With all the talk of record-breaking property growth throughout 2021, do you know how exactly your suburb and property type performed? Today we’ll show you how to find out in just a few clicks.

You’ve probably heard all the talk of national housing values soaring in 2021 – by 22.1%, to be exact.

But that doesn’t really tell you much about how your particular neck of the woods fared, does it?

Well, you can find out a bunch of important property information about your suburb’s houses and apartments, and those in surrounding suburbs, using realestate.com.au’s recently released PropTrack 2021 Suburb Report Card (desktop version, mobile-friendly link).

What the PropTrack interactive tool can show you

Ok, so the two main functions of the PropTrack tool are the ability to select “suburb” and “property type”, which is broken up into houses or units.

This is important because PropTrack data shows house prices grew 26.8% nationally in 2021, much more than the 13.4% growth in unit prices.

Also worth noting is that you can see how much change in demand there was for your suburb and property type, and even how many “highly engaged buyers” there were throughout 2021.

Other important insights you can check out include “average estimated value”, “average weekly rental value”, “rental yield” and “median days on market”.

How does your suburb compare to your state’s best suburbs?

While using the tool, you can immediately see how your suburb compares to its immediate neighbouring suburbs.

But if you also want to see how your suburb stacked up against your state’s best, you can do so via the below direct links.

Just click the > button at the bottom (or top) of each linked page to scroll between the national and state tables.

– Suburbs with largest growth in average estimated house value.

– Suburbs with largest growth in average estimated unit value.

– Suburbs that were most in-demand in 2021.

– Suburbs with largest growth in demand in 2021.

– Suburbs with shortest median days on market in 2021.

Planning on making your move in 2022?

With house prices having just experienced their fastest pace of growth since 2004, it’s as important as ever to find a finance option that’s right for you.

This is especially true as the finance market is starting to go through a shift, with more and more economists predicting the RBA will increase the official cash rate this year.

So if you’re a keen homebuyer who wants to explore what options are available to you – whether that be upgrading your home or buying an investment property – get in touch today to discuss your borrowing capacity. We’d love to run through it with you.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is general in nature and is presented for informative purposes. It is not intended to constitute tax or financial advice, whether general or personal nor is it intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about a financial product. It does not take into consideration your personal situation and may not be relevant to circumstances. Before taking any action, consider your own particular circumstances and seek professional advice. This content is protected by copyright laws and various other intellectual property laws. It is not to be modified, reproduced or republished without prior written consent.

Ever dreamed about telling your boss to “shove it” and starting up your own business? Well, there’s been a big jump in Millennials and Gen Zs who are saving up to do just that (well, maybe except for the “shove it” part!).

There’s something romantic about the notion of starting your own business.

You know, opening up a hole-in-the-wall cafe or little alleyway bar, growing a loyal band of merry locals, and waxing lyrical with them into the wee hours of the morning.

Of course, as any small business owner will attest, the realities of running a business are very, very different.

That won’t stop our next-gen though!

Say one thing for the Millennials and Gen Zs of the country, and that is that they’re an entrepreneurial bunch who won’t let something like a once-in-century-pandemic get in the way of their business aspirations.

According to a ME Bank survey of young Australians with no children, 18% stated their current financial goal was “investing in their own business”.

That’s up from just 4% six months prior!

To put that into a bit of perspective – compared to some of the other 15 options they could choose from – the top response was “paying off a mortgage” at 34%, while 19% of respondents were aiming to “save enough to buy a property to live in”.

So, not far behind the top two responses at all!

If you need help funding your dream, get in touch

What a lot of young Australians don’t realise is that you don’t have to bootstrap your way into starting up a business.

There are finance and funding options we can help you explore to accelerate your launch – and they’re not as scary as they might sound (5-in-6 businesses don’t find it difficult to pay back their business loans).

