The federal government has handed down what Treasurer Jim Chalmers called “the most important and ambitious Budget in decades.” The term “intergenerational inequality” is a social construct dreamed up by Labor to create a an “us vs them” to encourage younger Australians to vote for them. Yes, young people have challenges including affordability, but in…
For years, millennials have been the punching bag of public debate. They’ve been criticised for delaying marriage, accused of spending too much on travel and avocado toast, and blamed for changing workplace culture. Depending on who you listen to, they’re either financially irresponsible or victims of a system that became harder to navigate just as…
The Federal budget on May 12 changed the rules for property investors in ways that most people are still working through, and Westpac’s economics team has now put some concrete numbers around the likely market impact. If you’ve been wondering how to think about the combination of the tax changes and rising interest rates, I’ll…
It doesn’t matter whether you own an investment property, whether you’re renting, or whether you’re desperately trying to buy your first home. This Federal Budget has just made your situation harder. If you’re a tenant, rents are already punishing. Vacancy rates are near record lows and there simply aren’t enough rentals to go around. The…
They’ve never known life without smartphones. They grew up through lockdowns, climate anxiety, social media algorithms and a housing crisis that has made the traditional Australian dream feel increasingly out of reach. And while many older Australians still dismiss Gen Z as entitled, distracted or unrealistic, they’re missing something important. This generation is already reshaping…
Let me start with a simple idea that most people never stop to question. What if the problem isn’t the system… but the story we’ve been told about the system? Because when you really think about it, most Australians have been conditioned to believe that wealth is scarce. That if someone gets ahead, someone else…
Australia’s property market has just been hit by a fresh wave of uncertainty. Last week, Dr Andrew Wilson and I discussed the Federal Government’s major property tax changes, and as we said at the time, these changes matter because they alter the rules for investors, but they don’t magically fix the deeper problems in our…
There’s a strange thing that happens to many property investors. They’ll spend hours worrying about tax, negative gearing, capital gains tax, trusts, land tax, and what the next government might change – yet they’ll give far less thought to the quality of the asset they’re buying, the level of debt they’re taking on, or whether…
A lot has happened in a fortnight, and if you’ve been watching the headlines, you could be forgiven for feeling like the ground has shifted beneath the property market. The RBA had already raised rates three times this year, taking the cash rate back to 4.35% – effectively unwinding every cut made in 2025. Two…
Before the federal budget lands, I think every Australian property investor needs to understand what happened across the Tasman over the last four years, because New Zealand didn’t just debate whether to remove negative gearing and interest deductibility from property investors. They actually did it! And then, after watching rents hit record highs, investors bail…