The power of hindsight: 10 tips for before you buy property

Property podcast

This week on the Australian Property Podcast, Amy and I discussed all the things we wish we'd known before we bought out first property!

Tune in here (or click on the image below):

You can watch the video version on YouTube here:

HIA calls for lending changes as investment loans fall

Investor lending slows

Lending for housing increased by +1.4 per cent int the December 2024 quarter to $87.2 billion, according to today's release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 

This was the highest level since the first quarter of 2022, as the Reserve Bank was set to begin increasing interest rates.

However, the increase was slower than has been seen previously, and investor lending actually fell over the quarter. 

Source: ABS

Given current settings, lending is now naturally skewing towards higher income earners.

Although first homebuyer numbers have held up reasonably well - often thanks to parental assistance - tight lending rules mean that households earning under $200,000 per annum are steadily making up a lower share of market activity.

The average homebuyer loan size increased by $25,000 over the December quarter, driven largely by a $31,000 increase in New South Wales from $780,000 to $811,000. 

Source: ABS

The Housing Industry Association called for a radical shift in policy to help first homebuyers in Sydney.

“The first home owner grant is currently immaterial when compared to the cost of the median house and land package. The grant needs tripling at a minimum and the caps must be reviewed as they simply do not reflect the market. "

There has been some slightly brighter news of later for renters, with rental price inflation slowing to +4.4 per cent over the year, following some brutal increases from 2021 to 2024. 

But although there has been a lift in lending for the construction and purchase of new dwellings, the housing supply challenge hasn't really gone away, with lending for new homes in New South Wales continuing to slump to near quarter-century lows (despite the huge lift in the state's population over that time). 

Source: HIA

The Housing Industry Association also called for lending restrictions to eased:

“Restrictions on lending have been progressively tightened over the past 15 years making it increasingly difficult for banks to lend to first homebuyers.

Despite this increase in lending restrictions and the cost of lending, mortgage delinquency in Australia remains exceptionally close to zero,” stated HIA Economist, Maurice Tapang.

 

“Just as tightening lending conditions have not seen a fall in mortgage delinquency, so too an easing in these conditions are not likely to see them increase,” added Mr Tapang.

“The Government’s lending restrictions have been tightened progressively over the past 15 years. This is despite mortgage delinquencies remaining exceptionally close to zero."

James Foster ran through the detailed housing finance figures here.

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In other news, Westpac cut its fixed rate mortgages by 40 basis points for many 1- and 2-year loan products, ahead of the expected monetary policy easing from the Reserve Bank:

Source: Smart Property Investment

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here. 

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here. 

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with well over 50,000 audio downloads per month, and growing fast.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with some 3¾ million hits here. 

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 14,800 followers. 

By the way, I'm an 8-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here.

My new book, co-authored with Cate Bakos is available to buy here or on Amazon here - follow our book release on Facebook here and at our Buy Right podcast series here. 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Vacancy rates fall again as housing shortfall bites

Vacancies back to record lows

There's a lot of debate about whether interest rates should be cut this year, and if so by how much.

One of the seemingly overlooked issues with holding interest rates at contractionary levels, while simultaneously assessing borrowers with an artificially high buffer of 300 basis points - meaning a stress test using a mortgage rate of around 9½ per cent - is that it's acting as a handbrake on dwelling construction.

Higher interest rates make residential developments both less profitable and less attractive from a risk-adjusted perspective, while homebuyers are finding very hard to access the required finance to buy units in new projects.

While it might have seemed that the rental crisis went away over December, as international students return and the new year rolls on the national rental vacancy rate has dropped all the way back to record lows of around 1 per cent. 

Source: SQM Research

Although there will always be some poor quality rentals available, and there will always be some frictional rental vacancies, available quality rentals are as close to zero as you're ever likely to see in Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide, and they're also at all-time lows on Sydney's lower north shore, 

Meanwhile Hobart's rental vacancy rate has dropped all the way back down to near-record lows for a capital city of just 0.3 per cent.

Source: SQM Research

It's likely that rental price inflation will be lower than it has been in 2025, after a huge surge in rents over the past couple of years, but that doesn't mean the rental crisis has been effectively tackled.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here. 

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here. 

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with well over 50,000 audio downloads per month, and growing fast.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with some 3¾ million hits here. 

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 14,800 followers. 

By the way, I'm an 8-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here.

My new book, co-authored with Cate Bakos is available to buy here or on Amazon here - follow our book release on Facebook here and at our Buy Right podcast series here. 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Inflation forecast to fall below target

Inflation easing further in 2025

Westpac guru Justin Smirk released his latest inflation insights here.

As you can see, Westpac expects headline inflation to fall to just 1.7 per cent in June 2025, with outright deflation in durable goods.

Source: Westpac

Core inflation, as measured by the 'trimmed mean' figure is expected to ease to 2.4 per cent. 

