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…
Higher interest rates and uncertainty over the Federal Government’s proposed property tax changes are clearly taking some heat out of Australia’s property market, with new mortgage lending falling sharply in the June quarter. According to the latest ABS lending indicator data the total value of new housing loans settled in the June quarter was $97.6…
For millions of Australian homeowners and property investors, the Reserve Bank’s decision to leave the cash rate unchanged at 4.35% will come as welcome relief. After three interest rate increases earlier this year, the RBA has now kept rates steady for two consecutive meetings, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean the tightening cycle is over,…
For millions of Australian borrowers, an offset account has become an important part of managing a mortgage. Salaries are paid into it, savings accumulate there and household spending flows through it, all with the expectation that every dollar sitting in the account is quietly reducing the interest charged on the home loan. However, a recent…
What’s next for interest rates? Well, it seems mortgage holders can breathe another sigh of relief, with most experts tipping the RBA to leave the cash rate where it is. According to this month’s Finder RBA Cash Rate Survey™, 38 experts and economists weighed in on future cash rate moves and other issues relating to…
Something strange is happening in property circles right now, and it has nothing to do with interest rates or auction clearance rates. It’s a kind of paralysis. Buyers are hesitating, sellers are holding back, and investors who would normally be active are sitting on their hands, waiting to see what happens next. The cause is…
