Building approvals for houses have surged over the past year fuelled by the Federal Government’s HomeBuilder initiative. 136,107 private sector approvals were reported by the ABS over the year ending April 2021 – an increase of 31.1% on the previous year. Total residential new building approvals – inclusive of houses, units, and townhouses, were however…
Jobs swoosh higher Skilled vacancies rose again in May, according to the Department of Employment’s labour market information portal, up by 1.9 per cent over the month to a thumping 245,500. From a year earlier, advertisements are up by a massive 164 per cent. There have been some huge year-on-year increases of more than 200…
Believe it or not, 1 in 10 Australian adults are millionaires! A new report from Credit Suisse estimates as many as 1.8 million Australians are millionaires today based on net household wealth (defined as the value of financial and real assets minus debts). And over 3 million Australian adults could soon be millionaires, according to…
Half of Australia is planning on saving their tax return while the government desperately wants them to blow it. Australia’s economic recovery is partly reliant on a prolonged spending spree but according to new research by Finder, Australians aren’t in the mood for splurging this tax season. The end of the financial year is almost…
With interest rates at all-time lows, in some situations, it is now a lot cheaper to be an owner-occupier than a renter. And with the prospect of interest rates not rising anytime soon, it could stay that way for a few years, unless the market changes. I thought it would be interesting to analyse the…
As with any asset class, real estate comes with its own set of cautionary tales about the potential hazards and pitfalls. At the moment all we hear in the media is how property prices are booming and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. So it’s easy to get caught up in the…
As the first wave of COVID reality bit the property market and resulted in a hard stall on activity, governments scrambled to get the engine room of the economy purring again via schemes and incentives. Property has long been recognised as a financial juggernaut, with stamp duty and other taxes filling government coffers and providing…
It is my contention that similar provisions should be available to banks and mortgage brokers. Often, the way you assess an application for a borrower with a net worth of $2,000 compared to a borrower with $20 million will vary. Making this distinction allows lenders to apply a more common-sense approach. However, unfortunately, no such…
High price growth often motivates investors to buy properties in the expectation that the growth will continue or even escalate, so are investors about to jump on board and turn this boom into a price bubble? Although the number of investors in the property market is growing, the percentage of investors buying property is around…
The ATO recently revealed the top 10 highest paying jobs in the country as well as how much “ordinary” Australians are earning. Interestingly the medical profession took out the top three spots. Surgeons earned an average of over $394,000 a year, followed by anesthetists bringing in $386,000 a year and internal medicine specialists earning $…
