The scariest idea I’ve heard in a while

This sounds like a horrible idea. Want to hear the scariest idea I’ve heard in a while? We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, and we definitely need to get innovative, but this sends chills down my spine: Mirvac chief executive Campbell Hanan has thrown his weight behind the push to develop lower-value mortgages, […]

What’s the end game for the rental crisis?

Eventually we’re going to have to face we’re in a crisis. When is the rental market going to roll over? Rents have been growing at a blistering pace since Covid. Take a look at the chart. Australia has never seen anything like it: The hard news I have to deliver is that I can’t see […]

T-Bomb: How jobs stop you from growing up

Truth Bomb Tuesday: It’s hard to become completely free. Do you remember when you grew up? It must have happened at some point right? At some point you must have moved from the dependency of childhood into the independence of adulthood. But when was it? Was there a particular moment in time? Your eighteenth birthday? […]

Houses accelerate as Taylor Swift rakes it in: the economy in pictures

See the world through the eyes of an economist: House prices, infrastructure and Taylor Swift. The data is still largely giving us pretty pictures to paint. First up, there was the acceleration in house prices, with Corelogic’s data for February lifting a solid 0.6% in the month of February. Expect the acceleration to continue, for […]

T-Bomb: How debt saved his life

Truth Bomb Tuesday: I wouldn’t normally recommend this, but it works. Want to know a secret wealth hack you can do with debt? Use a heavy debt load to force change in your attitudes to money. Now, this isn’t for everyone. This isn’t even for most people. And generally, I would say that if debt […]

2000 homes approved, but no one will build them

Office conversions are stalling. Did they ever make sense. One of the most hyped ideas to come out of Covid was that we could turn all the empty office towers into residential apartments. I was always a little sceptical about this. I mean, it sounds like a good idea. There’s an empty building and a […]

WTF happened to Canada’s housing market?!?

It has Canadian flavours, but their boom is built with the same bones as ours. Someone flicked me a kind of mind-blowing report on the Canadian housing market. If you think the Aussie housing market is tight, have a look at what’s happening in Canada. And if you think that the Aussie property market has […]