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…
![[PODCAST] Labor’s Budget Is Making Australia’s Housing Crisis WORSE – Senator Andrew Bragg Explains Why](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/789_Labors-Budget-AB-Youtube-cover-270x200.jpg)
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…
![[PODCAST] Why Investors Who Obsess Over Tax Often Miss What Matters More with Stuart Wemyss](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/784_Obsess_Over_Tax-SW-Youtube-cover-270x200.jpg)
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…
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…
They’re not the loudest generation and they don’t dominate social media conversations like Millennials, nor do they attract the political attention constantly aimed at Baby Boomers. In fact they rarely become the focus of think pieces or economic debates, and yet right now, Generation X sits in one of the most influential positions in Australia….
The government’s message sounds simple enough: make property investing less attractive, reduce the advantages investors supposedly have, tilt the playing field back toward first-home buyers, and more young Australians will finally be able to get a foot on the property ladder. On the surface, that sounds fair, and I can understand why many frustrated first-home…
![[PODCAST] How high do we want property prices to keep rising? Who wins and who loses? with Simon Kuestenmacher](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/772-PropertyPrices_keep_rising-SK-Youtube-cover-270x200.jpg)
For decades we’ve celebrated rising house prices in Australia. If your home was worth more this year than last, life felt a bit easier. Politicians were happy, banks were happy, homeowners were happy. But after 50 years of almost uninterrupted price growth, we need to ask a harder question: Is it actually good for us if…
![[PODCAST] Federal Budget Tax Bombshells? What Property Investors Need to Know with Ken Raiss](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/783-Federal_Budget_Tax_Bombshells-KR-Youtube-cover-270x200.jpg)
Australia has always promised that if you worked hard, took responsibility, invested wisely and built something for your family, you’d be encouraged – or at least not punished for doing so. But some of the recent Budget changes raise a very uncomfortable question: are we slowly dismantling that promise? Because buried behind the headlines, the…
Every few years property investors are told the game is over. A new tax. A new regulation. A new lending rule. A new reason to sit on the sidelines. And yet, after 50 years of investing through booms, busts, recessions, credit squeezes, banking reforms, political interference, rising interest rates, falling interest rates, a global financial…
What if I told you the single biggest threat, or opportunity, for your wealth creation journey could be something you never saw coming? In the early 1980s, long before there was a TV show by the same name, economist Dr. Don Stammer taught me to always watch out for the “X Factor.” These are the…
