The chances are that if you’ve just bought (or are planning to buy) an investment property in a multi-unit development such as a unit, townhouse, or apartment, you’ll have heard about an owner’s corporation or a Body Corporate. These are essential to the smooth functioning of any building or housing lot in which owners have…
We are currently witnessing what could be described as the greatest wealth transfer in modern history. As the baby boomer generation begins to age, a massive amount of wealth is being transferred to the subsequent generations. Over the next decade, this generation, who rode a wave of economic prosperity for decades, is forecast to pass…
We are in the midst of the worst housing crisis I have seen in my five decades of being involved in property. It was a significant shortage of houses for those who want to buy, and worse shortage of dwellings for people who want to rent. And while all sorts of excuses have been bandied…
This post is about the most recent annual ABS population growth figures. Well, most of Australia’s population growth takes place in our capital cities. Table 1 shows that some 82% (or 517,000) of the country’s 634,500 annual population increase last year took place across our eight capitals. Yet when you remove the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast,…
Cheaper homes don’t make for more homes. The contradiction at the heart of our housing challenge right now is that more supply is needed to help housing values come down. In reality, though, the residential construction sector is still struggling to deliver housing with a reasonable profit margin. For private sector developers and builders, arguably…
This question is one of the most common questions I come across from beginner property investors. You see, in markets like we see today, investors, buyers, and even renters are waiting to find out whether they should take the plunge now or wait for prices to come down… or even crash entirely is some property…
Like the rest of Australia, New South Wales is in the grip of a housing crisis that has been years in the making, driven by a combination of population growth, inadequate housing supply, and skyrocketing property prices. The latest recommendations from the Productivity and Equality Commission aim to address these challenges head-on with a range…
The number of Australian suburbs with a median house or unit value in the million-dollar club reached a new record high in August, according to the latest CoreLogic Million-Dollar Markets report. The report shows that 29.3% of the 4,772 suburbs analysed recorded a current median value at or above $1 million, up from a recent…
Everyone likes cash, don’t they? While most of us don’t have much of it in our wallets anymore because it’s been replaced by a bank card, that doesn’t mean that we don’t spend much of our lives wanting more of the stuff. Whether it’s through a salary or starting a business, most Australians would like…
For more than a decade, inflation seemed like a forgotten relic, with prices around the world staying comfortably low. Measured as the year-on-year change in the price of a basket of goods, inflation was so subdued that many investors stopped worrying about its impact on their money’s purchasing power. The slow creep of price increases…
