Spring is here
Australia follows the meteorological system, and hence our seasons roll over on the same date each year, so spring begins officially on September 1. Spring is traditionally the time when our property market starts to get going, and like most things property, the reasoning is purely human, as the weather gets warmer, like lazy lizards […]
How to fix our housing supply crisis
There is a lot of noise lately about housing supply with the national cabinet meeting on August 16 to discuss the crisis and later releasing a statement it had set an ambitious target to build 1.2 million new “well-located” homes in five years from July 1, 2024. Nationally, total dwellings approvals are down 7.7 per […]
The property poker game
There are a lot of forces playing in the perpetual poker game that is property. Undoubtedly the biggest player to date has been inflation. Forcing the Reserve Bank (RBA) to up interest rates, inflation has been a dominate force that will just not be tamed. But thankfully, Inflation might have run out of chips! Throughout […]
A changing world
I’m not sure how many of my readers have been following the war in Ukraine, but I am sure by now you are all aware of the potential coup that almost happened on Friday evening in Russia. As those events played out, it was like watching the script of a new blockbuster movie, or perhaps […]
Slowing down for winter
Winter is by tradition the slowest period of the year for the property market. Both residential and commercial buyers and sellers go into an annual hibernation until the new financial year and the new warmer months of spring come around. Across the Geelong and Bellarine Region listing numbers are down by approximately 30 per cent, […]
State land taxes – the devil is in the detail.
The Victorian State Budget delivered on May 23, 2023 includes various land tax charges that should be concerning for both tenants and landlords alike. Preston Rowe Paterson (PRP), a leading national valuation firm, has reviewed the budget’s Land Tax and Stamp Duty tax grabs from the perspective of its impact on existing rental prices and […]
Putting it all in perspective.
Each week I write these articles, I try to find some interesting statistics that might give me a clue on what is happening from a macro and micro economic level, and how it may affect the property market in our region. An interesting fact I came upon this week is that Australia is number two […]
Why did we need another rate rise?
Wowee, it’s hard not to write about the Reserve Bank’s decision to put up interest rates another 25 basis points. Australia’s inflation figures were down in March to 6.8 per cent from peaks of more than 8 per cent. The American inflation rate dropped significantly over April down to 4.98 per cent, and the Japanese […]
Markets within markets.
What a difference a couple of weeks makes! Only three weeks ago people were still writing us off – a poor start to the year and the negative Nancys came out of the woodwork. It’s not our great football team I am talking about, however the comparisons are obvious. Three weeks ago, the Geelong Cats […]
Tax on your property – it’s worth checking out.
My phone is running hot at the moment with people calling and asking questions about tax on property: land tax, windfall gains tax, capital gains tax. A heck of a lot of people who have not previously received a property tax bill have received one in the mail in February, and the due date for […]