Hotspotting
626 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago -Prepare to embark on an exciting journey into the realm of hot property markets with Terry Ryder and Tim Graham! Terry & Tim from Hotspotting, are dedicated to providing the most accurate and unbiased research to help investors make informed decisions on where to buy. The Hotspotting Podcast brings you the latest data, trends, and market statistics, along with in-depth discussions on growth areas and the larger factors impacting Australia's property landscape.
Terry & Tim regularly feature special guests from around Australia to share their industry insights and expertise to help investors cut through the noise.
Whether you're a seasoned investor or a first-time buyer, this show is a must-listen for anyone looking to build their knowledge and make smarter investment choices. Terry Ryder, with over 35 years of experience as a specialist researcher and writer in residential property, offers expert insights that are completely independent and free from outside influences. Tim Graham has been a buyers agent and mortgage broker for over 13 years along with working in real estate all over the world.
Join us on the Hotspotting Podcast and discover the hottest opportunities in the Australian property market today!
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Episodes
Do Young Buyers Really Have It Tougher Than Their Parents?
April 26, 2023 01:00 - 4 minutes - 5.9 MBOne of the recurring themes in news media about real estate affordability is the claim that today’s young buyers have it a lot harder than their parents did when they were buying their first home, perhaps a quarter of a century ago. But, like so many things espoused in mainstream media about residential property, it really isn’t true – not when you look fully at all the factors in play and crunch the numbers. Recent research - which used data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and ...
Consumer Confidence Rises, With Optimistic Views On Property Prices
April 21, 2023 06:45 - 3 minutes - 5.18 MBConsumer confidence, that rather intangible but nevertheless important component of the property market, is showing signs of serious improvement. And the area in which consumer sentiment has improved the most is with the outlook for property prices. It’s the latest in a series of indicators showing evidence of recovery in the major markets which have been struggling since the beginning of last year. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Confidence Index lifted 9.4% in April, with co...
Strong Melbourne Recovery Is Already Under Way
April 19, 2023 07:12 - 5 minutes - 7.15 MBProspects for markets across Greater Melbourne will improve as 2023 progresses. The key factor that will drive a return to higher market activity and prices is the impact of migrants and overseas students. And this will build on the recovery which is already under way. International borders re-opened in 2022 and this has led to an influx of overseas migrants and students, with Melbourne a key destination for those coming to Australia. But it takes time for this to translate into majo...
Regional Victoria Steady – And Poised To Rise
April 19, 2023 06:30 - 6 minutes - 8.23 MBRegional Victoria continues to display resilience and consistency in line with its reputation, although the overall trend in the market lately has been weaker. And we continue to see good prospects for specific locations in Regional Victoria, with the impact of 2026 Commonwealth Games a significant factor. Over the past six months, we have noted that the Regional Victoria market overall has weakened compared to the previous quarters – but that it had remained solid in the face of the dow...
Smaller Cities Lead on Long-term Capital Growth
April 19, 2023 01:45 - 5 minutes - 7.66 MBThere are many myths and misconceptions about what works best in real estate. There are those who believe that you need to be close to the CBD or to buy in the expensive so-called prime suburbs to get the best capital growth, but the research data shows that this is nonsense. Many Australians think that you need to buy in the capital cities, rather than regional areas, for superior price growth, but the regions have been out-performing for many years now. The old paradigm that houses o...
Economists Keep Getting It Wrong, But Won’t Admit It
April 17, 2023 02:50 - 6 minutes - 8.5 MBOf the many definitions of “economist”, the best of them claims that an economist is someone who will tell you tomorrow why what they predicted yesterday didn’t come true today. This reality of economists constantly getting it wrong with their forecasts, but refusing to admit they were wrong, is seen pretty much every day in Australia.
Property Data Turns Positive for 2023
April 13, 2023 20:00 - 5 minutes - 7.58 MBThe property data from multiple research sources is becoming increasingly positive – not that it’s ever been as negative as mainstream media has portrayed. A more optimistic outlook for real estate markets is being seen in data on sales activity, auction clearance rates and prices. These more positive outcomes have occurred despite 10 consecutive interest rate rises by the Reserve Bank - and pre-date the RBA’s decision to pause the rate rises at its April board meeting. And it’s wo...
