Factors Behind Rising Property Prices
Hotspotting
Is Australia really heading into the “grandaddy of all property booms” just because of a couple of interest rate cuts? If you believe the headlines, that’s exactly what’s happening. But here’s the problem: those headlines are mostly rubbish. In this episode, we cut through the media hype and take a hard look at what’s really driving property prices – and it’s not interest rates. From shallow journalism to economist echo chambers, we expose the flawed logic behind the property boom narrative and explain why it doesn’t stack up against real data or historical precedent. Join us...
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From Wall Street to Toorak: Luxury Real Estate with Nicholas Brooks | Marshall White Stonnington
Hotspotting
How does someone go from trading commodities in New York City to selling some of Melbourne’s most luxurious homes? In this episode of The Property Playbook, host Tim Graham sits down with Nicholas Brooks, Director of Marshall White Stonnington, to explore his unique journey into real estate and what it takes to thrive in the top end of Melbourne’s property market. 🔑 What you'll learn in this episode: Nick’s transition from finance in New York to high-end real estate in Melbourne What makes Stonnington one of Melbourne’s most desirable property regions The current trends in...
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Australia’s Fastest Growing Cities and What It Means for Property
Hotspotting
Australia is one of the most urbanised nations on earth, but how is its population growth reshaping the map? New data from .id reveals surprising trends across the country’s fifty largest cities and towns. Some regional centres are surging ahead while others are slipping behind. The Sunshine Coast has quietly become the fastest growing city in the nation, just ahead of Perth. Geelong, Ballarat and Hervey Bay are rising fast, while places like Whyalla tell a very different story. Melbourne has overtaken Sydney again, and a small but booming area in Lake Macquarie has broken into the top fifty...
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The High Yield Towns We DON’T Recommend - 20 No-Go Zones With The Allure of High Rental Returns
Hotspotting
What do some of the highest rental yields in Australia have in common with some of the biggest property busts? In this episode, we explore the darker side of high yield towns and why some locations that promise strong returns can become financial traps. From Moranbah to Port Hedland, the history of boom and bust in resource-driven towns is littered with painful lessons. Why are some towns offering yields above 12 percent while their property values plummet? What really lies beneath the glossy headlines and impressive statistics? And why are so many of these markets cheap for a reason? This...
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The Hidden Costs Driving Up Australian House Prices
Hotspotting
Why does it now cost nearly a million dollars to build a basic home in Australia? The latest NAB Residential Property Survey reveals some uncomfortable truths. Construction costs are soaring, government taxes and delays are adding layers of expense, and productivity in the building sector has fallen dramatically over the past 30 years. Yet investors are still being blamed for rising prices, even though they make up just a quarter of buyers. So what is really driving the housing crisis? If you want to understand the forces shaping property prices, affordability and supply across the country,...
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The Election Is Over but Housing Policy Is Still a Mess
Hotspotting
🎙️ Why the Election Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis Australia has voted — but will the Federal Election result change anything for the housing crisis? For real estate consumers, the answer is... probably not. In this episode, we cut through the political noise and unpack what the election outcome really means for home buyers, investors, renters, and the property industry. While the re-election of the Albanese Government may provide short-term relief for homeowners, it offers little hope for renters or first-home buyers — because, quite simply, the government still doesn’t understand...
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🏅 Brisbane 2032 Olympics – What It Means for Property Investors - Webinar Replay
Hotspotting
This was one of the most highly anticipated and highly attended webinars of the year — and for good reason. In this exclusive session, Hotspotting founder Terry Ryder and iBuyNew CEO Daniel Petersen explore the powerful impact the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games will have on property markets across South East Queensland. ✔ Learn from case studies of past Olympic host cities, including Sydney, Athens, London, and Tokyo ✔ Discover how infrastructure, population growth, and legacy planning have driven real estate booms ✔ Understand why Brisbane is poised to outperform every...
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What the Real Data Says About the State of the Perth Market
Hotspotting
🎙️ Perth Property: Boom or Bust? Cutting Through the Noise In the confusing world of real estate commentary, how do you know who to trust? In this episode, we unpack the conflicting headlines surrounding the Perth property market — with some claiming the boom is still raging, while others say it’s well and truly over. So, who’s telling the truth? We expose the dangerous influence of vested interests in property media and explain why so much of what gets published is little more than PR spin. You'll hear why independent analysts from CoreLogic (Cotality), PropTrack, and Domain are...
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Where to Find the Best Cashflow Deals According to Our Top 10 Report
Hotspotting
🎙️ The Positive Cashflow Property Myth Busted Think high interest rates mean goodbye to positive cashflow? Think again. In this episode, we break down why smart investors are still finding strong cashflow opportunities right now across Australia. We explore the truth behind the long-held myth that you can’t have high rental yields and capital growth — and reveal why this old idea no longer holds water. From booming regions like South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, to overlooked gems like Darwin (the nation’s most affordable capital), there are markets offering: ✅...
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Debunking the Link Between First-Home Buyer Support and Price Surges
Hotspotting
Government support for first-home buyers always seems to spark the same criticism: that it drives up prices and does more harm than good. But where’s the evidence? In this episode, we unpack the recurring claims that FHB schemes like deposit guarantees and grants inflate property values — and ask why these arguments persist despite a lack of supporting data. We explore how media narratives often miss the mark, focusing blame on young buyers instead of tackling the real issues: supply constraints, high construction costs, and planning bottlenecks. If helping first-home buyers is always the...
info_outlinePrice data for Sydney provides a striking example of why it’s so important not to generalise about property markets.
According to the big-name research sources, Sydney prices grew only a few percent overall in the past 12 months, but individual precincts within Greater Sydney have recorded price growth at boom levels.
Unfortunately for people trying to make informed real estate decisions, economists and journalists like to speak about “the Australian property market” and forecast what will happen with “Australian house prices” in the year ahead.
This is not only worthless information for Australians consumers, but it shouts very loudly that the economists and journalists making those generalisations know very little about residential real estate.
Even data on “Sydney house prices” is misleading and next to useless, because it tells us nothing about what’s happening in the Northern Beaches suburbs or in the many locations within the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA or out at Blacktown or further west at Penrith.
Because some of the individual precincts within the Greater Sydney metropolitan area have booming property markets.
According to PropTrack data, Sydney’s median house price grew just 2.5% in the past 12 months, but Hotspotting analysis shows that most of the suburbs in the City of Canterbury-Bankstown rose by 12-15% and some suburbs increased more than 20%.
Several of the unit markets in this LGA have also recorded double-digit growth in their median prices.
It’s because this precinct is an out-performer within the Greater Sydney area that we have been featuring it as one of our main recommendations for Sydney over the past 12 months or so.
In the Bayside LGA, another market we have recommended in our Top 5 Sydney Hotspots report recently, many suburbs have recorded median price growth well above 10% in the past year – and this includes both house and unit markets.
It’s worth remembering that more than half of all sales across Greater Sydney now are attached dwellings – units, townhouses, apartments. The market share of houses on land has been falling steadily over the past 12-18 months and now attached dwellings dominate.
Several of the unit markets in the Bayside LGA, including some that have median prices in the $700,000s, have recorded double-digit annual price growth in defiance of the average results for Greater Sydney.
It's true also of the Inner West LGA, which is increasingly dominated by attached dwelling sales. The median house price in most suburbs is well above $2 million, but many suburbs have median unit prices in the $800,000s and $900,000s – and some of those have recorded median price growth in the 7% to 12% range in the past year.
Again, this is well above Sydney averages – and it highlights the key message, that real estate is local in nature and that buyers should be focusing on the areas that are likely to perform city norms.
And 2025 will be no different.