When politicians want to give the impression of doing something, while changing nothing, they bring on an inquiry – or, even better, a royal commission. The latest inquiry created in the Federal Parliament is about housing affordability and supply in Australia.

It’s perhaps not as hated or understood as that most insidious of property charges, stamp duty, but ever since it was introduced in Australia almost 140 years ago, land tax has become just as big a cash cow for State Governments.

Its initial aim – back in the 19th Century - was as a sort of wealth tax to encourage the owners of large holdings of land to break them up and sell them off.

While that had the desired effect way back then, the other thing it showed the Government of the day was that land tax was something which could help fill their coffers and they really had to give nothing in return.

So, more than a century after it served its purpose and should have been scrapped, we still have this insidious tax which afflicts investors for no particular reason.

It seems that, even when it has outgrown its original purpose, once we get a tax in Australia the chances of getting rid of it are negligible.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, now we have the Queensland Government announcing that it will further penalise property investors by dragging interstate owners into its land tax regime.

It’s a rare market indeed when an 18% rise in prices is seen as under-achieving.

Melbourne’s median house price rose 18% in 2021 (CoreLogic figures). This was a commendable result in a year in which Melbourne was dubbed as “the most locked-down city in the world”- but it under-performed relative to the national average rise of 24.5%.

This begs the question: what can Melbourne achieve in the coming year free of lockdowns and with international borders open, bringing back the considerable impact of overseas migrants and foreign students?

Regional Victoria has been a national leader on price growth for several years, including 24% growth both for house and for units in 2021.

Where to in 2022?

The answers to these questions, and a whole lot more, were revealed by award-winning buyers’ agent
and author Miriam Sandkuhler of Property Mavens and Hotspotting founder Terry Ryder in this free webinar.

When we cast our vote at the ballot box and elect Governments to represent our best interests and help our economy thrive, quite rightly we think they’ll put a lot of thought into the decisions they make.

We’re entitled to believe that any changes in will be well-thought-out and all consequences considered in the best interests of most citizens.

Well, that might be what we all expect but I’m sorry to say it’s often not the reality when it comes to regulations around the housing industry.

In most instances, our political leaders don’t think much beyond the press conference.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find affordable areas that have good prospects and where the prices haven’t gone crazy already.

But we’ve identified some prosperous regional centres, with affordable properties, good lifestyles and prospects for future price growth.

The National Top 5 Cheapies with Prospects, Regional edition, identifies five locations within regional areas that perfectly suit the exodus to affordable lifestyle trend for owner occupiers and investors.

The latest quarterly edition of Commsec’s State of the States report has ranked South Australia the No.2 growth economy in the nation.

There’s lots of dynamic things happening in the Adelaide economy, including its growing reputation as the Silicon Valley of Australia and it’s status as the No.1 centre for alternative energy development.

So now the city is growing at a rate faster than the historical norms – and its property market is responding positively.

Adelaide is an attractive city which offers lifestyle, attractive affordability compared to the bigger cities, extremely low vacancy rates and overall great prospects for price growth.

Adelaide prices grew 25% in 2021 and we can expect more big performance in 2022. Its market up-cycle is really just getting started.

So get yourself a copy of our new 2022 edition of Top 5 Adelaide Hotspots and find out which locations we rate the highest in the city we consider to offer the best value-for-money in capital city Australia.

https://www.hotspotting.com.au/product/top-5-adelaide/

Stand by for a year of negative forecasts about real estate from the usual suspects, who will be yet again proven wrong.

 

It’s already under way. We’ve been hearing that property prices will fall because interest rates will rise. There have even been articles suggesting that prices will fall even if interest rates don’t rise, because media speculation about interest rate rises will have the same negative effect.

 

Let me tell you this with certainty: none of it will happen.

Property prices have grown so substantially in the past two years that you’d be forgiven for thinking your chances of securing something affordably priced within a capital city is now close to zero.

That may be the case in the Sydney and Melbourne markets, but our new 2022 edition of the National Top 5 Cheapies with Prospects city report reveals five capital city precincts where you can buy affordably with good prospects for future capital growth.

I believe property prices will continue to grow strongly in 2022, although you will not see similar predictions from any of Australia’s leading bank economists.

They’re mostly forecasting very small price growth this year and I’m quite sure they will be proven wrong, yet again.

When it comes to predicting property price growth, economists have a quite woeful track record – they invariably got it wrong - and usually spectacularly wrong.

The biggest mistake that we see most economists make, is that they talk about Australia as a single market.

They also tend to err on the side of negativity, because they fail to truly understand real estate markets and under-estimate the ability of real estate to deal with economic upheaval.

As a result, economists usually, frequently, get it wrong with their price forecasts.

You could be forgiven for thinking the Sydney property market has run out of steam.

Media recently has highlighted reports that the monthly changes in median house prices eased a little in late 2021.

But it would be a mistake to think that Sydney’s boom is over.

I think that in 2022 some precincts of the Sydney market will continue to show exceptional price growth.

We have just published our new 2022 edition of Top 5 Sydney Hotspots and it highlights five precincts within the Greater Sydney Area that I believe will achieve above average price growth this year.

Opportunities remain in the Sydney market to buy well with good prospects for long-term capital growth.

To find out where to focus your attention, get the new 2022 edition of the Top 5 Sydney Hotspots report.