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21 December 2024
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Housing affordability is shaping up as a major topic as we head toward the next federal election. The Coalition's proposal to allow home buyers to dip into their superannuation has merit, though misses one key feature.
Our housing system isn't working, with prices and rents growing faster than wages, longer public housing waiting lists and more people are experiencing homelessness. Here are five ways to ease the crisis.
Absent much higher interest rates and or unemployment, a house price crash in Australia looks unlikely. However, a failure to boost affordability risks a further slide in home ownership and rising inequality.
Increasing density, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, hasn’t worked as house prices continue to climb. Calls to double down on this strategy are misplaced and new solutions are needed to tackle housing affordability.
A new report suggests Australian housing is twice as expensive as that of the US and UK on a price-to-income basis. It also reveals that it’s cheaper to live in New York than most of our capital cities.
Everyone seems to have an opinion on house prices and not all of it is based on fact. Here is an analysis of the current supply and demand factors influencing residential property and the stocks poised to outperform.
Despite recent residential property price falls, housing affordability is getting worse, not better, driven by rising interest rates. Our numbers suggest further property price declines will be difficult to avoid.
With the Coalition losing the 2022 election, its policy to allow young people to access super goes back on the shelf. But lowering the downsizer age to 55 was supported by Labor. Check the merits of both policies.
Governments borrowing for roads, infrastructure and items that have a long-term payback is good debt, but cash handouts for the sole purpose of getting the government back into power is 'bad' debt.
It is hard to think of any area of widespread public concern where the same policies have been pursued for so long, in the face of such incontrovertible evidence that they have failed to achieve their objectives.
Stamp duty on buying a home is a major cost for most people, often delaying purchase. While replacing it with a land tax seems attractive, the reform picks favourites and not everyone will welcome the changes.
This increased focus on affordable housing is welcome but the challenge is that investors typically require ‘market’ rate financial returns. By definition, social housing tenants cannot pay market rent.
It’s with heavy hearts that we announce Firstlinks’ co-founder and former Managing Editor, Graham Hand, has died aged 66. Graham was a legendary figure in the finance industry and here are three tributes to him.
Last year, I wrote an article suggesting returns from ASX stocks would trample those from housing over the next decade. One year later, this is an update on how that forecast is going and what's changed since.
Australia is in the early throes of an intergenerational wealth transfer worth an estimated $3.5 trillion. Here's a case study highlighting some of the challenges with transferring wealth between generations.
The Future Fund's original purpose was to meet the unfunded liabilities of Commonwealth defined benefit schemes. These liabilities have ballooned to an estimated $290 billion and taxpayers continue to be treated like fools.
ASFA provides a key guide for how much you will need to live on in retirement. Unfortunately it has many deficiencies, and the averages don't tell the full story of the growing gender superannuation gap.
The Big Four banks have had an extraordinary run and it’s left income investors with a conundrum: to stick with them even though they now offer relatively low dividend yields and limited growth prospects or to look elsewhere.