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.
There is no doubt that our housing markets are facing challenges from all directions, but clearly, they have remained resilient. To better understand what’s happening, this monthly collection of charts from Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) paints an interesting picture. Buying a home for roughly the same cost as renting might sound unlikely in Australia’s current housing market,…
Prices are up again. Headlines scream “new record highs.” Homeowners quietly smile. Renters quietly seethe. And somewhere in the background, a much bigger question gets ignored: As a nation, how expensive do we actually want housing to be? This is the uncomfortable conundrum that leading demographer Simon Kuestenmacher, my co-host of the Demographics Decoded podcast,…
Most people assume that if costs rise due to a shock – such as the current Middle East shenanigans – they will fall back once things settle. But economics and, moreover, business doesn’t work that way. Prices move up quickly with rising costs, but they rarely come back down in any meaningful way. “Up like…
“Am I doing OK financially?” It’s the question so many Australians quietly ask themselves. But few dare to say out loud. Whether you’re just starting out, deep in your wealth-building years, or nearing retirement, it’s natural to wonder: “How do I stack up?” Well, let’s find out. Drawing on fresh data from the ABS, ATO,…
Why is it that some property investors seem to make steady progress year after year, calmly building substantial portfolios and growing their wealth, while others stay stuck in place despite reading the same books, attending the same webinars and listening to the same podcasts? And why do two people with similar incomes, similar opportunities and…
SQM Research’s Weekly Asking Prices Index for the week ending 30 March 2026 showed mixed short-term movements, though annual growth remains strong. Nationally, asking prices eased slightly over the month, with houses down 0.5%, units up 0.3%, and combined dwellings falling 0.4%, while still 12.0% higher year-on-year. Sydney (-0.8%) and Melbourne (-0.1%) recorded slight monthly…
Most investors are watching the wrong scoreboard. They’re fixated on the headline numbers: total population growth, migration caps, whether Australia hits 40 million by mid-century. Those figures make good media copy. But property markets aren’t driven by how many people we have. They’re driven by who those people are, what stage of life they’re in,…
Low vacancy rates have driven home rents higher over March with most capital cities again reporting higher results for both houses and units. Darwin was the top performer with house rents up by 5.5% followed by Sydney and Hobart each higher by 2.5%, Canberra up 1.7%, Perth higher by 1.4%, Melbourne up 1.3%, Adelaide higher…
Talk of a recession in Australia has picked up in recent weeks. Rising fuel prices, a sharp fall in consumer confidence, and signs of softer spending have all added to concerns the economy may be losing momentum. A recession is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. By that standard, Australia is…
If you have ever checked your super balance and wondered whether you are “behind” for your age, you aren’t alone. To see where you truly sit, you should ignore “averages”, which can be skewed by a small number of very large balances. Instead, we look at the median, which is the middle value. Half of…
