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.
Something unusual is happening in Victoria’s rental market, and it has no historical precedent in over two decades of recorded data. For the first time since the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority began tracking bond lodgements, more rental bonds are being refunded than lodged. Put simply, rental properties are leaving the market faster than they’re entering…
Have you ever stopped to wonder if there was a better time to be alive than right now? It’s a fascinating thought experiment. Every era has had its golden moments and its dark chapters, and depending on when and where you were born, your experience of the world could be vastly different. Today, many people…
Every now and then, life hands us a reminder disguised as something ordinary. A friend recently told me a story about a hiking guide who would start every trek the same way. Before anyone took a single step up the mountain, he’d ask the group to place their backpacks on the ground. Then he’d say,…
There’s a saying in property circles that you make your money on a piece of real estate when you buy it. The gist of this is, that if you can negotiate really well and buy the property at the right time in the cycle, you’ll instantly manufacture some profits. This myth has caused people to…
Australia has won the geographic lottery. Few nations have been blessed with such an extraordinary combination of advantages. We have abundant natural resources, vast agricultural capacity, world-class cities, strong institutions, proximity to Asia’s growing economies, and a stable political system that continues to attract global capital. For decades these advantages have generated enormous wealth. We’ve ridden…
There’s a lot of noise in the property market right now isn’t there? Depending on who you listen to, we’re either heading for a property boom or staring down the barrel of a housing market collapse. Social media is flooded with opinions, economists are debating the impact of government policy, and buyers and investors are…
Playing monopoly was a tradition in our family for a long time. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t come out as often these days – I guess I don’t play board games much anymore. In the good old days, I played Monopoly with my parents when I was young, with my children when they were young, and…
Every now and then in life, we find ourselves nodding along, agreeing with decisions, following plans, or chasing goals that – if we’re brutally honest – we don’t actually want. Not because we’re weak. Not because we’re confused. But because we assume everyone else wants it. That’s the Abilene Paradox in action – a strange…
If a picture paints a thousand words, then this collection of charts should do a pretty good job of painting the landscape as it affects our economy and our property markets. Each month the RBA summarises macroeconomic and financial market trends in Australia by providing a detailed chart pack. World Economy Australia’s economy doesn’t operate in…
There is a line doing the rounds in overseas journals and podcasts about the death of the first-time home buyer. In Australia, I would not call it death just yet. But it is certainly prolonged suffocation. The desire is still there. The aspiration is still there. The cultural pull of owning your own home remains…
