Our writers

Deputy Editor Vanessa DeGroot has been with API since 2008. Her interest in property was sparked when she started covering the commercial property round as a reporter at the Courier-Mail. It was just a coincidence that around the same time she became a first homebuyer. Using her growing knowledge she hopes to build a portfolio in the near future.

• Where do you live: Brisbane
• Favourite food: I can't say no to chocolate.
• Favourite drink: Grapefruit juice and water.
• Favourite movie: Dirty Dancing and anything funny, especially with Will Ferrell.
• Likes: The eighties, laughing and travelling.
• Dislikes:Cold weather and grocery shopping.
• Hobbies: Exercise – especially tennis and squash. And I like to try my hand at golf, however unsuccessfully!

Nicole Navarro joined the API crew as resident journalist and subeditor in February 2009. Formerly editor and journalist of CityLife and Style magazines in north and far north Queensland, Nicole was exposed to the property market from age five – when she sold her family home to the new girl at school. Years later she plunged into profiling national and international developers, builders, interior designers, property investors and even styling interiors.

• Where do you live: Brisbane
• Favourite food: My husband’s traditional Spanish tortilla, my mother-in-law’s duck baked with apricots and prunes. Oh… and iced cold green grapes.
• Favourite drink: Pina coladas.
• Favourite movie: Anything French, Spanish or arthouse.
• Likes: To be surrounded by trees.
• Dislikes: Extreme laziness.
• Hobbies: Reading, seeing live music gigs and art exhibitions, scuba diving, hiking, photography, practising my Spanish.

API journalist and subeditor Lauren Cross comes from a property family, with close relatives in the building and valuation industry. She joined API in November 2010 as an avid reader of the magazine and a budding investor. She has worked for Channel Nine, Sky News, Southern Cross Ten and the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader. "Quite simply, I see property as a way to get ahead in life," she says.

• Where do you live: Brisbane
• Favourite food: fresh fruit salad with lots of berries. I also love ice-cream.
• Favourite drink: frangelico with crushed lime.
• Favourite movie: Spanish Apartment and Life is Beautiful.
• Likes: the beach and a good barbecue.
• Dislikes: not getting a good night's sleep.
• Hobbies: Travelling, learning languages and also triathlon sports and yoga.

Shane McNally has been a national freelance journalist for 20 years after starting as a sports reporter covering horse racing, AFL and athletics. He moved on to entertainment writing in the early 1990s before working for four years as real estate editor with Adelaide's Sunday Mail. In addition to his work for API, Shane writes cinema reviews, lifestyle features, sport and politics for various local and overseas magazines. With two teenage children, his work has taught him the advantages of property - and he's currently scouring the Adelaide Hills for further undervalued properties.

• Where do you live: Adelaide
• Favourite food: Moreton Bay Bugs
• Favourite drink: cold - Crown Lager or coke; hot - percolated coffee
• Favourite movie: Too many genres to name one. The Verdict, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Groundhog Day, The Year My Voice Broke, Goodfellas are all flawless. Have a soft spot also for the little NZ gem Came A Hot Friday.
• Likes: The view from Vaucluse, dinner on the Brisbane River, footy at the MCG, first coffee of the morning on camp, houseboating on the Murray, a day at the country races
• Dislikes: Pretentious cinema, 1950s banking practices in the computer age (i.e. the one day money spends in cyberspace when it can be transferred in a nano-second), two-year mobile phone contracts with one-year warranties
• Hobbies: Swimming, backgammon, squash, snooker

Ben Power is a writer and consultant. He was a finance journalist for 10 years and has written extensively on business and investing for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, The Australian and London's Investor's Chronicle.

• Where do you live: Brisbane
• Favourite food: Schnitzel, spaghetti marinara (at Bistro C, Noosa)
• Favourite drink: Coffee (weak cappuccino)
• Favourite movie: The Godfather
• Likes: Travel, art, countryside, history, Baroque music
• Dislikes: Bad architecture
• Hobbies: Jogging, swimming, skiing, reading, eating out

Bernard Salt is a KPMG partner based in Melbourne. Bernard has established an international reputation as a trend forecaster for the property and financial services industries. He is a best selling author, a columnist with The Australian and Herald Sun newspapers, a regular on the Australian and more recently European and US speaking circuits, and a business advisor. His views are regularly sought by the business community and by the general media. He appears regularly on radio and television programs including 60 Minutes.

