Here in Brisbane the stamp duty paid on a median priced home is $5688, but down in NSW you’ll be paying $19,385. The equates to 24 per cent of the average Sydney home owner’s annual income of $72,644. The various governments might sympathise with home buyers about the high price of real estate in this …
Despite the shaky, crazy things going on in finance markets around the world, now is the time to buy real estate. There are a lot of properties on the market right now, at least in Brisbane where things have gone ballistic in the past few weeks. So if you’re shopping for a home, you’ll have …
There’s a rental shortage across Australia at the moment, but it’s particularly bad in Sydney. Recent data suggests that there are just 739 properties currently available for rent in Sydney, a vacancy rate of just 1.2 per cent. You’d expect this would push rental prices up, making property investment a far more attractive deal than …
The Los Angeles Times recently announced that they will no longer be publishing a real estate section in their Sunday edition. Is this the start of more real estate sections being shut down, or a unique case? At the moment real estate advertising is a profitable little business for local newspapers. Brisbane’s Courier-Mail charges a …
Up here in Brisbane there’s a real buzz in the real estate industry, but down in Victoria things are dead. According to The Sunday Age newspaper, property sales have dropped from 2032 in the first four weeks of August 2007 to 1131 for the same period this year. Maybe the forecast cut in interest rates, …
We’re being told that sea levels are on the rise, but that hasn’t slowed down the Aussie love affair with seaside homes. I’ve mentioned before that I thought low-lying coastal homes could drop in value in a big way if sea levels start rising, but people are still willing to spend a lot of money …
I received an email today telling me about a Home Buyer Show that’ll be touring the eastern states of Australia. It kicks off in Brisbane (July 25th to 27th), then moves on to Melbourne (August 15th to 17th) and Sydney (October 25th and 26th). There’s some good stuff covered, especially for first home buyers. For …
I keep hearing the same thing over and over again from real estate agents: too many home owners are unrealistic about the sale price of their home. A lot of them still think that prices are skyrocketing, or at the very least that their home increased in value a whole lot more in 2007 than …
According to Scott Keck, veteran property expert and managing director of property group Charter Keck Cramer, if you want a good investment grab an inner urban apartment or townhouse: “Population growth and demographic change are going to exert extreme demand pressure on apartments and townhouses, and if appropriate for higher density [redevelopment], relatively small sites …
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has announced that the State Government will ensure a whole lot more land is available for development before the end of 2008. The goal is to have a lot more homes built in south-east Queensland over the next few years, and hopefully that will help to ease the pressure on supply …