Without the Commonwealth Rents Assistance, rental price inflation would've been 1.5 per cent in the December quarter, but even this was the lowest annual pace in years:

Reports Smirk:

"The annual pace of rental inflation was 6.4%yr in the December quarter, down from 6.7%yr in September and the recent peak of 7.8%yr in March 2024. Westpac is forecasting rental inflation to fall to around 4%yr through 2026".

Smirk also noted that there is a strong possibility that energy rebates are extended, thereby representing a downside risk to headline inflation forecasts for 2025.#

In other research news, Eliza Owen of CoreLogic ran some analysis to predict which housing markets would benefit most from interest rate cuts based upon past trends.

The answers included houses in Leichardt in Sydney, houses and units in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne, and higher-end homes in Brisbane.

You can download and read the full report here.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here. 

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here. 

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with well over 50,000 audio downloads per month, and growing fast.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with some 3¾ million hits here. 

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 14,800 followers. 

By the way, I'm an 8-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here.

My new book, co-authored with Cate Bakos is available to buy here or on Amazon here - follow our book release on Facebook here and at our Buy Right podcast series here. 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

2-Sense: Housing market set to welcome rate cuts

2-Sense podcast

This week on the podcast, Chris and I discussed what comes next for property listings, and a few of the proposed election policies as they relate to the property market. 

Tune in here (or click on the image below):

You can also watch on YouTube here:

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here. 

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here. 

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with well over 50,000 audio downloads per month, and growing fast.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with some 3¾ million hits here. 

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 14,800 followers. 

By the way, I'm an 8-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here.

My new book, co-authored with Cate Bakos is available to buy here or on Amazon here - follow our book release on Facebook here and at our Buy Right podcast series here. 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Property listings up to start 2025

Listings open the year up

SQM Research reported a stronger start to the year for property listings as compared to a year ago, with listings nationally at 243,642, for a 10.3 per cent increase from a year earlier.

Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart all had notably higher stock listings than a year earlier.

That said, a bit of further context may be germane.

Despite population growth of around 4 million over the past decade, stock listings had been dropping relentlessly lower for a decade from 2012 to 2022, so we're coming off some extremely low listing levels.

Source: SQM Research

Listings normally begin to pick up seasonally from February, so we should get a better read on things next month.

Although markets are now pricing for several interest rate cuts over the next 6 to 9 months - with NAB already dropping its fixed mortgage rates this week - property buyers probably won't gain any marked uplift in confidence until the Reserve Bank commits to an easing cycle. 

Distressed listings recorded only a modest increase from a year earlier, while asking rents are on the way up to record highs again as the new year gets underway...this will be an interesting trend to watch in 2025.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here. 

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here. 

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with well over 50,000 audio downloads per month, and growing fast.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with some 3¾ million hits here. 

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 14,800 followers. 

By the way, I'm an 8-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here.

My new book, co-authored with Cate Bakos is available to buy here or on Amazon here - follow our book release on Facebook here and at our Buy Right podcast series here. 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Building approvals rise to 15,000 (target is ∼20,000)

Approvals soft

Detached house approvals fell -3 per cent in December, as Melbourne supply passes its peak in a soft market.

The bright spots for detached house supply are Perth, and to a lesser extent Adelaide. 

Sydney has fewer houses being approved than Perth, and Brisbane. 

Attached approvals remained low, but are at least passed their cycle lows in all 4 of the largest state capital cities. 

Overall, there were 15,174 approvals, still well below the monthly target of around 20,000 approved dwellings. 

Across 2024 as a whole, there were 170,000 dwellings approved, with the government hoping to see around 240,000. 

Canberra saw yet another record low for annual approvals, with only 680 dwellings approved in 2024, the lowest figure since equivalent records began in 1970, reported the Housing Industry Association.

In other news, the Melbourne Institute inflation gauge was negative in December, taking the annual pace of inflation down from 2.6 per cent to 2.3 per cent. 

Retail turnover was better than expected at -0.1 per cent in December, seasonally adjusted, though the first quarter of 2025 is likely to be softer.

Will tariffs and trade wars rumbling globally, bond yields were lower on the day, with share markets also taking a bit of a knock. 

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here. 

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here. 

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with well over 50,000 audio downloads per month, and growing fast.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with some 3¾ million hits here. 

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 14,800 followers. 

By the way, I'm an 8-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here.

My new book, co-authored with Cate Bakos is available to buy here or on Amazon here - follow our book release on Facebook here and at our Buy Right podcast series here. 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

2-Sense: What the latest inflation figures mean for property

2-Sense podcast

This week on the podcast, Batesy and I discussed how and where Airbnb is impacting the Aussie housing market, what else is causing the rental shortage, and the latest inflation figures and what they mean for property.

Tune in here (or click on the image below):

You can also watch the video version on Youtube here:

---

P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here. 

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here. 

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with well over 50,000 audio downloads per month, and growing fast.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with some 3¾ million hits here. 

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 14,800 followers. 

By the way, I'm an 8-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here.

My new book, co-authored with Cate Bakos is available to buy here or on Amazon here - follow our book release on Facebook here and at our Buy Right podcast series here. 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.