I attended today with another forum-mite.
Felt the info could have been condensed greatly without losing anything, time is a valuable commodity for us all. Bill Zheng would benefit from taking a public speaking course and might next time not ask the audience repeatedly if 'they are understanding this' as it was really distracting, though that's just my view. He seems like a really nice, approachable and genuine guy.
John Edwards was a more polished presenter and had some recent data to show, most interestingly for me that Perth property was actually growing again. One point I would make would be the validity of any model Edwards seeks to put forward when he is adding his own discretion to the mix, he mentioned that he filters using his own judgement which throws up a large red flag when you are talking about a model's predictive ability (It's something you can't exactly repeat when you add human judgement to the mix). Also for a statistician I think he needs to do better than the standard grab bag testimonials (Thank you... my property went up 150% in 2 days after buying your report!).. How about median hot suburb returns, comparison to surrounding areas and outperformance compared to the city or something semi rigorous like that? Also some minor queries about his chart... I disagree with the risk adjusted returns chart he had in a number of areas starting with the share market performance figure he had listed, and how property volatility is measured, anyway they were minor points.
There was an extended plug for a 4k (-1k if you sign up now) seminar from a name and dollar figure dropping Scottish lady, love the accent. Really hard to say more about her apart from the seminar marketing consumed half a forest and makes a person like me (guru resistant) so skeptical it's hard to think clearly, handle with caution though potentially fine I guess.
I have 14 pages of notes and lots of things I disagree with though am reluctant to bang them all out here as it would take me a long time! Also I was completely underwhelmed by the sources Zheng mentioned for the theme of his entire presentation and suggestions about how you would inform yourself about what was happening in the US (A big plank for his views).
Having said that there was plenty of good quality info that I do agree with, I have basically been doing everything Zheng suggested for over a year now so am not sure I will changing anything as a result of today. Josko's summary seems pretty accurate.