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22 December 2024
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Rising urban housing costs in Australia are outpacing wage growth, particularly in cities like Sydney and Melbourne. This is leading to an exodus of workers, especially in their 30s, from cities to regions.
Why has a succession of inquiries and reports, along with a plethora of academic papers, not led to effective action to improve housing affordability? Because the work has been aimless and unsupported by a national consensus.
Sydney continues to have the most expensive median dwelling value, but the gap between it and the likes of Brisbane and Perth has narrowed. Melbourne's housing values are now the sixth lowest across the eight capital cities.
The current difficulties confronting housing policy partially stem from an explosion of mortgage debt. We've engineered a price for housing that will cause a severe problem for future generations – if it isn't addressed.
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.
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.
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.
Why do house prices move in an up-and-flat pattern rather than up-and-down like shares? When house prices start to fall, supply reduces to create a new equilibrium, rather than needing even more price reductions.
There have been regular falls in real house prices in the past. Some of the 40% gains of 2020 to 2021 will be given back now but housing is a long-term investment and fundamentals are likely to remain strong.
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.
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.