Government Taxes Crushing Housing Costs
Hotspotting
New research has confirmed one of the greatest scandals in Australian real estate – the reality that taxes and charges from the three levels of governments comprise between 40% and 50% of the cost of creating new homes. At a time when Australia is experiencing its greatest ever housing crisis - marked by shortages of homes, poor affordability, escalating rents and increasingly high construction costs - it’s outrageous that anyone building a new house on a small block of land will be paying a huge percentage of the cost to government. Taxes, fees and charges make up almost 50% of the cost...
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Why Cheapies Can Deliver Big Growth
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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How Disasters Can't Stop Property Growth
Hotspotting
When Cyclone Alfred was bearing down on southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, the impact on the property market was probably not high on the list of considerations for citizens of these areas. But in the aftermath of this major weather event, there will be some thought given to how home values will be impacted by storm damage and floodwaters. The reality is that Australian property markets typically show remarkable resilience in the face of natural disasters, whether they be cyclones, storms, floods, bushfires or periods of drought. Locations with a history of...
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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...
info_outlineOne of the fundamental factors we look for at Hotspotting when assessing locations is infrastructure.
We want to know that a location has good basic infrastructure – schools, shops, government services, public transport and recreation amenities.
If there is also a major factor in the market like a university campus or a hospital, this can be significant as a big generator of demand for real estate.
In addition is good existing infrastructure, one of the big game-changers we look for is major new infrastructure under construction or in planning.
A $500 million or $1 billion infrastructure project is a big generator of economic activity and employment in an area while under construction – and, with certain types of infrastructure, when completed and operational. And this means strong demand for dwellings, both to buy and to rent.
This is one of key factors that has kept many property markets across Australia busy and vibrant during times of high inflation, high interest rates and economic uncertainty.
And here’s the key factor: the level of infrastructure investment currently occurring in the nation is unprecedented, in my experience, which is more than 40 years researching and writing about real estate issues.
Projects under way or completed in 2024 across Australia totalled well over $500 billion, with another $370 billion worth in advanced stages of planning.
These projects include hospitals, universities, airports, motorways, rail links, ship-building enterprises and major energy projects like wind and solar farms.
Partly at least, the level of construction of big infrastructure developments was inspired by the economic damage caused by the Covid lockdown periods and a desire by governments to bring on big ticket projects to generate economic activity and jobs to avoid recession.
These developments can have huge impacts on property markets, because they create demand for workers and for businesses that provide products and services.
And the impacts can be long-lasting.
If a new $1 billion hospital is proposed, it may create 3,000 or 4,000 jobs in construction – but have even bigger impact after it is completed, because there are often as many as 6,000 jobs in the operation of this major facility.
I recently conducted an analysis of infrastructure investment in the capital cities and regional areas of Australia on a per capita basis – in other words, the level of spending relative to the population of the city or regional jurisdiction.
And the places with the biggest impacts from current and planned infrastructure were Darwin, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne among the capital cities, and the regional areas of Queensland and South Australia.
Some of the big ticket infrastructure projects currently happening, with direct and indirect impacts on real estate markets are …
the $31 billion Inland Rail Link, which is connecting Melbourne to Brisbane via regional NSW;
the new Western Sydney airport, which includes new road and rail links, as well as education, medical and commercial precincts, totalling many tens of billions of dollars in investment; and
major new hospital developments in regional cities like Toowoomba, the Gold Coast and Bundaberg in Queensland; Wollongong and the Tweed region in NSW: Albury-Wodonga at the NSW border with Victoria; and several of our capital cities. Many of these hospital projects will each cost over $1 billion and will be massive generators of economic activity and employment, and from that demand for real estate.
It's a key factor to look for when considering good places to buy for future capital growth. A location with a big program of infrastructure developments will always have rising prices.