So whether your financial priority in 2022 is starting your own business, or trying to buy your first home, get in touch with us today. We’d be excited to help you take that first step.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is general in nature and is presented for informative purposes. It is not intended to constitute tax or financial advice, whether general or personal nor is it intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about a financial product. It does not take into consideration your personal situation and may not be relevant to circumstances. Before taking any action, consider your own particular circumstances and seek professional advice. This content is protected by copyright laws and various other intellectual property laws. It is not to be modified, reproduced or republished without prior written consent.

 

We all know that we should spend less and save more. Sometimes it is nor easy to save $50 or $100 every week. Here are a few ways to save by just rethinking a few everyday chores. #Energy #Energybills #Savings #money#budget

1) TURN OFF THE LIGHTS: I can't say this enough. Just turn off the various electronic devices when not in use. How many mobile chargers are left on even when your phones are unplugged. It is a slow drain of electricity,. Save money on your energy bills and save the environment.

 

 

 

 

Energy bills have been on the rise and are likely to keep increasing.

Energy bills are a big part of the monthly household budget and recent price rises have added to these costs.#budget #SavinCleanenergy #greenenergy#energy

From using the clothes line instead of a dryer to using solar panels there are plenty of options to stay within your household budget.

GUEST OBSERVATION

The widening cracks in Australia’s housing system can no longer be concealed. The extraordinary recent debate has laid bare both the depth of public concern and the vacuum of coherent policy to promote housing affordability. The community is clamouring for leadership and change.

Especially as it affects our major cities, housing unaffordability is not just a problem for those priced out of a decent place to live. It also damages the efficiency of the entire urban economy as lower paid workers are forced further from jobs, adding to costly traffic congestion and pushing up unemployment.

There have recently been some positive developments at the state level, such as Western Australia’s ten year commitment to supply 20,000 affordable homes for low and moderate income earners. Meanwhile, following South Australia’s lead, Victoria plans to mandate affordable housing targets for developments on public land. And in March the NSW State Premier announced a fund to generate $1bn in affordable housing investment.

But although welcome, these initiatives will not turn the affordability problem around while tax settings continue to support existing homeowners and investors at the expense of first time buyers and renters. Moreover, apart from a brief interruption 2008-2012, the Commonwealth has been steadily winding back its explicit housing role for more than 20 years.

The post of housing minister was deleted in 2013, and just last month Government senators dismissed calls for renewed Commonwealth housing policy leadership recommended by the Senate’s extensive (2013-2015)  Affordable Housing Inquiry. This complacency cannot go unchallenged.

Challenging the 'best left to market' mantra

The mantra adopted by Australian governments since the 1980s that housing provision is “best left to the market” will not wash. Government intervention already influences the housing market on a huge scale, especially through tax concessions to existing property owners, such as negative gearing. Unfortunately, these interventions largely contribute to the housing unaffordability problem rather than its solution.

But first we need to define what exactly constitutes the housing affordability challenge. In reality, it’s not a single problem, but several interrelated issues and any strategic housing plan must specifically address each of these.

Firstly, there is the problem faced by aspiring first home buyers contending with house prices escalating ahead of income growth in hot urban housing markets. The intensification of this issue is clear from the reduced home ownership rate among young adults from 53% in 1990 to just 34% in 2011 – a decline only minimally offset by the entry of well-off young households into the housing market as first-time investors.

Secondly, there is the problem of unaffordability in the private rental market affecting tenants able to keep arrears at bay only by going without basic essentials, or by tolerating unacceptable conditions such as overcrowding or disrepair. Newly published research shows that, by 2011, more than half of Australia’s low income tenants – nearly 400,000 households – were in this way being pushed into poverty by unaffordable rents.

Thirdly, there is the long-term decline in public housing and the public finance affordability challenge posed by the need to tackle this. In NSW, for example, 30-40% of all public housing is officially sub-standard.

Why the 'build more houses' approach won't work

A factor underlying all these issues is the long-running tendency of housing construction numbers to lag behind household growth. But while action to maximise supply is unquestionably part of the required strategy, it is a lazy fallacy to claim that the solution is simply to ‘build more homes’.

