and arrange a string of hasty auctions at the bottom of the market.

Still under water, the bogan surrenders the last of its collateral: the right kidney.

Some weeks later, as the pain in its back recedes, the bogan surveys the wreckage of its vision. All that remains is a 5 year old car, a 5 year old TV, and a bank account the size of Peter Garrett’s project management skills. But, as it dejectedly sifts through its mail, the bogan eyes a bright pamphlet. It reminds him of better days, of sunny Thai beaches and the pleasing hues of a double vodka Raspberry Red Bull.  The pamphlet guarantees 30% returns on the stockmarket, and offers an accompanying seminar at a nearby motel the following weekend. Its righteous brain fires up, ignited by the possibilities that lie ahead.

It’s still got one good kidney!


  1. I don’t know what you’re on, but can I have some too? Inspired stuff, well done.

  2. What makes this so funny (for me), is I know someone just like that. You really can’t make this stuff up.

    • I was talking to a colleague the other day and he used that exact same quote as to why he was not worried about his two investment properties.

      “God ain’t makin’ any more land”

  3. Jokes aside, the penchant of middle income Australians for investment properties, bogans or otherwise, isn’t seen anywhere else.

    Just two problems with your story. They wouldn’t have given up their or they wouldnt have been able to negatively gear against anything. And if the loans were current on repayments, banks would not generally call them, especially not with the new Code covering investor property loans.

    Otherwise, another hilarious offering. And unlike the rest of the site, intentionally so.

  4. I know far too many people who went to too many Henry Kaye seminars and have ‘lived the dream’. They drive around in overpriced sportscars with massive balloon payments and now are trying their hand with the internet. Any way to try and gear their way to wealth they will.

  5. Hey what about the horse racing investment ptrogram ….only $5000 for the software!!!

    • My Mum and Stepdad got scammed in that one back in the mid 90’s. Unfortunately the scumbags at Samford were selling their miracle system for a lot more than $5000 (about $60K IIRC). After a class action they got much of their money back, but the financial and emotional damage was pretty bad. Many of those who got scammed weren’t uneducated bogans though. Most of them were doctors, lawyers, all sorts of professionals and one university professor. Greed can blind even the most intelligent. Oh, and thank the Internet for anonymity.

    • Agreed. Funniest line in any boganomics article so far.

      He was a sorry excuse on Q+A the other night too. But still human, unlike the Liberal cretin

  6. Hey Boganomics, your blurbs just keep getting better and better, well done! While I know a few like the (anti-?) hero above, none have been letting on if they have quite had their ‘boganoscopy’ just yet. (Where the bogan undergo’s the financial assesment equivalent of a prostate exam-like they used to in the good ole days b4 blood-testing). Cheers

    • “know a few like the (anti-?) hero”?

      Reading this article was like looking in a way-back mirror to 5 years ago.

  7. I’m sure you guys are so much better than bogans, can clearly see the future and hold the secret to life that us bogans just don’t get.

    Forget the fact many, many, many people have made a very comfortable living from property. The only bogans here are the ones believing this crap.

    • …says Baz Beerslab as the Property Market rolls off the top.

      Not sensing any 2006 Deja Vu with uncles Paddy in Ireland, Pedro in Spain or Billy-Bob in California?

    • “Forget the fact many, many, many people have made a very comfortable living from property”

      If that was the case, then the path for this entire nations future prosperity is for us to build 100 million properties at the taxpayers expense, and gift 5 properties to each citizen?

      Or perhaps some degree of comfort comes at the expense of discomfort for others.

    • Yes, I know many who have made a comfortable living from property.

      So comfortable that they feel secure in working an extra ten years to pay off their debt.

    • The great Australian property train wreck is only just starting…do you know the balance sheet position of all these people that have made it via property…any numbnut can say they are wealthy on paper. For instance I could go out to a number of banks borrow a truck load of money buy properties and as if by magic I can delude myself into thinking I am ‘on paper’ worth a lot even though the bank really owns my ass.

  8. Bogan – this is a work of art !

    The most amusing thing is that economists actually go out of their way to tell the public this “stack up” nonsense in inflating bubble markets is the “wealth effect”!

    “Selling” artificial housing inflation as wealth creation and bubble values as normal, requires considerable creative thinking!

    Just whatever it takes to load the gullible “easy money” brigade up with excessive mortgage debt.

  9. The Hundredth Idiot

    “wealth effect” nice one. at the nexus of free market economics and spin is a supermassive void.
    If someone could breathe a conscience into capitalism we might just make it.

    I just dropped past to say henceforth whenever I see Peter Stirling in suit and tie I shall think Uncle Specufestor.

  10. I hate fat baby boomers and bogans, no one saves and produces, ppl just buy shit and hope it goes up. I feel like we are all gamblers.

  11. I’ve made two lucky escapes from Henry Kaye.

    First the ‘get rich’ pamphlets – straight into the garbage bin.

    Second he sized me up and did some serious leering at a public pool. Ewww! I got out of that pool and I moved swiftly away, having apprehensions for my personal safety.

    Some may argue that my decision making skills still are in need of refinement but I think I got both those situations right.