Hotspotting
One 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...
info_outline The Property Playbook - EP9: Smart Money Habits for First-Time Buyers with Glen JamesHotspotting
Owning your first home might feel like a distant dream, but the right financial habits can bring it closer than you think. In this episode of The Property Playbook, host Tim Graham sits down with Glen James—creator and host of the Money Money Money podcast and founder of the Glen James Spending Plan. Glen shares practical tips on saving smarter, spending wisely, and investing confidently to help first-time buyers achieve their property dreams. What You'll Learn in This Episode: The most common financial mistakes that hold first-time buyers back and how to avoid them. Glen's top strategies...
info_outline Transform Your Property Portfolio into a Reliable Retirement Income - Webinar ReplayHotspotting
In this insightful recording, Tim Graham of Hotspotting is joined by Sam Wakefield, Director of Optalife Financial Planning, to uncover actionable strategies to turn your property portfolio into a steady income stream for retirement. Whether you’re planning for retirement or looking to maximise your current investments, this session provides practical advice to help you achieve financial security through smart property decisions. What You’ll Learn: Debt Reduction Strategies: Learn how to free up cash flow by managing and reducing unnecessary debt. Tax Minimisation Tips: Discover...
info_outline Perth MarketHotspotting
All the key indicators suggest that the Perth boom is past its peak and subsiding. Our analysis of all the major market jurisdictions across Australia, using a range of different performance metrics, indicates that Perth will not be the leading performer on price growth in 2025 – or anything close to it. After two consecutive years as the national leader on price growth, we feel confident in predicting that Perth is unlikely to repeat that performance in 2025. Perth was undoubtedly the national leader on price growth in 2023. Its median house price rose 16 percent (the national average...
info_outline Adelaide AscendsHotspotting
If you’re confused about what’s happening with rents in Australia, you can be forgiven. That’s especially so if you use news media as your main source of information about residential real estate. The information – or perhaps more correctly, misinformation – in news media is highly confusing and in many cases contradictory, with one headline saying the complete opposite to another. Here are two headlines that appeared on the same day, the 10th of January: The worst is over: slowest rise in rents in four years Affordability crisis: tenants feel the pinch as...
info_outline Rent ConfusionHotspotting
If you’re confused about what’s happening with rents in Australia, you can be forgiven. That’s especially so if you use news media as your main source of information about residential real estate. The information – or perhaps more correctly, misinformation – in news media is highly confusing and in many cases contradictory, with one headline saying the complete opposite to another. Here are two headlines that appeared on the same day, the 10th of January: The worst is over: slowest rise in rents in four years Affordability crisis: tenants feel the pinch as...
info_outline Albanese Housing DenialHotspotting
The 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...
info_outline Price DataHotspotting
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_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.