I have been very upbeat in my last few market updates, explaining how we are now at the beginning of a new property cycle, how fortunes will be made by some property investors and how property prices will once again double over the next decade.

Well today I’m going to introduce a word of caution…

Read on to find out more...

The last issue of Property Update, where I predicted median property prices will be well over $1million by the end of the decade, created quite a stir; there was much publicity in the media, with news interviews around Australia and some controversy that saw many people emailing me saying that this couldn’t happen because of “affordability” issues.

However, there is so much misinformation about the topic of housing affordability that I felt I must address it in this issue’s market commentary.

Read on to find out more...

Imagine, for a moment, that it is 12 months from today. How will our property markets have fared in 2010?

It know it’s customary to give a forecast at this time of year, but if there is one thing that we have learnt from the Global Financial Crisis, it is that economists and analysts are terrible at forecasting the future – they didn’t see the calamity coming nor the quick recovery that followed and many economists predicted the Australian property markets would fall in a heap. And they were wrong, as the overall property market grew strongly last year.

I was one of the few who went on public record this time last year as saying that our residential property markets wouldn’t collapse and I’m going to stick my neck out and make some predictions for the coming year, but before I do lets have a look at the results for 2009.

Read on to find out more...

If you haven't given yourself a New Year's resolution yet, here's one for you....

Take advantage of this early stage of the new property cycle, buy the right property in the right location and you’ll do very well in the long term.

The good news is that Santa has brought us one of the presents at the top of our wish list - confirmation that we are going to have a great year in the property markets of Australia.

I see 5 green lights to selectively invest in now…

Read on to find out more...

2009 will be remembered as the year the property boom snuck up on us. A mixture of a booming population growth, an undersupply of new dwellings, record low vacancy rates, low interest rates, increased affordability and an improving economy were a volatile mix that ignited a property boom in some of our eastern capital cities.

Let's look at the latest growth figures reported by Residex.

Read on to find out more...

With property prices in many capital cities hitting new highs, people are once again asking: “Can property values keep rising?”

We’re told that we have record population growth and we’re not building enough houses, and this is pushing up property prices.

So do we really have a shortage of dwellings? And can property prices keep rising?

Read on to find out more...

As we are coming towards the end of the year it’s worth looking back to see how things have changed in our property markets…and boy have there been some changes.

We started the year with bad news coming from all directions and the prospect of Australia falling into recession. At the same time many economists were predicting residential property prices would collapse in Australia as they did overseas.

Yet despite all the doom and gloom, property values didn’t fall as much as predicted and the latest figures from Residex show that the recent surge in house prices in all capital cities, other than Perth, has undone the damage to the property market wrought by the Global Financial Crisis and that our property markets are on the up and up.

Read on to find out more...

What has changed in our property markets over the last year?

When we look back 12 months to October 2008 we were at a terrible time in what became known as the Global Financial Crisis. Financial markets all over the world were falling apart, the bottom had fallen out of the share market, major financial institutions were being propped up by their respective governments and people were predicting that Australian property values would fall twenty, thirty and even 40 percent.

At that time consumer and business confidence was at an all time low and the media was full of doom and gloom. Every day a new bogeyman popped out and scared us. I know I didn’t enjoy reader the papers or listening to the news – there was lots of scary stuff around.

Fast forward 12 months to today and our economy is on the rise, confidence is bounding and property values are booming.

So back to my original question what has changed and particularly what has changed to make our property markets perform so well?

Read on to find out......