I recently appeared as a guest on The Australian newspaper’s Money Café podcast, where we discussed the FIRE moment. The acronym stands for Financially Independent, Retire Early, which involves living as frugally as possible, and investing as much as possible so that you can afford to retire as soon as possible. A listener that works in the mental health…
It is alleged that Sydney-based financial advisor, Melissa Caddick stole $25 million from her clients. She has recently gone “missing”, leaving a trail of disaster for her clients and family members. Many con artists are very cunning and go to great lengths to conceal their wrongdoings. But there are a few simple steps you can take which…
It’s been well documented that property prices rose significantly over the course of 2020 and 2021. According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia, median house prices in eastern capital cities rose between 30% to 40% over those 2 years. However, unfortunately, apartments underperformed compared to houses in a big way. I wanted to discuss…
Commentators often refer to the price of a property in Australia relative to household incomes. They highlight that property prices have risen two to three times faster than household incomes. They conclude that property growth cannot exceed income growth perpetually. Obviously, this is unsustainable at a macro level. I’ve written about the factors that contributed…
An investment property’s total investment return will consist of rental income plus capital growth. I have written about the importance of maximising capital growth many times. However, often investors are tempted to focus attention on income (when selecting an investment property) too, as they seek to minimise the cash flow cost of holding the investment property. I…
CoreLogic data indicates that property prices in the 5 largest capital cities have fallen by 7.1% since May when the RBA started hiking interest rates. Sydney has seen the largest price fall – down by around 10%, and Melbourne has fallen by 6.7%. But it’s not all bad news. House prices in Brisbane, Adelaide, and…
As you are aware, the RBA has aggressively hiked rates by 3% p.a. over the past 8 months, so variable home loan rates are now more than 5% p.a. (and investment loans approaching 6% p.a.). Fixed-rate borrowers have avoided these higher interest rates. However, a lot of fixed rates will begin expiring next year. As…
There are many large and powerful institutions that have a vested interest in rising property prices. But all levels of government (i.e., federal, state and local) probably have the most to gain, as I’ll explain in this blog. This leads to two important observations. Firstly, the government is the main contributor to housing affordability pressures…
It is becoming increasingly difficult to buy an investment-grade house for under $1 million in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney. This begs the question; if your investment property budget is less than $1 million, where and how do you invest it? Brisbane is becoming more difficult In early August 2021, I presented an investment case for buying an…
The Albanese government’s first Federal Budget was a bit of a fizzer in that there wasn’t much in the way of changes that affected investors and superannuants. However, subsequent murmurs by politicians hint at proposed changes that the government may be contemplating. In particular, I wanted to address these potential super changes and how they…