Positive Perth Leads The Nation
April 06, 2023 00:37 - 3 minutes - 5.19 MBPerth is the nation’s strongest property market. At a time when the market in our biggest capital cities have been struggling, Perth has continued to thrive. Amid all the disruption that’s been afflicting property markets across Australia, Perth is still delivering strong sales activity and price growth. We’ve just completed our latest quarterly analysis of sales activity – and it shows that two-thirds of suburbs in the Greater Perth area have maintained high levels of sales activity i...
Property Data Turns More Positive
April 03, 2023 20:54 - 3 minutes - 4.99 MBA growing number of positive indicators are emerging from the real estate industry, providing confidence that the worst may be over for those markets that have been in decline for the past 12-18 months. It’s worth noting that not everywhere in Australia has been in downturn lately. Far from it – our latest quarterly analysis of sales activity shows 20% of suburbs and towns have rising sales volumes and another 22% have consistent buyer demand.
4 Corners Exposes Its Own Poor Standards
April 02, 2023 20:00 - 4 minutes - 5.95 MBOn Monday 27 March the ABC television program 4 Corners ran an expose on its own shallowness and shabby journalistic standards. The ABC personnel who put this piece of tabloid television together probably imagined they were crafting an expose of the residential property industry. It could have been that if the ABC had adhered to quality journalistic standards – but those days are long since past, it seems. It was titled “Agents of Influence” and it purported to expose the dirty hidden ...
Media Lies About Australian Affordability
March 28, 2023 21:00 - 6 minutes - 8.23 MBMisinformation about real estate is rife in Australia, to the extent that most of the nation’s citizens are utterly and constantly confused about what is really going on in our housing markets. But the single worst piece of misinformation of all, among the many that afflict Australian consumers daily, is a report published each year under the title of Demographia. Every year this report claims that Australia has the most unaffordable homes in the world, or close to it. And that Austral...
The Price Predictor Index - Autumn 2023
March 28, 2023 01:47 - 4 minutes - 6.48 MBMedia continues to discuss the downturn in “the Australian property market”, but our analysis confirms there are many different scenarios playing out across Australia. There really is no such entity as “the Australian property market” – because it’s normal to have, at any point in time, markets which are rising, markets which are stagnating and markets that are falling. This is certainly the case right now in Australia. This is the norm for residential real estate in this very large and ...
Qld "solution" will make shortage worse
March 24, 2023 01:42 - 5 minutes - 7.18 MBThe State Government in Queensland has been devoting itself recently to demonstrating why Australia has a rental shortage crisis. Vacancy rates are the lowest ever recorded and rents are rising in most markets across the nation - because the people who supply rental properties have been consistently and systematically discouraged by the actions of politicians. The leadership of the Queensland Government provide headline examples of the problems.
Is the rent crisis in Australia softening?
March 13, 2023 21:00 - 4 minutes - 5.65 MBRecently there have been media headlines along the lines of “Rental crisis shows no sign of softening”, as if there was an expectation that vacancies should be rising and rents easing. Of course there are no signs of the rental shortage crisis softening. It’s going to get considerably worse before it gets better. There are few things in life, or in real estate for that matter, that are sure things – but this is an absolute certainty. The rental shortage crisis WILL get worse, from the...
Interest Rates Survey
March 12, 2023 20:00 - 3 minutes - 5.32 MBThe good news about interest rates is that it appears we are at, or near, the end of the cycle of rising mortgage rates. That’s if you can believe the words of the Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe. But of course, we can’t believe him because he’s the guy who kept telling us he wouldn’t be lifting interest rates before 2024, just months before he started lifting interest rates 10 months in a row. That’s Philip Lowe who earns over $1 million a year and bought his Sydney home with a spe...
Growth Leader Queensland Presents Many Good Regional Markets
March 07, 2023 01:01 - 3 minutes - 5.28 MBOne of the best ways to be sure that a property market will be a good performer long-term is to confirm that it’s under-pinned by a strong local economy. I believe property markets are local in nature and that the strength or otherwise of property markets depends largely on events in their local economies. So we at Hotspotting are always interested in the economic activity that’s happening in the background, in assessing property markets. Is the local economy strong and diversified? I...
Super Savings Under Threat?
