There’s something interesting happening inside Australian households right now. Ask consumers how they’re feeling and the answer is pretty clear: they’re under pressure. Groceries, electricity, insurance, transport and housing all cost more, while higher interest rates are squeezing borrowers and many households feel their standard of living has slipped. Yet Australians are still spending -…
Borrowers are set for another dose of rate pain this Tuesday, with the overwhelming majority of experts tipping the RBA to lift the cash rate again, according to Finder. In this month’s Finder RBA Cash Rate Survey™, 41 experts and economists weighed in on future cash rate moves and other issues relating to the state…
For most property investors, Capital Gains Tax is something they usually think about when they’re preparing to sell. But the coming changes to Australia’s CGT regime mean there is an important date investors should be thinking about well before their property ever goes on the market. From 1 July 2027, the current 50% CGT discount for…
From 1 October, Australians will notice a welcome change when they tap their card at the checkout. Merchants will no longer be able to add a surcharge to debit or credit card payments, potentially saving consumers around $1.6 billion a year, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia. Considering Australians made $475 billion in credit…
A year from now, most investors won’t remember the exact percentages in the new capital gains tax rules. What they will remember is whether they kept building wealth while everyone else got distracted by the headlines. Because right now, that’s exactly what’s happening. Property investors up and down the country are fixated on one question….
Labor has retreated from one of the most contentious parts of its 2026 federal budget tax package, although Australians who use discretionary trusts shouldn’t mistake the change for a return to business as usual. The original proposal in the Federal Budget would have imposed a 30 per cent minimum tax on the taxable income of…
You may have spent decades building your superannuation, carefully chosen who should inherit your assets and even prepared a legally valid will. Yet when you die, your super could still be distributed differently from the way you intended. That is the uncomfortable message from new research suggesting approximately 15.7 million Australians do not have a…
One of the oldest lessons in property is that rules rarely affect everyone equally. And that’s what concerns me about the latest changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. The Federal Government has framed the budget reforms as a means to improve housing affordability, support first home buyers, and redirect tax incentives towards new…
Every property downturn since I started investing decades ago has brought the same prediction. Someone, somewhere, tells us this is the one that finally breaks the market. Higher rates, a cost of living crunch, gloomy headlines about mortgage stress. All the ingredients seem to be there for a proper collapse. And yet here we are…
Australians are increasingly voting with their feet when it comes to choosing a home loan, with a growing number of borrowers turning to non-bank lenders. A non-bank lender provides credit products, like home loans, but doesn’t hold an authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) licence, meaning it can’t take customer deposits. According to Money.com.au analysis of the latest…
