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.
You’re probably reading this blog because you want to become rich. But how much money do you need? A lot of research has gone into whether money does truly make you happy and it has been found that, in general, humans are never satisfied. We always think that if we had a little bit more…
“What do you want your retirement to look like?” Most people pause when I ask that. Then they give vague answers: I want to travel more” or “spend time with the grandkids.” Nice ideas. But vague answers don’t lead to meaningful action. At Metropole, we’ve learned that the best way to help our clients build…
Ever heard of the 1% rule in property investment? It sounds simple, even seductive. Buy a property where the monthly rent is at least 1% of the purchase price, and you’re set for positive cash flow. In theory, it’s a quick way to separate good investments from bad. While you may come across this a…
Nationally, asking prices rose 1.9% for houses and 1.4% for units over the month, with combined dwellings up 1.6% month-on-month and 9.7% year-on-year, according to SQM Research’s Weekly Asking Prices Index for the week ending 28 October 2025 which revealed a continued upward momentum. Sydney house asking prices eased marginally (-0.04%) to $2.1 million yet…
![[PODCAST] Why Our Politicians Don’t Want Housing to Be Affordable | Big Picture Podcast with Ken Raiss](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/728-Housing_Affordable-KR-Youtube-cover-270x200.jpg)
Let’s be honest — if our politicians really wanted housing to be affordable, it would be by now. They’ve had decades to fix it. There have been inquiries, commissions, roundtables, and billions thrown at so-called “affordability schemes.” And yet, what do we have? Record house prices, record rents, and a generation of young Aussies wondering…
For decades, we’ve been told to fear a population explosion, that there are too many people on the planet – straining our resources, overcrowding our cities, and destroying the environment. But what if the real problem of the future isn’t too many people… but too few? It’s a fascinating shift in thinking, and one that…
Most investors expect their tax bills to rise when they buy more property, not when they simply sit still. Yet that’s exactly what’s about to happen in New South Wales. The NSW Government’s recent decision to freeze land tax thresholds means property owners from mum-and-dad investors to self-managed super funds (SMSFs) will pay more tax…
Nationally, housing affordability has deteriorated badly since the pandemic. Cotality data shows home values are up 46.8% in the past 5 years. The median dwelling value has gone from 6.4 times, to almost 8 times median household income. Median rent across Australia has reached $672 per week, with rent values up 43.8% in the past…
Australia’s home value growth hits the fastest pace in over two years as national dwelling values surged 1.1% in October, marking the strongest monthly gain since June 2023 and pushing the annual growth rate to 6.1%. This clear upturn has been gathering momentum since the first rate cut in February, confirming a new cycle of…
Last week’s inflation result has all but eliminated the chance of another interest rate cut in the foreseeable future. Yet our major capital city property markets continue to show significant strength. The federal government insists it has devoted considerable resources toward fighting inflation. And the Reserve Bank pushed interest rates up 12 times between May…
