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21 January 2025
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Australians are taking more mortgage debt into their 60s than ever before. Retirement planning assumptions haven’t adapted and could result in future income projections that ultimately disappoint retirees.
The Coalition is continuing to push for superannuation to be used for housing deposits. It's a bad idea on several fronts, including that it would inevitably push up already expensive housing prices.
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.
A new report from Vanguard has found an increasing number of Australians expect to be paying off a mortgage in retirement, or forced to rent. A financially secure retirement is no longer considered a given.
Peter Dutton has made housing a key issue for the next election, pledging to “restore the Australian dream” of home ownership. It got me thinking about what this dream represents, how it originated, and whether it’s still relevant today.
Land lease housing has become increasingly popular in Australia, especially among retirees, as it appears like a way to get cheap housing that is also a good investment. But regulatory quirks mean we all pay.
The Australian welfare system, including the Age Pension, was designed on the assumption that older people own their home and can age there. But new research shows this to be far from true for many of us.
You may have spent years, and a significant amount of money, making your current home your 'forever home' so thinking about downsizing can be hard. This is a guide to help you make an informed downsizing decision.
Super reviews aggregate retirees into an impersonal number on a chart, but the 2,700 Australians who retire each week are undergoing a major change in their lives. Why and when do they retire and then what?
Australians don't need dodgy schemes in Caribbean islands to hide their wealth. There are plenty of legal ways to avoid paying tax but they will leave personal income tax carrying a heavy burden for future generations.
It's a puzzle that many people want both more homeownership and more landlords and rental housing. Increasing the ratio of homeownership to rental out of the stock of homes means landlords selling on balance.
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.
The housing market was subdued in 2024, and pessimism abounds as we start the new year. 2025 is likely to be a tale of two halves, with interest rate cuts fuelling a resurgence in buyer demand in the second half of the year.
The renowned investor has penned his first investor letter for 2025 and it’s a ripper. He runs through what bubbles are, which ones he’s experienced, and whether today’s markets qualify as the third major bubble of this century.
This examines the performance of key asset classes and sub-sectors in 2024 and over longer timeframes, and the lessons that can be drawn for constructing an investment portfolio for the next decade.
Key lessons include expensive stocks can always get more expensive, Bitcoin is our tulip mania, follow the smart money, the young are coming with pitchforks on housing, and the importance of staying invested.
Check out the most-read Firstlinks articles from 2024. From '16 ASX stocks to buy and hold forever', to 'The best strategy to build income for life', and 'Where baby boomer wealth will end up', there's something for all.