The current situation for first-home buyers is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Over the past couple of years, we’ve witnessed a whirlwind of changes, particularly in the mortgage market. Mortgage rates have skyrocketed at an unprecedented pace, soaring from 2.9% in April 2022 to a staggering 6.4% today. And if that wasn’t enough, the rental…
Is it better to invest in a house or an apartment? These are age-old questions that aren’t easy to answer. You see, a few things have happened recently that have caused investors increasingly shy away from investing in apartments. We’ve seen a shift-change to a new working and home life prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic,…
When speaking to property investors they all tell me much the same thing… They bought their properties because they want to develop a degree of financial freedom. Some are looking to quit their jobs, others just want to have the choice of whether they work or not. Some are trying to save for their retirement…
As tax time is approaching it’s time to get all your financial ducks in a row. And this year, it’s more important than ever for property investors to get it right. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has announced it will focus on three areas where people make the most mistakes on their tax return, and…
Living in an apartment, townhouse, or any strata-titled property comes with a ton of perks – convenience, security, and sometimes even fancy amenities like pools and gyms. But there’s also a cost associated with sharing the responsibility of these spaces: strata fees. Think of them as a shared investment in the upkeep and improvement of…
As we approach the cooler winter months the flow of new listings coming to market is slowing, but tracking well above the previous five-year average. Over the past four weeks, CoreLogic tracked 38,258 freshly advertised properties, almost 18% more than at the same time last year and 7.7% above the previous five-year average. The above-average…
Crisis conditions have gripped Australia’s rental markets in recent years, with affordable rentals now few and far between. According to PropTrack, nationally advertised rental prices are up 43% for houses and 46% for units compared to pre-pandemic levels. In some markets, like Queensland and WA, median advertised weekly rents have surged by close to 80%…
The number of buyers entering the property market has continued to grow in the past year despite the cash rate peaking in the current rate cycle at 4.35%. The latest ABS Lending Indicators show the number (in original figures) of first home buyers, owner-occupiers and investors in total has grown by 31% annually with 50,188…
Australians looking to buy a property will now need to save as much as $65K more than 5 years ago as booming house prices hiked up how much buyers need to front up in order to buy their dream home. Australia’s property market defied the many doomsday forecasts and moved through the bottom of the…
Post-COVID housing stress has been especially intense in Queensland. Brisbane property prices have climbed by 65% since the pandemic began. That’s almost double the Australian capital city average (34%). According to new data released by CoreLogic this week, Brisbane now has the second-most expensive housing in the country, behind Sydney. Prices rose by 1.4% in…
