Michael has been once again voted Australia’s leading property investment advisor by the readers of ‘Your Investment Property Magazine’, but he’s not a theorist… He has been successfully investing in property since 1971 and is a leading property commentator and Australia’s most widely read property investment blogger. Join over 115,000 others who get their updates from Michael and his group of expert guest bloggers and benefit from their perspective.
Every few months, another report lands telling us everything is about to change. Interest rates, artificial intelligence, migration, climate change, tax policy – take your pick. Some forecasts will prove correct, many will be exaggerated, and plenty will eventually be forgotten. The challenge is separating the structural changes that will genuinely reshape Australia from the…
With national property values down by 5.2% in September from their March peak, Australia’s housing market is in a distinct downturn. This has sparked concerns voiced by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor of a housing market “in freefall”. Translated into dollar terms, using the Domain property price series, the price of a typical home has dropped…
Most of the people I meet who are still waiting to become financially free aren’t lazy and they aren’t unlucky. They work hard, they earn a reasonable income, and they genuinely want to get ahead. Yet somehow the wealth never quite arrives, and after five decades of watching investors succeed and fail, I can tell…
For the last few years, Melbourne has been the forgotten child of Australia’s property market. While Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide enjoyed extraordinary price growth, Melbourne seemed stuck in neutral. Investors looked elsewhere, headlines focused on the city’s higher taxes and weaker short-term performance, and many concluded that Melbourne had simply lost its shine. I believe…
Australia has spent the last few years talking about its housing shortage as though the solution were relatively straightforward: release more land, speed up planning approvals, encourage higher density and build more homes. And, of course, we need to do all of those things. But there is another constraint that doesn’t receive nearly enough attention,…
I expect many participants in the property industry will spend the coming months devising ways to navigate the negative gearing and CGT changes, to maintain investor interest. As a business that is completely independent, with no vested interest in any asset class, including property, I wanted to examine some of these potential strategies. Remember: property is not the only game in…
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What if the decisions that make you feel safest as a property investor are actually the ones most likely to cost you a fortune? Waiting for interest rates to settle sounds sensible. Keeping your money in cash feels secure. Avoiding investment debt appears responsible, while buying in the same locations everyone else is talking about…
Every year, property investors are presented with a fresh collection of forecasts telling them where interest rates, house prices, rents and the economy are heading. Some forecasts will be broadly right, many will miss the mark, and almost none will accurately predict the unexpected events that ultimately shape the market. Yet investors continue to search…
This month the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate to 4.60%, its fourth increase this year and the highest level since late 2011. Sydney home values are now around 7% below their February peak, the top end of the Melbourne and Sydney markets has fallen more than 10%, and plenty of investors are quietly wondering…
What if interest rates don’t fall? I keep seeing charts like the ones below. They all tell much the same story. Rates rise some more, inflation eventually behaves itself and sometime around late 2027 or early fiscal 2028 the cost of money starts heading south again. Maybe. But for mine, there is a growing risk…
