Cash Hand Outs Or Real Solution
Hotspotting
Politicians at the upper levels of government have failed to deal with the cost-of-living pressures faced by Australians, including all the major components of high inflation such as electricity prices and the high cost of housing. Rather than deal with the underlying core issues, our elected representatives prefer to wait until an election is looming and then throw cash donations at voters to give the impression of dealing with the core problems. At the previous federal election three years ago, Anthony Albanese and his colleagues promised to bring down power prices. But...
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Australia's Population Surge & Regional Shift
Hotspotting
Australia’s population grew by 1.8 per cent in the 12 months to September 2024, adding 484,000 people to the national headcount, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). That puts our population at 27.3 million, with overseas migration once again leading the charge—albeit at a slower pace than earlier quarters. While the post-pandemic migration surge has moderated, we’re still seeing 618,000 arrivals versus 238,000 departures, giving us a net overseas migration figure of 380,000. This continues a tapering trend, but still marks a major...
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Australia's Record Resale Profits Revealed
Hotspotting
Australians who sell residential properties are achieving record profits, according to the latest Pain & Gain Report from CoreLogic. The median profit achieved by Australian vendors was $306,000 in the December quarter of 2024. That’s the highest nominal gain recorded since the data-set began in the mid-1990s. But behind the headline figure lies a more nuanced story—one where detached houses continue to deliver, while units in Sydney and Melbourne are still unwinding the damage of past planning mistakes. The report analysed 95,300 resales nationally over the quarter, with...
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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 –...
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.