For decades, Australia’s housing debate has obsessed over the usual headline acts: soaring migration, slow approvals, rising costs, NIMBYism, and a construction sector that can’t catch a break. All true. All important. But beneath all that noise sits one of the quietest, most powerful forces reshaping housing demand – the surge in single-person households. Living…
Our recent research on Australia’s future demographic shape helps to pinpoint an imbalance between the type of housing that is being built and what our key buying groups want and can afford. 6 district buyer segments in our market Young renters First home buyers Upgraders Downsizers Retirees The aged care market Our work suggests that…
Australia’s housing debate is stuck — too hard, too slow, too expensive. Yet elsewhere, solutions are working. Cincinnati backed zoning reform with real money. Texas front-loaded infrastructure. Vancouver taxed empties back into use. And New Zealand simply rewrote its rules. Bold, coordinated action can boost supply and affordability faster than any inquiry ever will. 1….
One of the most persistent myths in Australian housing is the idea that high and rising house prices are caused by “not building enough.” It gets repeated because it sounds simple, logical and convenient. But it’s wrong – and the data, including my own charts, shows why. Let’s start with scale, because this alone exposes…
There seems to be ongoing confusion about the role housing is playing in Australian inflation and whether the recently expanded 5% Deposit Scheme has anything to do with the current CPI pulse and the February 2026 official interest rate lift. Let’s start with the facts. Housing carries roughly 21–23% of the CPI basket. Within that, rents account…
One of the more persistent questions I get asked at recent speaking gigs during the Q+A that follows by babble, is “When the RBA lifted rates 13 times across 2022 and 2023, why didn’t housing crash?.” The chart suggests it should have has more impact. Historically, rising cash rates slow dwelling prices. Sometimes sharply. Yet post-Covid,…
After the RBA’s first rate hike, the housing crash narrative has predictably resurfaced. Once again, we’re told prices are about to fall – quickly, deeply, and more or less uniformly across Australia. The logic is familiar: higher rates reduce borrowing power, therefore house prices must fall. It sounds neat. It sounds intuitive. And it’s mostly…
Analysis by BDO recently claimed that Australia’s build-to-rent (BTR) sector is now worth more than $30 billion. The report trumpeted 39,300 apartments “built, under construction or in planning” and celebrated the fact that nearly three-quarters of these projects are being bankrolled by offshore capital. The spin? That BTR is booming and set to make a…
Twice a year I update my Property Clock to cut through the noise and show where Australia’s housing markets sit – in my view – in the cycle. This latest update reinforces a key theme from my last post: despite rising interest rates, most markets – including all eight capital cities – remain in the recovery or upswing phase. Higher rates…
Australia’s housing debate has a habit of circling the wrong problems. Every quarter, the ABS hands us another set of numbers showing where the market is actually heading – and every quarter, policymakers nod politely, shuffle some papers, and carry on as if the laws of arithmetic don’t apply to them. The latest housing finance…
