Chinese New Year 2025 snakes into town

I’ve always loved writing articles combining my journalism speciality – real estate – with my personal interests. A great example of this are the Chinese New Year (CNY) articles that I’ve written every January or February since 2014. I’m not Chinese and have no Asian blood in my veins so why do I do this?
Simple: it allows me to work with animals, which I love and the CNY concentrates on 12 Chinese zodiac signs every year in this order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
Importantly for serious property people (and my editor), these articles connect CNY animal symbolism ideas to a genuine forecast of the coming year from a real estate agent. As a result, these articles give readers significant information as well as – hopefully – a good laugh.

Horses for courses
The concept for my CNY articles began in 2014: the year of the horse, which is my favourite animal. While my editor was the first of many to raise her eyebrows at the idea of a CNY-equine-property article, she allowed me to proceed with it.
Here is what she received for her pains*: a torrent of popular words and phrases connected to the animal in question (think: “Chinese property investors are expected to gallop into the Year of the Horse”) intertwined with the property forecast I mentioned earlier.
For example: “Many buyers will use the year of the horse’s meaning of immediate success as a turning point with better things still to come.” Or, “the tiger’s well-known qualities of prosperity and power ensured it was always the leader in the animal field – and in the same way, the property market (is expected) to shine in 2022.”
Unsurprisingly, the Asian real estate agents I interviewed for my CNY articles were as startled as my editors about my idea but – usually – took it in good part, even to having their photos taken with horses, goats and roosters. And, since 2014, I’ve only missed writing CNY articles for 2019 (the year of the pig); 2020 (the year of the rat); and 2021 (the year of the ox).
NB: based on this blog, I count this year – the year of the snake – as an article.

Article idea ramps up
My CNY article concept accelerated in 2018 (the year of the dog) when a colleague suggested we organise a video between a dog and a real estate agent, with the agent asking the dog significant property questions which the animal would answer. Thanks to the agent, Guide Dogs Victoria and a few bowls filled with canine treats, both pieces turned out well and again, combined humour with important property information. 

Uncommon animals still fill the page (and website)
Photographing animals for my CNY articles hasn’t always been easy – but this has only added to the fun of writing them. Guide Dogs Victoria and the RSPCA were helpful with the latter helping me with my rooster and goat images.
Being unable to find animals hasn’t stopped me from writing my CNY articles either. For my CNY article in 2016 (the year of the monkey), the property agents were still photographed with Chinese symbols and similar. For the 2022 article (the year of the tiger) I had to rely on photos of tigers – although I would have dearly liked to visit a zoo to meet a live one. In the same way – although this animal would have been easier to find – photos had to take the place of live animals for my 2023 piece (the year of the rabbit) while sadly, no dragons but those in images could be found to centre in my 2024 article. Live photographs for my un-written CNY articles for the years of the pig, rat and ox may also have been tricky to organise but not impossible.
It would have been interesting to find a snake for this year’s article but for once, I’m happy to rely on photos. 

Chinese New Year of the Snake 2025
This year is the year of the snake – the wood snake, to be precise – with CNY celebrations beginning on Wednesday, January 29 and ending on Wednesday, February 12. Herewith, my thoughts for this year of the snake, as based on my CNY property articles.

Depending on who you talk to and what you read, the Chinese symbolism for snakes is all about wisdom, mysteriousness, cool observation and occasional bouts of passion. The snake is also the most tenacious of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals.
Therefore when it comes to property, snakes won’t slide under the varied emotions around real estate, especially potential cash rate hikes. Instead, they will have the cool confidence to stick out their tongue at such ups and downs.
They’ll study the market carefully and quietly and will happily yet silently curl up in seemingly dark moments away from the noise and crowds – all the while knowing when to quickly slither to the forefront of a great auction or other sale opportunity.

Happy Chinese New Year of the Snake and thanks for reading! 

*Nathan Mawby did not write the year of the horse article with me but he was the colleague who instigated my year of the dog video idea

Cowboy, take me away… but if you can’t, c’est la vie….

We’re just one week out from Melbourne Cup Day 2024 so what better time to write about my favourite things and the many layers behind them?

Unusual for a city-bred Melbourne person, I have a lifelong love for country living and all this lifestyle pertains to - including paddocks of horses and every other farm animal in between. As a lifelong reader as well, I “grew up on” The Silver Brumby, which played a big part in a holiday to the Snowy Mountains in 2016 with this trip resulting in a fun article for NewsCorp’s “Escape” section. The My Friend Flicka series and Black Beauty were also prime favourites as is Escape to the Country and for years, I loved country music.
Yet I spent the majority of my 20s struggling to reconcile how to choose between living and working a rural life (and I gave an equine TAFE course a try when living in Perth in 2002) or one of writing/reading, likely still living in the city. I realise now I could easily have reconciled the two not-so-separate ideas but the latter won in the end anyway and I don’t regret this choice.

A big reason for choosing my current lifestyle was living and working in Longreach in far north-west Queensland in 2004-2006. It was a wonderful town and a great period of fun friends and fun jobs; however, Longreach was isolated and very hot and forget escaping to shopping centres or beaches in the regularly 40+ degree heat although the local river offered some relief. So, I was determined not to live in such an isolated - and hot - place again.

These days, I would still choose the Escape to the Country house but with only one paddock (or two) rather than acres of land and not located many isolated kilometres from a major town or city but within an hour or two of such a centre.  I would also continue to do what I know and love most: journalism and particularly real estate journalism.

Sadly, I don’t have the choice of living wherever I want to live anymore (do any of us?) with personal reasons likely to keep me chained to suburbia - and away from equine opportunities - for life. However, I’ve learned over the years that these restrictions can’t take away my love for all things rural and my love for animals, especially horses.

In another great reconciliation between writing, horses and property - my three favourite things - I’ve written plenty of articles on this combination which has been highly satisfying and reduced the discontentment of living in a non-dream home.
For example, one of my best jobs at The Longreach Leader was working at the local racecourse on race days. Along with spending time around both horses and friends, I would drive in a ute to the starting gates so I could photograph the horses as they jumped from the stalls. Then, for the mad dash in the ute to grab more photos as the horses crossed the finish line.

These days, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) cash rate announcement on Melbourne Cup Day is the perfect excuse for equine-based property articles including writing humorous equine phrases and headlines such as Homeowners' long faces as RBA refuses to rein in cash rate in 2023 and RBA cash rate canters to new lead - again in 2022. Who knew interest rates, especially rising ones, could be fun to write about?

By the way, I never have learned to ride horses well although the trainers at the former Royals Equestrian Centre did their best to teach me. They were also happy for me to write this property piece about their special home at the Brisbane Showgrounds for The Courier Mail in 2016. The same can be said for this article I wrote for The Herald Sun in 2018 about an historic 1890s home with a harness-racing stable complex going to auction in Melbourne.

So, yes, while the grass may be greener somewhere else, c’est la vie. I don’t have the dream Escape to the Country cottage or the farm animals but I keep close to the country by writing about my triple combination of favourite things and enjoying suburban life as best as I can with my cat, five goldfish and a lovely cottage garden (I feel another blog coming up soon on the latter so stay tuned!)

Thanks for reading!