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.
In our modern economy, nearly every system is engineered to extract your hard-earned dollars. Credit-card companies flood your inbox with “pre-approved” offers. Retailers use algorithms to trigger impulse buys at the exact moment your willpower dips – typically in the checkout line. Social media bombards you with FOMO-fueled ads for the latest gadget, vacation, or…
Fresh data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released today shows the unemployment rate climbed to 4.5% in April, up from 4.3% in March, with employment falling by around 19,000 people in the month. The unemployment rate is now at a level above Federal Treasury and the Reserve Bank’s forecasts, and that’s before the full…
![[PODCAST] How high do we want property prices to keep rising? Who wins and who loses? with Simon Kuestenmacher](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/772-PropertyPrices_keep_rising-SK-Youtube-cover-270x200.jpg)
For decades we’ve celebrated rising house prices in Australia. If your home was worth more this year than last, life felt a bit easier. Politicians were happy, banks were happy, homeowners were happy. But after 50 years of almost uninterrupted price growth, we need to ask a harder question: Is it actually good for us if…
This article discusses the proposed Local Infrastructure Fund and extended ban on foreign ownership of established homes across Australia. Both items were announced in the Federal Government’s Budget on May 12th 2026. Local Infrastructure Fund Australia’s new Local Infrastructure Fund sounds impressive at first glance. A $2 billion housing infrastructure package certainly makes for a good Budget…
You learn some lessons about money from books. Others you only learn the hard way – through experience, mistakes, and time. Looking back over several decades of investing and wealth creation, there are quite a few things I wish someone had explained to me earlier in life. Not because the information wasn’t available. I read…
![[PODCAST] Federal Budget Tax Bombshells? What Property Investors Need to Know with Ken Raiss](https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/783-Federal_Budget_Tax_Bombshells-KR-Youtube-cover-270x200.jpg)
Australia has always promised that if you worked hard, took responsibility, invested wisely and built something for your family, you’d be encouraged – or at least not punished for doing so. But some of the recent Budget changes raise a very uncomfortable question: are we slowly dismantling that promise? Because buried behind the headlines, the…
Every few years property investors are told the game is over. A new tax. A new regulation. A new lending rule. A new reason to sit on the sidelines. And yet, after 50 years of investing through booms, busts, recessions, credit squeezes, banking reforms, political interference, rising interest rates, falling interest rates, a global financial…
For many Australians, most of their retirement wealth is tied up in their home. A simple, well-designed program to tap into those trillions in home equity could help boost their retirement incomes. Such a program exists. However, it remains little known and underused. The federal government’s Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS) allows older Australians to…
I believe most people spend too much of their lives trying to reduce perceived financial risk. The opportunity cost of this approach is very high and puts lifestyle goals at risk. Too much focus on risk reduction Many people buy a home and then focus on repaying debt. They then upgrade their home and once…
What if I told you the single biggest threat, or opportunity, for your wealth creation journey could be something you never saw coming? In the early 1980s, long before there was a TV show by the same name, economist Dr. Don Stammer taught me to always watch out for the “X Factor.” These are the…
