Approvals vs Reality The Housing Crisis Explained
Hotspotting
One of the many ways media misinforms Australian consumers is their misunderstanding of the difference between building approvals and actual construction of new dwellings. Right now, at a time when we have major dwelling shortages and construction costs are so incredibly high, there is a very important distinction between the number of dwelling approvals and the number of homes actually being built. The difference between the two is quite stark and it speaks to the biggest single problem amid the housing crisis – approvals often are not translating into actual construction of homes, because...
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Why Apartments Are Booming in 2025
Hotspotting
The Great Australian Dream still exists, it’s just that - for many - it now means owning an apartment, not a house with a white picket fence. As property prices continue to grow, the dream of owning a freestanding house has morphed into the dream of owning an apartment - for more and more Australians. Apartment living is no longer just a financial choice, but a conscious decision to seek out a different way of living - a more affordable and low-maintenance lifestyle. The percentage of Australians who live in a freestanding house has been declining since the beginning of the new...
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Brisbane: Australia’s Hottest Market
Hotspotting
Brisbane was one of the nation’s boom markets in 2024 and likely to do even better this year. The price data shows that Brisbane delivered a strong performance last year, both with house prices and in particular unit prices – but was third in the capital city growth rankings behind Adelaide and Perth. Figures from PropTrack and CoreLogic show Brisbane house prices overall were up 10% last year and unit prices around 15%. In 2025 we expect Brisbane to have another strong year and to overtake those other cities to be the national leader on price growth. ...
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Australia’s Housing Crisis – How Did We Get Here & How Do We Fix It? | The Property Playbook
Hotspotting
🏡 Australia's Housing Crisis: Causes & Solutions With housing affordability at record lows and supply failing to keep up with demand, how did Australia's property market reach this crisis point? More importantly—how do we fix it? In this special episode of The Property Playbook, Tim Graham is joined by an expert panel to tackle one of the most pressing issues facing Australian homeowners, investors, and renters: 🎙️ Panel Guests: ✅ Michael Sukkar – Federal Shadow Housing Minister ✅ Kelly Ryan – CEO of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) ✅ Terry Ryder –...
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Mining Towns
Hotspotting
Some investors are attracted to the cheap house prices and very high rental yields in resources sector towns but recent events in two of the nation’s iconic locations demonstrate why this can be a strategy fraught with peril. Hotspotting methodology dictates that a diverse economy is a core factor in any location we are willing to recommend – which means locations dominated by one industry sector seldom make it to our hotspots reports. A country town solely reliant on agriculture, a coastal enclave where everything depends on tourism and mining towns are all places we shy...
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Shallow Analysis
Hotspotting
I sometimes despair for Australians trying to make sense of real estate markets, when the standard of analysis and commentary in news media is so poor. Knee-jerk responses to short-term data sets from economists, journalists and often from the big-name research houses create a mass of confusing, conflicting and contradictory commentary. The commentary around price data is the worst example of this. For a long time, the biggest problem for consumers trying to make sense of market events has been commentators putting too much importance on short-term results. ...
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Regional QLD: 2025’s Hottest Market?
Hotspotting
Regional Queensland had a pretty good year for price growth in 2024 but I’m predicting it will have an even better one in 2025. There’s mounting evidence that the combined weight of internal migrants moving to Queensland and investors increasingly pivoting from Western Australia to Queensland will drive significant price uplift this year. In 2024, according to PropTrack figures, the median house price for Regional Queensland increased 10%, which was well above the national average (4%), and better than our three biggest cities, but was slightly below the level of growth achieved in...
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Next $1M Suburbs Revealed!
Hotspotting
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, many of Australia’s property markets have experienced some extraordinary price growth. Many locations, both city-based and regional, achieved unprecedented price increases with median house and unit prices soaring as demand hit new highs. Where once a million-dollar house or unit median was unusual, that recent growth launched many locations into that club for the first time. As of January 2025, there were 1,194 suburbs or towns with a median house price or median unit price of $1 million or more – 50 more than in September 2024. These figures show...
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Chalmers vs. Landlords: Who’s Right?
Hotspotting
Was the Federal Treasurer being serious when he suggested that investors pass on the new interest rate cut to tenants in the form of cheaper rents? Has Jim Chalmers lost the plot completely or was he making a shallow pitch to voters on the eve of a Federal Election? To suggest that investor owners are in a position to hand out financial benefits to tenants because of this one, very small, isolated reduction in their costs suggests that Chalmers is either divorced from reality or he’s having a cheap shot at landlords to win favour with renters and maybe a few extra votes. I have to say that...
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$1 Million Homes: Australia’s Housing Crisis
Hotspotting
One of the most significant housing stories in the past year has slipped under the radar of news media, with very little commentary. The latest official data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that it now costs over $500,000 to build the average house in this country. That’s the cost of construction of the dwelling and doesn’t include the land price. Given that the price of residential land is also escalating to record price levels, the reality is that the typical house and land package in a capital city is beyond the reach of most young buyers. This, in...
info_outlineThe 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 number of listings up 20% in Perth and close to 17% in Adelaide, with Brisbane recording a rise of 8.6%.
That follows significant increases in October also.
The rise in listings nationally in November was driven by a 6.4% rise in old listings (stock on market over 180 days) and a notable 22% rise in properties being on the market between 30 to 90 days.
SQM Research commented that this strongly indicated that the spring selling season had been a disappointing period for vendors and agents.
Cities with significant annual increases in listings included Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart – all up 16 to 17 per cent – and Canberra, up 23% in annual terms.
Comparing the current situation with recent history, national listings of properties for sale are still below the levels common before 2021, but have been generally rising since July.
In Sydney, listings are the highest they’ve been since 2019 and in Melbourne they’re the highest since November 2020. In Canberra they’re close to the peak levels of 2019.
In Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide they’re still well below historic levels but have been rising steadily since mid-2024, with particularly large increases in November.
The rise in the number of properties for sale coincides with evidence that the rate of price growth is reducing in those market-leading cities.
The big exception in all this is Darwin, the only capital city to record a reduction in the number of listings in November – and it remains 17% below the levels of a year ago.
The figures provide further evidence of change in individual markets, with a growing number of indictors that the Perth boom has passed its peak and that there may be stronger price performance in places like Darwin in 2025.