From September 15, first-home buyers will be able to save a home deposit through their superannuation fund. Access to the Federal Government’s First Home Super Saver Scheme will begin almost a year after the introduction of legislation to enable it. The scheme allows first-home buyers to pay voluntary contributions into their superannuation fund to save money for their first home deposit. Those using it can salary sacrifice, which means their savings are being put into superannuation before they are taxed, as opposed to banking after-tax dollars. The voluntary contributions can then be releas ..read more

There are still locations, some within 10km of the CBD, where buyers can secure affordable properties, according to PropTrack’s Affordability Hotspots Report. The report measures how many homes sold between July 2023 and March 2024 were affordable, based on buyers spending 25% of their pre-tax income on mortgage repayments. PropTrack senior economist, Paul Ryan, says the methodology determines what is affordable for the people who already live in that city. In Sydney, Parramatta topped the list with on average Sydney households able to purchase nearly half the homes in the region. Canterbury ..read more

First-time investors are sticking close to capital cities, according to a new report. The Active Property Investors Report from the Commonwealth Bank also shows the average age of property investors in Australia is 43 and the average loan size is a little more than $500,000. CBA’s Executive General Manager of Home Buying, Dr Michael Baumann, says nationally the top location for new property investment purchases in 2023 was in the 2000 postcode of the Sydney CBD including Haymarket. In Melbourne the top postcode, was 3029 which covered West Melbourne, including Hoppers Crossing. Another top pe ..read more

Australia is in the top four in the world for house price growth in the past five years according to new data from the International Monetary Fund. The data shows that after inflation Australian house prices have increased by more than 10% since 2019. Only the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Japan had higher real house price growth during the same period. It comes as the Australian Financial Review’s quarterly property survey, tips that prices will keep rising. Its panel of ten experts are predicting growth of 5% nationally with Perth expected to have the strongest growth of 16% i ..read more

Property industry confidence is on the rise according to the latest Procore/Property Council Survey. Property Council of Australia Group Executive Policy and Advocacy Matthew Kandelaars, says the stable interest rate environment and easier access to finance is helping calm the industry, despite it having to deal with “broken state planning systems and government inefficiencies”. He says all levels of government need to work together to meet national housing targets and encourage investment in the property sector. The survey shows that expectations of further house price growth continue to inc ..read more

The increase in construction costs is easing, with new figures showing growth in the past year is the lowest since 2007. CoreLogic’s Cordell Construction Cost Index (CCCI) says costs only increased by 0.8% for the first quarter of 2024 and 2.8% in 2023. CoreLogic Economist Kaytlin Ezzy says while growth in national construction costs are easing from the highs experienced throughout the pandemic, price levels remain elevated. “The strong fluctuations seen in building material costs over the past few years have levelled out and are now within normal margins,” Ezzy says. Despite the slowdown cos ..read more

Australian property prices remain higher in almost all locations than they were four years ago with new analysis showing some areas have more than doubled. The data shows the pace of price growth in the past four years is substantially higher than it was in the preceding four years. PropTrack Economist, Anne Flaherty says that is because market conditions during the pandemic triggered a “once-in-a-generation boom”, driven primarily by very low borrowing costs and lifestyle changes. “The level at which property prices rose in 2021 in particular was the fastest episode of price growth ..read more

Rental growth picked up pace again in the first quarter of 2024 with combined capital house rents up by 5% ($30). The latest Domain Rental Report shows the increase was the largest quarterly rise in 17 years and the second highest on record. It says the supply-demand imbalance is still clearly placing pressure on rents. Despite the increases the pace of growth is slowing – rising three times slower than in the March quarter of 2023 and annual gains are the slowest since June 2022. The report says there are record asking rents in most capital cities with the exception of Canberra houses and Ho ..read more

Loans to investors and first-home buyers picked up in February according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The figures show a 1.5% increase in mortgage commitments across the board during the month to the value of $26.4 billion. Investor loans rose by 1.2% in February and first-home buyer loans increased by 4.8% in the month. Both are 21% higher than at the same time last year. There were 9,377 loans to first-home buyers during February. ABS head of finance statistics, Mish Tan, says investor loans made up more than half of the growth in total new loan commitments in the p ..read more

Regional house prices are experiencing the highest growth since March 2020, according to new PropTrack data. PropTrack Senior Economist Eleanor Creagh says coastal and regional areas benefited most from affordability advantages and a pandemic-induced preference shift in recent years. She says four years since the start of the pandemic regional home prices have outperformed their capital city counterparts in every state except Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The best-performing regional market in the past four years was Regional Queensland with prices up 66.5% since March 2020, w ..read more