Why Australia is facing a ‘devastating insurance crisis’ this summer

A national property firm has warned that Australia is facing a “devastating insurance crisis” as this summers triple-dip La Nina threatens to financially ruin underinsured homeowners. MCG Quantity Surveyors, which has offices in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra, said that a combination of factors could lead to “one of most financially devastating”…

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Building approvals point to a potential future housing shortage

Building Approval

It doesn’t seem that long ago we were talking about an oversupply of apartments across Sydney, South Melbourne, and Brisbane. However, a lot has changed in the past few years. The ABS October figures on building approvals show a seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwelling units falling by 8.1% in October. The graph below from…

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MCG insights into property investor behaviour that you need to know

Investor Behaviour

Since we started preparing depreciation reports for property investors back in 2011, I wanted to collect data that I thought would illuminate the property industry as to the types of acquisitions the average property investors was making. Through the course of doing what we do, we also have to ask some fairly unusual questions that…

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Our predictions – Property Market Scorecard for 2017 and 2018

Property Market

What a year property has had in 2017. We’ve seen some double-digit growth in major capital city markets and a big move from APRA in the investor lending space. We’ve also written extensively about changes to depreciation. There’s also been plenty of debate about foreign investors and housing affordability. So, what did the numbers show…

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Capital city dwelling values up, with pace of growth slowing.

City Dwelling

Across the combined capital cities, dwelling values have increased by 7.1% over the 12 months to September 2016, a figure much lower than the 11.0% increase in values over the previous 12 months. So, whilst dwelling values certainly aren’t tracking sideways, the pace of growth has slowed markedly, yet is still relatively strong. Rental rates…

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Scrapping Schedules Demystified

Scrapping Schedules

Scrapping depreciable assets is a fantastic way to claim deductions as an asset reaches the end of its practical use. Essentially it’s a simple process but we’ve had a number of calls from investors confused by terms like ‘scrapping schedules’. The difference between a depreciation schedule and a scrapping schedule is practically nothing, other than…

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Sydney leading the charge as dwelling values rise in May

Sydney Dwellings

Whilst month on month figures are a little haphazard, the last quarter has seen Sydney prices grow by 6.6% with Perth and Hobart the only capitals in negative territory. Our current property growth cycle comes to around 4 years now since May 2012 and values have risen 36.6% to May 2016. Sydney’s growth for this…

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Budget 16 Property & Tax Changes

Budget

Negative gearing has thankfully been ruled out as an area the coalition will be attacking to provide budget savings. Any policy which creates a disincentive to self-fund your retirement is a ludicrous one in our view. Not to mention the net tax result of a diminishing property market.   So what has changed in the…

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