I'm James Zhang. I write richer.au.

richer.au · About · Updated 7 September 2026

Where this comes from

My interest in investing began with economics and finance. Over the years it developed into something much more practical: understanding how to build and preserve wealth through property, businesses, shares and other long-term investments.

Richer.au is where I write that down — the research, the arithmetic, and the things I have got wrong.

Education and finance background

I graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Economics, majoring in Economics and Marketing. I later completed an MBA at the University of Technology Sydney, majoring in Finance, which developed my understanding of financial analysis, investment decision-making, business strategy and capital allocation.

I have also completed several property-related courses covering property investment and development.

Formal education provides an important foundation. But some of the most valuable lessons in investing come from actually putting capital at risk, managing investments, and living through different economic and property cycles.

Property: more than twenty years of it

Property has been one of my main areas of investment and interest for more than twenty years.

Over that time I have invested in more than twenty properties across Australia, with experience buying and selling in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

In total that represents more than $40 million of property bought, held and, in some cases, sold.

That experience spans residential property, commercial property and property development, as well as renovations, property management and evaluating development opportunities. Importantly, it has involved investing my own capital rather than analysing property from the sidelines.

Every property I have sold has produced a positive investment result, and every property I still hold is in profit. A number have performed strongly. I state that because it is the record, not because it is a promise — every investment is different, market conditions change, and past results do not guarantee future ones. It has also meant buying through cycles that did not go the way I expected, which taught me more than the ones that did.

The most recent purchase

The last property I bought was 3 Mansfield Street, Palmerston, in the Northern Territory, acquired in 2025.

A net yield above eight per cent on a $9.8 million asset is not what the capital-city markets were offering in 2025, which is the whole argument for looking where other buyers are not.

Figures for 3 Mansfield Street are my own. The current figure is an estimate as at September 2026, not a formal valuation, and I include it because it is the record rather than a forecast — values move in both directions.

More than two decades across different Australian markets has taught me that successful property investment involves considerably more than expecting prices to rise. The factors I look at closely:

• Purchase price and replacement cost
• Rental yield and cash flow
• Interest rates and financing
• Vacancy rates and rental demand
• Population and employment growth
• Infrastructure investment
• Housing supply
• Zoning and redevelopment potential
• Construction costs
• Government policy
• Local economic conditions
• The opportunity cost of capital

I am particularly interested in identifying places where the market may be underestimating future growth — whether from new infrastructure, employment growth, housing shortages, changing demographics, redevelopment, government investment, or broader structural change in an economy.

I also have a strong interest in commercial property, where I focus on cash flow, tenant quality, lease structures, weighted average lease expiry, financing costs, replacement value and the long-term value of the underlying land and building.

Beyond property

Although property has played an important role in my investment journey, I don't believe investors should automatically put all their money into one asset class.

I am interested in Australian and international shares, ETFs, commodities, businesses and alternative investments — and in the broader economic forces that drive returns across all of them.

I enjoy studying interest rates, inflation, technology, artificial intelligence, energy, demographics and government policy, particularly where structural change may be creating opportunities that markets have not yet fully recognised. Richer.au reflects that broader approach.

Why I created richer.au

I created richer.au to share investment ideas, research and lessons that I think are useful to Australian investors.

There is an enormous amount of financial information online, and much of it is either overly simplistic or designed to promote a particular product. My aim is to approach investing from the perspective of an investor allocating real capital: looking at the numbers, considering what could go wrong, comparing opportunities against each other, and thinking about the long-term consequences of each decision.

I don't expect every idea discussed here to be right. Investing always involves uncertainty. What matters is developing a disciplined process that improves the probability of making good decisions over time.

How richer.au is written

Because this site discusses money, it is worth being explicit about method.

Outside investing

Outside business and investing, I love playing chess.

Chess and investing have more in common than they might first appear. Both involve evaluating many possible outcomes, thinking several moves ahead, managing risk, and sometimes accepting a short-term disadvantage to reach a better long-term position. That way of thinking has strongly influenced how I approach both business and investing.

My investment philosophy

It is relatively simple:

Richer.au is where I share what I learn along the way.

Getting in touch

If you have spotted an error, want to suggest a topic, or simply disagree with something written here, the contact page is the place. I read everything, and corrections are genuinely welcome.

Recent work