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...
info_outlineHotspotting
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 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: 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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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...
info_outlineHotspotting
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 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...
info_outlineHotspotting
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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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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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 Prime Minister is suffering from a serious case of denial if he believes that his press conference soundbite about building 1.2 million new homes is plausible, credible and achievable.
Anthony Albanese had his big media event in August 2023 when he stated this objective of 1.2 million new homes in five years – but almost 18 months later it’s abundantly clear to everyone except members of the government that it’s not going to happen – indeed, was NEVER going to happen.
It’s almost as if the PM and his cohorts believed that staging the publicity event in 2023 was all they needed to do - make the announcement of a target which has never been achieved in the nation’s history and then sit back and watch it happen. Job done.
Here we are in 2025 and all the official data shows that building approvals - and in particular building commencements - are so far behind the levels needed to reach the target, that it can already be dismissed as fanciful – indeed, almost childlike in its naivety and idealistic stupidity.
In the past 12 months building approvals totalled around 170,000 – but approvals don’t always translate into actual construction, particularly right now with all the problems in the home building industry.
So we are so far short of where Australian needs to be to meet the target that there is really no realistic hope of achieving it.
And it’s noteworthy that the original target date was mid-2029 and now, quietly, hoping that no one notices the Federal Government has moved the target date to 2030.
But when challenged by journalists about the stark lack of results, the PM becomes angry and defensive – as he has done at recent press conferences.
The Federal Government appears to think that the industry should just go out and build the homes because the Government says they should – and is oblivious to the long list of serious problems which are preventing it from happening.
Building companies are going broke at the rate of nine per day and that is happening for a reason – but you have to wonder if the Federal Government is even aware of this reality.
The cost of building new houses and in particular new apartments has become so high, so catastrophically high, that in many instances it’s not economically feasible to build them because the average buyer won’t pay the increasingly high price for new dwellings.
Is the PM remotely aware of that?
To build homes you need a healthy supply of tradespeople – but the industry has a chronic shortage and needs tens of thousands more to be able to create the dwellings needed – and there aren’t enough apprentices coming into the industry.
One of the reasons the home building industry can’t find the tradies it needs – and why the ones that exist are increasingly expensive – is because federal and state governments have initiated record levels of investment in infrastructure – and there were over $500 billion in projects happening in 2024 and more to come this year and beyond.
This has removed tens of thousands of tradies from home building - to work on the more lucrative headline projects initiated by politicians facing looming elections.
Is the Prime Minister aware of that? Because it’s one of the key reasons his media soundbite home-building target will not be achieved.
Does Anthony Albanese know that the average time it takes to build a house or an apartment has blown out enormously in recent years, thanks to bureaucracy and political interference in the process?
That the cost of building has escalated enormously because of new rules imposed by the various levels of government?
And those factors, plus persistently high interest rates, are the key issues that are sending building businesses broke at the rate of nine per day.
Australia has never created 1.2 million new homes in any five-year period in history and it won’t be happening in the five years following the August 2023 publicity stunt by the Prime Minister.
Sadly, Anthony Albanese is in denial about it, so the problems are unlikely to be fixed.
SNIPPET:
The Prime Minister is in denial if he believes that his press conference soundbite about building 1.2 million new homes is plausible, credible and achievable.
Anthony Albanese had his big media event in August 2023 when he stated this objective of 1.2 million new homes in five years – but almost 18 months later it’s abundantly clear to everyone - except members of the government - that it’s not going to happen – indeed, was NEVER going to happen.
Here we are in 2025 and all the official data shows that building approvals - and in particular building commencements - are so far behind the levels needed to reach the target, that it can already be dismissed as fanciful.
And it’s noteworthy that the original target date was mid-2029 and now, quietly, hoping that no one notices, the Federal Government has moved the target date to 2030.
But when challenged by journalists about the stark lack of results, the PM becomes angry and defensive – as he has done at recent press conferences.
Let’s be clear: Australia has never created 1.2 million new dwellings at any time in its history and it’s not going to happen in this five-year period – so the shortage will persist well into the future.