Australian Property

Despite the strong prospects of an interest rate hike, the nation’s final auction clearance rate bounced last weekend.

The Victorian government has introduced a suite of tax increases and new levies that significantly raise holding costs for investors—primarily through lower land‑tax thresholds, expanded vacant‑residential‑land taxes, and new short‑stay levies.

Australia’s 50% capital gains tax (CGT) discount for individuals (introduced in 1999) has come under renewed scrutiny, with a broad coalition calling for reform to ease the housing affordability crisis, bolster the federal budget, and improve intergenerational equity.

Brisbane’s housing market has experienced one of its largest-ever price booms over the past five years.

In the decade to June 2025, NSW’s population expanded by 977,703, driven by 884,772 net overseas migration (NOM). The state lost 245,211 residents to other jurisdictions over the last decade, which was mostly offset by a natural increase of 403,898 (i.e., births minus deaths).

Exclusively from national treasure, Gerard Minack.

Australia’s 5% deposit scheme has triggered a surge in first‑home buyer activity, but mortgage brokers warn the same policy is now likely to hurt those buyers the most if interest rates rise on Tuesday. Loan Market data shows a 49% jump in first‑home buyer mortgage applications in October (when the scheme began).

In this post-truth world, everything old is new again.

In the debate over the types of houses being built in Australia, a frequently repeated narrative is that the shift toward more apartments is positive because migrants favour that type of living arrangement.

The latest interest rate futures pricing has Australia’s official cash rate sitting at 4.17% by the end of 2026.

Seriously, who would want to be a tenant in Australia?

KPMG’s January 2026 outlook paints a picture of broad‑based, shortage‑driven price growth, with affordable suburbs and unit markets outperforming, and Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth emerging as standout markets.

Recently when the ABS released the latest housing finance data, it came with a headline unwelcome to anyone concerned about housing affordability: ‘Investment loans reach record high’ Now, if we were to wind the clock back 40 years to the mid-1980’s, the assessment of this headline would be entirely different.

Cotality’s latest chart pack for December showed that Australia’s dwelling stock was valued at $12.3 trillion at the end of 2025, spread across 11.4 million homes.

Australia’s housing market is an unmitigated disaster on almost every metric.

Last year, I claimed that the Australian Treasury’s modelling of Labor’s 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers demonstrated that the Treasury had become the federal government’s propaganda arm.

Cotality has a rather hopeful press release. Momentum returns to the building sector The Cordell Construction Cost Index (CCCI) recorded a 1.0% increase in construction costs nationally over the December 2025 quarter, the strongest quarterly growth of the year.

Australia’s November CPI release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that housing inflation rose by 5.2% over the year to November 2025.