March 03, 2023 21:00 - 7 minutes - 10.2 MBIt’s become abundantly and alarmingly clear that the Federal Government is coming for us with new taxes on real estate and superannuation. Headed by Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the Government clearly has plans for more and higher taxes on real estate, with not even the family home safe from the intrusion of capital gains tax. Asked repeatedly by various media representatives to rule out dumping a tax on the family home, Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers repeatedly refused to do so. Th...
Property Markets Strengthening
March 02, 2023 22:34 - 6 minutes - 9.22 MBThere is a growing body of evidence that property market conditions are strengthening. Against a backdrop of an ever-tightening rental market and increasing rents, there are signs of rising buyer activity and stronger prices. Auction clearance rates are showing steady improvement in recent weeks and a number of research entities are recording price growth, in defiance of high inflation, rising interest rates and relentlessly negative media. The more positive data began with the rel...
Savvy Investors Target Brisbane
March 01, 2023 08:30 - 5 minutes - 7.91 MBBrisbane and Queensland are among the biggest targets for property investors in 2023 - and for very good reasons. In many respects, when it comes to the key factors that drive real estate markets forward, all roads lead to Queensland. Investors seeking the best place to put their money want to see a strong economy, they want to know that the population is growing, that big money is being spent on new infrastructure and that there is growing focus on the region they’re targeting. They a...
Exodus To Affordable Lifestyle - The trend continues
February 15, 2023 01:21 - 5 minutes - 7.07 MBThe core population trend which has seen large numbers of people leave the biggest cities and move to smaller cities or to regional areas has been happening for many years. The official population data shows that Sydney has been losing population to other parts of Australia for the past 10 years and Melbourne has been losing to internal migration for the past five or six years. The Covid lockdown period made this more visible and gave it extra momentum, but it certainly wasn’t the drivin...
Vacancy Rates Keep Falling
February 10, 2023 21:00 - 3 minutes - 5.4 MBThe situation for tenants across Australia keeps getting worse, because vacancy rates keep falling – and that means rents will keep rising. The latest report from domain.com.au finds that the national vacancy rate in January was 0.8%, the lowest on record. The other major source of data on vacancy rate, SQM Research, has a similar figure. Two of our capital cities, Perth and Adelaide, have vacancy rates of just 0.3% - and there are now only two cities with vacancy rates above 1% - Darw...
Investor Opportunities in 2023
February 08, 2023 03:27 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBAustralian property markets abound with opportunities for real estate investors in 2023. Consumers can be forgiven for not realising that, given the sensationally negative nature of media coverage of housing markets. But, right now, the equation for property investors seeking opportunities is particularly strong. Consider these realities:- • Many markets are less competitive than before, with buyers having the upper hand in negotiations. • Vacancies across Australia are the lowe...
Who's Really To Blame?
February 05, 2023 20:00 - 4 minutes - 6.51 MBHave you ever wondered why we NEVER achieve solutions to the biggest real estate issues confronting Australia. Housing affordability has been debated in the country for decades and every year it gets worse. The rental shortage has been a reality for years and has attracted a lot of media attention and much political rhetoric, but vacancies remain at record lows and rents keep rising, with no resolution in sight. And there’s a very good reason why solutions are never found to these core...
SQM Price Data Indicates Prices Are Rising
February 04, 2023 20:00 - 4 minutes - 6.5 MBThere is a growing body of evidence that the worst of the downturn has passed and there are significant numbers of locations across Australia where prices are now rising. We recently saw the publication of the latest price report from domain.com.au, which recorded growth in the median house prices of five of the eight capital cities in the December Quarter. Now the latest Weekly Prices Index from SQM Research has provided more substance to the trend of positive price trends in a growing ...
Foreign Investors Are Not The Problem
February 03, 2023 20:00 - 5 minutes - 6.96 MBThe general tactic of politicians when they haven’t got a clue how to resolve an issue – which is most of the time – but want to give the appearance of doing something, is to blame an unpopular minority for the problem. A very popular choice when it comes to housing affordability issues is foreign investors. You can slam foreign investors without any direct electoral consequences, because foreign investors don’t vote in Australian elections. As politicians, they can present themselves ...
