The reaction to the May Federal Budget changes to negative gearing has been predictable. Many commentators are arguing that investors will now flood into off-the-plan apartments because the tax incentives increasingly favour new homes over established dwellings. Maybe. But I think many are looking at the wrong end of the telescope. The fundamental question isn’t…
I was recently asked by the Queensland Government to outline how the state might deliver one million additional homes by 2044. The initial request was for a digital roundtable. Instead, I chose to put pen to paper. mine writing always crystallises what I want to communicate. So rather than offer off-the-cuff remarks, I’ve set out…
For what seems like yonks, I’ve argued that Australia’s housing crisis isn’t really a housing problem. It’s a capital problem. Every government speech begins with the same objective: more housing, more affordable housing and more rental housing. Yet almost every major policy announcement seems to make investing in residential property a little less attractive than…
Australia isn’t seeing a US-style “boomer upsizing” surge, but the impact is similar. Older households are holding onto family homes longer, limiting resale supply. Combined with school catchment demand and “right-sizing” buyers, this creates a persistent squeeze in prime suburbs, keeping prices firm despite emerging broader market softness. In the USA In America, the story…
It’s not that people love or hate migration – it’s that most don’t understand what’s really driving our housing crunch. They’ve been told that “mass migration” is the villain, when in fact the problem is deeper: we’ve built a system that needs population growth to function, but refuses to make room for it properly. The snapback, not a surge Australia’s net…
I am often asked what it would take for housing values to fall across Australia in a meaningful and sustained way. My short answer is always the same. Australian dwelling values fall only when borrowing power contracts hard enough, and for long enough, to seriously undermine demand. At its core, this is not a story…
There is a line doing the rounds in overseas journals and podcasts about the death of the first-time home buyer. In Australia, I would not call it death just yet. But it is certainly prolonged suffocation. The desire is still there. The aspiration is still there. The cultural pull of owning your own home remains…
Demographics are also having a major impact on housing demand and recent dwelling price appreciation across Australia. Australia’s housing market is also being reshaped by the richest generation in its history. Generations defined Let’s start with the population structure. Baby Boomers, born 1946–1964, are now aged roughly 62 to 80 in 2026. They represent just over one fifth…
A billion – in Australia – is $1,000,000,000. You see this amount written everywhere these days. You cannot escape it. It was brought home to me a few weeks back, whilst driving through New South Wales. Road work signs proudly announced $2.3 billion worth of construction here, another $1.7 billion there. Governments love to announce…
Housing markets move because of behaviour. Who buys. Where they buy. How often they transact. Last year I examined the size and makeup of Australia’s investor cohort. That data cut through plenty of myth. Now I want to answer two related questions. Where are investors deploying capital? And how frequently are they adding to portfolios?…
