The political idiocy surrounding Aussie housing

Ask those who know me, and most would say I’m not prone to emotional outbursts. Sure, half a bottle of red and a robust debate on sports cars or the world’s greatest guitar player will bring out my strident fervour, but I know my limits. However, there’s one issue that’s come to the fore that…

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The Cause of Our Deepening Rental Crisis

Consumer House Price

While I’m a generally upbeat person, there are some aspects of the Australian residential investment market that are cause for concern. Worse still is that some of the struggles we see in the rental market can be remedied, but they’re founded in a common misconception about real estate investors. I think we’re in the habit…

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My 2021 Predictions – thoughts on what 2021 will deliver

Profound predictions, bold statements and audacious utterings are not something normally associated with the button-down persona of quantity surveyors. But I’m about to buck the trend. Perhaps I’ve been I’m emboldened by this year of challenge. Maybe I’ve gone lockdown stir crazy. Possibly, it’s just the end of the year and it’s time to pop…

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Deductions & Depreciation for all – Why the kids are doing OK

Depreciation & Deductions

Like any good analytical thinker, I love to hypothesise. Some think it’s a character flaw, whereas I – and those of my quantity surveying ilk – enjoy nothing more than ingesting data, extrapolating the assumptions and producing a conclusion. I was thinking about the recent federal election and the discussions put forward pre-poll day about…

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What is a tax depreciation schedule and how can it change your tax return?

Tax Depreciation Schedule

Albert Einstein said if you can’t explain something simply, then you don’t understand it well enough. So, it’s time to test my understanding of tax depreciation schedules! A tax depreciation schedule is simply a report detailing the depreciation entitlements available to you within your investment property. The depreciation entitlements can be broken into two simple…

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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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Investors are losing to depreciation changes to plant and equipment

Budget Changes

We recently analysed 1,000 residential depreciation schedules and found that 82% of them would still benefit from having a depreciation schedule completed, given the impact of depreciation changes to plant and equipment. In some ways, it’s good news for investors (and quantity surveyors especially) that the impact wasn’t worse. Certainly, abolishing negative gearing would be…

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