The Debt Mouse Wheel and Australia’s Housing Affordability Dilemma

Last night’s 4 Corners ABC Broadcast on the state of housing in Australia and a possible debt bubble burst deserves a blog post.  Let’s be really clear on the most important issue. Mortgage brokers, property developers and lending businesses are not financial planners or retirement specialists. This means even if they approach you, you should NEVER take financial advice from them. They are not qualified, they’ve not undertaken any training and in this respect they shouldn’t be trusted to act in your best interest. At the centre of the story was a focus on debt and its likely impact on [...]

2018-02-23T16:58:03+11:00 August 22nd, 2017|Own It|

Census confirms housing affordability crisis: Increasing number of rental households and Australians living within them, still no coordinated Government Housing Policy on the horizon

The latest 2016 Census results reveal that an increasing number of Australians are living in rental accommodation, rather than paying off or owning their own home. This phenomenon appears within every state and territory in Australia and as the table below shows, in just five short years, an extra 261,740  homes are now being rented, rather than being bought or owned outright. Rental property increases, 2011 to 2016 State or Territory Rented Properties 2011 Rented Properties 2016 Increase (Count) Increase (Percentage) Victoria 506,297 597,848 91,551 18% New South Wales 731,207 814,549 83,342 11% Queensland 508,569 560,272 51,703 10% Western Australia [...]

2018-02-23T17:11:15+11:00 July 17th, 2017|Own It|

Insipid statistics: How housing affordability statistics hide the shameful truth about home ownership in Australia.

By Robert Snell, Certified Financial Planner and Housing Affordability Expert. Sometime ago, I can’t pin point when it actually happened, politicians, analysts and journalists changed the way they reported on housing affordability statistics. Since then it’s hard to find any commentator who believe young Australians aren’t facing a housing affordability crisis. At its most basic measure, housing affordability can be determined by the median home price in a city, for example Sydney and income. The median house price (the middle house price from lowest to highest prices, when placed in order), provides a reasonable indicator as to where the price [...]

2018-02-23T17:18:40+11:00 June 9th, 2017|Own It|