Even if you could somehow double new construction in (say) 2016, this would expand overall supply of properties being put up for sale in that year only very slightly. More importantly, the growing inequality in the way housing is occupied (more and more second homes and underutilised homes) blunts any potential impact of extra supply in moderating house prices. Re-balancing demand and supply must surely therefore involve countering inefficient housing occupancy by re-tuning tax and social security settings.

Where maximising housing supply can directly ease housing unaffordability is through expanding the stock of affordable rental housing for lower income earners. Not-for-profit community housing providers - the entities best placed to help here - have expanded fast in recent years. But their potential remains constrained by the cost and terms of loan finance and by their ability to secure development sites.

Housing is different to other investment assets

Fundamentally, one of the reasons we’ve ended up in our current predicament is that the prime function of housing has transitioned from “usable facility” to “tradeable commodity and investment asset”. Policies designed to promote home ownership and rental housing provision have morphed into subsidies expanding property asset values.

Along with pro-speculative tax settings, this changed perception about the primary purpose of housing has inflated the entire urban property market. The OECD rates Australia as the fourth or fifth most “over-valued” housing market in the developed world. Property values have become detached from economic fundamentals; a longer term problem exaggerated by the boom of the past three years. As well as pushing prices beyond the reach of first home buyers, this also undermines possible market-based solutions by swelling land values which damage rental yields, undermining the scope for affordable housing. Moreover, this places Australia among those economies which, in OECD-speak, are “most vulnerable to a price correction”.

While moderated property prices could benefit national welfare, no one wants to trigger a price crash. Rather, governments need to face up to the challenge of managing a “soft landing” by phasing out the tax system’s economically and socially unjustifiable market distortions and re-directing housing subsidies to progressive effect.

A 10-point plan for improved housing affordability

Underpinned by a decade’s research on fixing Australia’s housing problems, we therefore propose the following priority actions for Commonwealth, State and Territory governments acting in concert:

• Moderate speculative investment in housing by a phased reduction of existing tax incentives favouring rental investors (concessional treatment of negative gearing and capital gains tax liability)
• Redirect the additional tax receipts accruing from reduced concessions to support provision of affordable rental housing at a range of price points and to offer appropriate incentives for prospective home buyers with limited means.
• By developing structured financing arrangements (such as housing supply bonds backed by a government guarantee), actively engage with the super funds and other institutional players who have shown interest in investing in rental housing.
• Replace stamp duty (an inefficient tax on mobility) with a broad-based property value tax (a healthy incentive to fully utilise property assets)
• Expand availability of more affordable hybrid ‘partial ownership’ tenures such as shared equity – to provide ‘another rung on the ladder’
• Implement the Henry Tax Review recommendations on enhancing Rent Assistance to improve affordability for low income tenants especially in the capital city housing markets where rising rents have far outstripped the value of RA payments.
• Reduce urban land price gradients (compounding housing inequity and economic segregation) by improving mass transit infrastructure and encouraging targeted regional development to redirect growth
• Continue to simplify landuse planning processes to facilitate housing supply while retaining scope for community involvement and proper controls on inappropriate development
• Require local authorities to develop local housing needs assessments and equip them with the means to secure mandated affordable housing targets within private housing development projects over a certain size
• Develop a costed and funded plan for existing public housing to see it upgraded to a decent standard and placed on a firm financial footing within 10 years.

While not every interest group would endorse all of our proposals, most are widely supported by policymakers, academics and advocacy communities, as well as throughout the affordable housing industry. As the Senate Inquiry demonstrated beyond doubt, an increasingly dysfunctional housing system is exacting a growing toll on national welfare. This a policy area crying out for responsible bipartisan reform.

Bill Randolph is Director, City Futures, Infrastructure in the Built Environment at UNSW Australia

Judith Yates is Honorary Associate Professor at University of Sydney

Michael Darcy is Director of Urban Research Centre at University of Western Sydney

Nicole Gurran is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at University of Sydney

Peter Phibbs is Chair of Urban Planning and Policy at University of Sydney

Vivienne Milligan is Chair of City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice at UNSW Australia