• Where do you live: Melbourne
• Favourite food: tapas
• Favourite drink: Mineral water
• Favourite movie: officially Citizen Kane; unofficially Austin Powers
• Likes: pressing the "send" button when I have finished a column
• Dislikes: re-reading my published columns - I keep seeing a better way to explain something.
• Hobbies: Genealogy

Geoff Doidge was a burnt out public servant going nowhere. At 40 years old in a mid-life crisis, he turned his life around with property investment. That start has turned into a $20 million portfolio of blocks of flats, new houses, old houses and lately development sites to build for rent. Today his passion is property and, as one of the Reno Kings, showing others how to have fun and profit from property.

• Where do you live: Brisbane
• Favourite food: Fresh fish with salad, avocado, tabouli and tomato
• Favourite drink: Chardy or "sauvy" blanc
• Favourite movie: Currently "In the Wild"
• Likes: Seeing people discover the power of property
• Dislikes: Procrastinators and "shoulda", "coulda", "woulda's"
• Hobbies: Aerobics, volleyball and long Friday breakfasts while everyone is working

Julia Hartman started BAN TACS Accountants Pty Limited 16 years ago. She is a registered tax agent and CPA. These days she spends most of her time travelling Australia writing articles, doing workshops and supporting the BAN TACS offices to keep her much loved pet dog Cindy "in the lifestyle she deserves".

• Where do you live: I have a house at Beachmere but spend a great deal of time on the road in my mobile home.
• Favourite food: Chocolate
• Favourite drink: Champagne
• Favourite movie: Back to the Future (It's probably that long since I saw a movie)
• Likes: Taxation law
• Dislikes: Tax
• Hobbies: Running and pool

As the author of the Made Simple series of investment products, a regular presenter at real estate conferences and seminars throughout the country, a columnist for Australian Property Investor magazine and a solicitor of 30 years experience, it's no wonder Rob Balanda is called the most listened to and read lawyer in the country.

• Where do you live: Tallebudgera Valley
• Favourite food: Italian
• Favourite drink: Sauvignon Blanc
• Favourite movie: As Good As It Gets (Jack Nicholson)
• Likes: Unpretentious people who do not take themselves seriously
• Dislikes: Woody Allen movies
• Hobbies: Snow skiing, scuba diving, walking, reading and dining with friends

Tim O'Dwyer has been a common or garden-variety suburban conveyancing solicitor for 35-odd years, picking up a few investment properties along the way. Fifteen years ago he returned to uni and completed a Master of Arts degree before morphing into a real-estate-watchdog-journalist-historian-consumer advocate. He hasn't given up his day job, which he loves.

• Where do you live: Brisbane
• Favourite food: Char Kway Teow
• Favourite drink: Ouzo and coke
• Favourite movie: Prairie Home Companion
• Likes: Podcasts, crime novels and keeping fit
• Dislikes: Real estate rogues, lame laws and having to keep fit
• Hobbies: Media-tarting, gourmet sandwich-making and freelance writing

Mitchell Watson is a finance analyst at CANSTAR CANNEX. Previously Mitchell has worked as a paralegal in the banking and finance section at Cooper Grace Ward Lawyers, handling property transactions for numerous financial institutions. More recently he has worked as a relationship manager to some of Australia’s largest institutions with CANSTAR CANNEX and is now delving further into the Australian financial market with his current position.

• Where do you live: Brisbane
• Favourite food: a Norman Hotel Steak
• Favourite drink: depends on the situation but either water or the beer brand of the month
• Favourite movie: The Shawshank Redemption
• Likes: anything sport related or involving friends and family
• Dislikes: arrogance
• Hobbies: touch football but more recently triathlons