About 14% of Australians experienced personal fraud last year. Of these, 2.1 million experienced credit card fraud, 675,300 were caught in a scam, 255,000 had their identities stolen and 433,000 were impersonated online. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ latest Personal Fraud Survey, between July 2023 and June 2024, Australians lost A$2.1 billion through…
Have you ever caught yourself wondering why the property market seems to be either skyrocketing or plummeting? It feels like everyone’s either raving about booms or fretting over busts, right? Well, here’s the less dramatic truth: most of the time, the property market isn’t doing much at all; it’s just quietly ticking along. But don’t…
After a turbulent few years in the Australian property market, we’re now seeing a consistent pattern emerge—price growth has continued for the third month in a row. According to Ray White’s Chief Economist, Nerida Conisbee, property prices will continue to increase. She explains: “The biggest driver of this price growth continues to be a lack…
In today’s podcast, Stuart Wemyss and I discuss the complexities of managing underperforming property investments, and how to decide when and if you should sell your property. We explore everything from the emotional traps that can cloud our judgment to strategic considerations like tax implications and portfolio rebalancing. Takeaways Investing is a long-term journey, often…
Have you ever stopped to think how far Australia has come in the past 60 years? In 1966, we were a nation of 11 million, fresh off switching from pounds, shillings, and pence to dollars and cents. That transition was more than monetary. It symbolised our shift from being a British outpost to finding our…
National rents rose 1.7% over the March quarter, up from 0.4% in the December quarter, according to CoreLogic’s latest Quarterly Rental Review. However, this uptick is largely seasonal, with the 1.7% rise in rents over the three months to March marking the slowest Q1 growth since 2019 (1.0%) and is a full percentage point below…
Yes, you read that right — even in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, there are still places around Australia where owning a home can be cheaper than renting. But (and it’s a big but), you need to know where to look, and you need to act strategically. The media’s been busy with doom and…
Investor behaviour matters a lot. In fact, it probably matters more than skill. To understand why this is true, first, you need to understand one fundamental concept: Investment returns and investor returns are almost always different. In 1999, I was working diligently doing my job as an investment advisor or financial planner (I was never sure what…
If you’ve wandered down the cereal aisle recently, you might have noticed something peculiar. Between the giant, value-packed boxes of Home Brand Cereals and the small, premium gourmet granolas, there’s a glaring gap where Weet-Bix, the staple breakfast of middle-class Australia, once took pride of place. Those mid-sized boxes, the ones we grew up with,…
We are not born with courage, but neither are we born with fear. Maybe some of our fears are brought on by our own experiences, by what someone has told us, by what we’ve read in the papers. Some fears are valid, like walking alone in a bad part of town at two o’clock in the…