Adelaide Remains A Shining Star
February 03, 2023 02:15 - 4 minutes - 5.51 MBWhile much of the mainstream media commentary on the property market focuses on the highs and lows of the big capital cities, it was Australia’s smaller capital cities which shone in 2022 – and they continue to do so in 2023. Adelaide, in particular, is one of those shining stars. Overall, Adelaide is a story of continuing high sales activity and on-going price growth, remaining generally one of the strongest markets in the country. Indeed, the 2023 edition of the Rising Stars report w...
Change The Emphasis About Prices
January 29, 2023 21:00 - 3 minutes - 4.14 MBThe reality of statistics is that you can use them to tell any story you like. This reality impacts real estate consumers every day. You can take any set of figures about house prices and use them to tell a positive story or a negative one, depending on your viewpoint. Media, usually, will choose the negative option – and the people who feed press releases to journalists, seeking publicity for themselves, know that sensational negatives get more publicity than balanced analysis of proper...
Don't Pay a Loyalty Tax On Your Mortgage
January 28, 2023 21:00 - 2 minutes - 4.09 MBIf you’re a long-term customer of a major bank with a mortgage and you’re paying their standard mortgage rate, then you’re likely paying a loyalty tax. That’s because new customers to your bank will be offered a lower interest rate than the one being paid by the bank’s longer-term customers. There are many things about the behaviour of the major banks that are disturbing - but few things annoy me more than their policy of providing the best loan deals to new customers, while refusing to ...
The State Of Each State Impacts Property
January 27, 2023 21:00 - 5 minutes - 7.93 MBSometimes the best clues about what will happen with property markets come from the things happening behind the scenes, often hidden from the view of the general public. News media obsesses over the latest price data as the best way, indeed the only way, to chart what’s happening with property markets. But, for everyday consumers, this is essentially useless information because it tells you what has happened recently – if you believe the dodgy data pumped out by the attention-seeking res...
House Prices Are Rising - Domain
January 26, 2023 23:48 - 4 minutes - 6.55 MBIt will probably surprise many people to learn that house prices are rising in most Australian capital cities at the moment. That’s according to the new House Price Report from one of the nation’s leading real estate websites, domain.com.au. The Domain report indicates that house prices rose in the December Quarter in five of the eight capital cities. The report records house price growth in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin in the December Quarter, led by the 3.3% quarterl...
Are Interest Rate Rises The Best Way to Reduce Inflation?
January 25, 2023 21:00 - 4 minutes - 6.81 MBI find it quite startling that no one in this country questions the prevailing theory that the best way – indeed the only way – to fight inflation is to increase everyone’s mortgage rates. Everyone – including economists, politicians, journalists and the general public – seems to blindly accept, without question, that constantly lifting interest rates is the thing to do when inflation is high. I think there’s a strong case that the conventional wisdom – if indeed it is wisdom – is questi...
Buyers Continue To Chase Affordable Property
January 20, 2023 12:03 - 3 minutes - 5.42 MBThe biggest trend currently evident across Australia is that buyers increasingly are chasing affordability. In most of our capital cities, it’s the affordable suburbs where buyer demand continues to be strongest. And, at the same time, investors continue to buy in affordable regional locations that offer higher yields to compensate for rising interest rates.
Politicians and Housing Affordability
January 20, 2023 05:48 - 4 minutes - 6.67 MBIt’s always a smart policy to take anything politicians say in an election campaign with a grain of salt and a heavy dose of scepticism. But this is particularly so when politicians start making motherhood statements about housing affordability, about how much they care about it and what they will do about it. Housing affordability has been a hot political issue for decades - but with each passing year it gets notably worse, despite all the promises made by a long line of politicians acr...
NSW Is Not A Single Property Market
January 17, 2023 21:55 - 7 minutes - 10.9 MBThe Sydney and Regional NSW markets are prime examples of why it pays not to generalise about real estate markets in Australia. Generalisation and trivialisation by media is one of the chief causes of misinformation about our housing markets. Sydney is usually discussed in media as a single market, as is Regional NSW, despite the size and diversity within those market jurisdictions.
Price Data Summary 2022
January 12, 2023 12:07 - 3 minutes - 5.12 MBRegional Australia continued to outperform the capital cities in 2022, with dwelling values rising marginally last year in the Combined Regions, compared to a 6.9% decline in the Combined Capitals. That’s according to data published by CoreLogic early in January. It shows that the Combined Regions recorded a 0.1% increase in dwelling values in 2022 (which means, essentially, no change), helped by a 2.2% increase in regional apartment markets. Across the house markets, the Combined Region...
