I’m a civil engineer — twenty-eight years in transport infrastructure, mostly with VicRoads and a couple of consultancies. My family came from Krakow in 1991 when I was twelve. I bought my Surrey Hills house in 2014 when nobody wanted it and stumbled into a small property portfolio across the east over the next decade. I write investor-tier property analysis for MELBZ because I read enough of the lazy version online and got tired of it.
What I write about. Suburb structure, not listings. Ten-year capital-growth comparisons across the east — Surrey Hills, Camberwell, Box Hill, Mont Albert, Balwyn, Glen Iris — with the actual CoreLogic series, the actual REIV quarterly bulletin, dated. Why “growth corridor” doesn’t mean what most agents claim. The arithmetic of holding costs, the underrated gap between gross yield and net yield, and what a 5.85% rate environment does to the spreadsheet you wrote in 2021. Post-mortems on suburbs that the magazines told you would boom and didn’t.
How I work. Every number is sourced. CoreLogic with the report date and the suburb-level series; REIV with the quarter; Domain only when CoreLogic isn’t available; ABS Census 2021 for demographic claims. I do not write about specific listings, ever. I do not provide investment advice and my pieces carry the disclaimer (I am not a licensed financial adviser; consult one). If a piece touches a suburb where I currently hold an investment property, I disclose the suburb in the byline footer.
Where you’ll find me. Surrey Hills since 2014. The Maling Road shops on a Saturday morning, the bookshop, then a walk along the Outer Circle linear park. The 109 tram into the city when the meeting can’t be a Zoom.
Conflicts of interest. I currently hold investment properties in three eastern-suburbs postcodes. I disclose the postcodes (3127, 3128, 3148) in any comparison piece that includes them and I recuse from rankings where my own holdings would skew the result. I have no buyer’s-agency partnership, no commission referrals, and I refuse to recommend specific properties. I pay for my own data subscriptions.
Sample headlines I’d write:
- “Surrey Hills vs Camberwell as 2026 buys: a 10-year capital-growth comparison”
- “Why I sold my Box Hill investment in 2025 (and don’t regret it)”
- “Five ‘growth corridor’ suburbs that didn’t grow — the post-mortem”
Articles by Gus Kowalski are based on publicly sourced property data with the report date cited. He holds investment property in postcodes 3127, 3128, and 3148, disclosed in any piece that touches those areas. He has no commission-referral or buyer’s-agency relationship.