BLOGS

Why property prices have bottomed

CoreLogic data indicates that property prices in the 5 largest capital cities have fallen by 7.1% since May, when the RBA started hiking interest rates. Sydney has seen the largest price fall – down by around 10%, and Melbourne has fallen by 6.7%. But it’s not all bad news. House prices in Brisbane, Adelaide, and …

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Governments vested interest in maintaining property price growth

There are many large and powerful institutions that have a vested interest in rising property prices. But all levels of government (i.e., federal, state and local) probably have the most to gain, as I’ll explain in this blog. This leads to two important observations. Firstly, the government is the main contributor to housing affordability pressures …

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Retirement might not be as enjoyable as you expect

I recently appeared as a guest on The Australian newspaper’s Money Café podcast, where we discussed the FIRE moment. The acronym stands for Financially Independent, Retire Early, which involves living as frugally as possible, investing as much as possible so that you can afford to retire as soon as possible. A listener that works in …

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2022 FEDERAL BUDGET # 2

This blog summarises the initiatives contained in the 2022 Federal Budget # 2, announced on 25 October 2022. The budget didn’t contain many initiatives for investors, small business owners or individuals. The government would have been mindful to limit the stimulatory effect that budget initiatives can have in a high inflationary environment. Child care subsidy …

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What’s going on with share markets!

Calendar year to date, the stock and bond markets have produced some of the worst returns on record, which is unusual because bonds and stocks are typically negatively correlated. In fact, this has only happened two times over the past 96 years, as illustrated in this chart. Even gold, commodities and property have lost value …

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To what extent does rental yield affect your borrowing capacity?

The very first article that I wrote for a magazine was published 19 years ago! No wonder I feel old. The article was called ‘Unlimited finance…’. My thesis was that investing in high yield properties, doesn’t magically extend ones borrowing capacity allowing them to invest a lot more. Some investors believe targeting high rental yielding …

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Important changes to your borrowing capacity

Borrowing capacity has probably never been tighter in the 20 years since I started ProSolution! This is delaying investment plans for some clients. However, my expectation is that this is temporary and an easing in borrowing capacity might not be too far away.   How borrowing capacity rules have changed over recent years In 2019, …

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