Hotspotting
info_outline Building CollapsesHotspotting
info_outline Approvals V ConstructionHotspotting
Two very different headlines have summed up the problems for Australia’s ongoing housing shortage. One of the recent media headlines declared that building approvals were at a two-year high and that things were improving for the nation’s housing shortage. The other described why building approvals are almost irrelevant – it said that project deferrals are occurring at a record rate. The reality of the current crisis is this: it doesn’t matter how many houses and apartments are approved for construction – and it doesn’t matter how many re-zonings state governments push through...
info_outline Webinar Replay: Reflections & Projections - A Deep Dive into Real Estate Trends & ForecastsHotspotting
In this insightful webinar, Terry Ryder, founder of Hotspotting, and Tim Graham, Hotspotting’s General Manager, analyze the surprises and trends of 2024 in the Australian property market and share their projections for 2025. With decades of combined experience, they provide investors with actionable advice on navigating the coming year. Key Highlights 2024 in Review Defying Predictions: Despite high interest rates and inflationary pressures, property prices rose by an average of 5.53% nationally in 2024. Perth led with an astonishing 18.7% growth, followed by regional Western Australia,...
info_outline Best Buys ResultHotspotting
You don’t have to be super rich or invest $1 million to make big capital gains in residential real estate: you just need to follow Hotspotting’s signature report, the National Top 10 Best Buys report. Those who followed the tips in our report of a year ago could have made close to $100,000 in capital gains spending as little as $400,000 – or $180,000 in gains after investing $630,000. In December 2023 we published our National Top Best Buys reports for Summer 2023-34. Our top 10 locations for investors to consider covered a wide range of price points, from less than $300,000 and above $1...
info_outline Listings RiseHotspotting
The greatest complaint heard most often in real estate across Australia is that there are plenty of buyers, but a shortage of listings. The number of properties for sale has been well short of the levels needed for a balanced market, particularly in the boom cities of Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. But that is steadily changing. According to SQM Research, total listings of properties for sale nationwide grew 7.6% in November and are now more than 10% higher than a year ago. Perhaps most significantly, there were major rises in November in those three boom cities, with the...
info_outline Media AbsurditiesHotspotting
Things are constantly changing in real estate nationwide but the one factor that never changes is this: we can always rely on news media to distort the facts and deliver a steady flow of misinformation to Australian consumers, all in the interests of attracting readership, with little regard for accuracy, honesty or fairness. The past week or so has been chockful of media nonsense. If you can believe the headlines, the national property boom is over, house prices are plunging, the rental boom is over and the North Queensland city of Townsville is a mining town. One of the constants of my...
info_outline 2025 PredictionsHotspotting
Rumours of the death of ‘the national property boom’ are greatly exaggerated – especially since we didn’t have a national property boom in 2024. Rather, over the past 12 months, we have seen differing market cycles in many locations - as is the usual state of play in real estate throughout Australia. Strong property price growth was recorded in Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane in 2024, but not in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Darwin or Hobart. Similarly, in the regional areas, there were declining and stagnating markets, as well as some where prices were showing good price...
info_outline Regional Investment BoomHotspotting
Victoria’s real estate market is witnessing a significant shift as young first-home buyers increasingly seek affordable housing in regional areas. According to recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), first-home buyer loans in Victoria soared to 4,202 in July – the highest number in nearly two years. This surge reflects growing confidence among young buyers and a trend towards exploring housing options beyond Melbourne. Nationally, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Regional Australia Institute report that the flow of people from cities...
info_outline Units Beat HousesHotspotting
Hotspotting was among the first to identify and highlight the most significant change in the Australian real estate scene – the emerging trend which we document in the quarterly editions of the report titled The Rise and Rise of Apartments., published in association with Nuestar. This trend has turned upside down the dominant paradigm in real estate, that houses out-perform apartments on capital growth. There is now growing evidence that attached dwellings are mounting a strong challenge to houses. It has long been believed that land content was the big thing in driving...
info_outlineBrisbane and Queensland increasingly are emerging as the property market destination with leading metrics pointing to out-performance in real estate.
A couple of months ago Hotspotting published its annual report with Australia’s largest comparison website Canstar - the one we call Rising Stars – which analyses the capital city and state regional markets across Australia and ranks them for future growth prospects based on five key metrics.
And the leading market jurisdiction to emerge from that process was Queensland, including both Brisbane and Regional Queensland.
The Sunshine State has also, more recently, achieved nation-leading status in the latest population data published by the ABS.
Finance data also confirms an increase in loans to both owner-occupiers and investors, with the average loan size in Queensland at an all-time high.
In the Rising Stars report each year, we use five key metrics to rank the 14 major market jurisdictions in the nation - the eight capital cities and six state regional markets.
The report with Canstar ranks the 14 market jurisdictions from 1 to 14 on their prospects for growth in the coming year.
The 2024 edition of Rising Stars ranked Brisbane No.1 - the market with the best prospects to provide growth in the next year or so.
And the No.1 regional market in the nation, using this methodology, was Queensland.
Brisbane was a standout on all the five metrics we used to arrive at our ratings - sales activity trends, recent price movements, vacancy rates, rental growth trends and infrastructure spending.
Regional Queensland ranked in the top 4 nationally on three of the five metrics and it also produced solid ratings on the others.
The trend we call The Exodus to Affordable Lifestyle is still pumping, with large numbers of people relocating from the biggest cities to regional areas in pursuit of a different lifestyle at cheaper prices.
The latest data and analysis from a range of sources, including the ABS, Regional Australia Institute and real estate data company CoreLogic, confirms that this remains a major demographic force, with significant consequences for real estate.
And Queensland is the national leader in this category, gaining the most of any state or territory from internal migration in 2023 – that’s people moving from one part of Australia to another.
The only other state or territory to achieve a net gain in its population from internal migration was WA. All others were net losers – which means many Australians are relocating and most of them are going to Queensland for its climate, lifestyle and relevant affordability for homes.
This is being reflected in the price data. According to PropTrack, Brisbane unit prices have increased 17% in the year ending 30 June, while Regional Queensland rose 12% - while for houses, Brisbane rose 14% and Regional Queensland 11%.
This ranks both Brisbane and Regional Queensland among the best in the nation on capital growth – and the key factor is that all the indicators suggest that the out-performance of Queensland markets, generally speaking, is set to continue.