Start 2023 With The Data You Need To Invest Successfully
December 21, 2022 23:40 - 2 minutes - 2.64 MBMore and more credible analysts are suggesting that residential property prices will grow in 2023. At Hotspotting we certainly believe that most locations will deliver some level of price growth in the coming year. So, how to determine the best places to focus your attention, to take advantage of the growth that’s coming to Australian real estate? Many of the answers lie in the pages of Hotspotting’s two most popular reports, which are being published now to provide guidance on where y...
Data Defies Doomsday Predictions On Prices
December 21, 2022 05:59 - 4 minutes - 4.39 MBThere’s a lot of media speculation around about the downturn in what economists call “the Australian property market”, with doomsday predictions for house prices in 2023 - but when you look at the actual data, that’s far from the reality. There continue to be growth markets right across the country, as well as some which have been in decline since 2021 – long before interest rates started to rise. For the Summer 2022-23 edition of The Price Predictor Index report, we analysed thousands o...
Some Residential Rents 24% Higher Than A Year Ago
December 18, 2022 21:00 - 2 minutes - 2.23 MBResidential rents in capital city Australia are 24% higher than a year ago, according to the latest Rents Index from SQM Research. Five of the eight capital cities have recorded annual growth of 20% or more in their rents, headed by Sydney which is up 28%. Close behind is Melbourne which is up 24%, Brisbane 23% and both Perth and Adelaide where residential rents have increased 20%. Canberra, Hobart and Darwin have recorded more moderate increases in rents, according to the SQM index. ...
Property Price Data Is Dependant On Source
December 16, 2022 00:32 - 4 minutes - 4.29 MBThe key thing that Australian consumers need to know about property prices is that the state of play depends on whose figures you read. Media reports CoreLogic data most of the time and tends to treat it as gospel truth – and never acknowledges the reality that there are other credible sources of price information which often disagree with the CoreLogic figures. CoreLogic is undoubtedly the most negative of the price data sources, which may be why journalists favour their figures. That c...
Prices To Rise in 2023
December 14, 2022 01:25 - 5 minutes - 4.57 MBThere is a growing chorus of reputable real estate analysts who are forecasting that residential property prices will rise in 2023. In contrast to the predictions of economists working for the big banks and other institutions, specialist real estate researchers see prices growing in the year ahead. No one is forecasting price rises like we saw in 2021, when the national average was an increase above 25%. Rather, most credible analysts are suggesting price growth that could be described...
Greens Rental Policies A Disaster for Tenants
December 14, 2022 00:40 - 4 minutes - 3.67 MBIf Australia follows the advice of the Greens, it will end up like Ireland. I don’t mean full of history, incredibly green hills and wonderful hospitality, but facing a rental crisis like nowhere else on the planet. In Australia we have the greatest rental shortage ever recorded, but it pales in comparison to the situation in Ireland. The key question is this: how did Ireland get into such a parlous situation with virtually nowhere for people to live as tenants? The answer is: they i...
Boom & Bust Forecasts for 2023
December 07, 2022 11:24 - 4 minutes - 4.04 MBAustralian consumers with an interest in real estate have been drowning, lately, in forecasts about big future decreases in real estate values – from the people I call the usual suspects, who have such bad track records in predicting property prices outcomes. So it’s refreshing to see a high-profile and credible figure actually predicting that property prices will rise in 2023 – and getting considerable media coverage for it. I’m already on the public record in forecasting growth in hous...
Regional Victoria Markets Continue To Show Strength and Resilience
December 06, 2022 23:22 - 4 minutes - 4.14 MBFor several years now, regional markets have been out-performing capital city markets on buyer demand and price growth. According to the data from many different research sources, the regions have been the big achievers in Australian residential property. The trend we call The Exodus to Affordable Lifestyle has been under way for much of the past decade and this has been reflected in price data for several years. In 2020, the combined capital cities rose less than 3% while the combined ...
RBA Apology Not Good Enough
December 01, 2022 11:31 - 2 minutes - 2.64 MBThe Governor of the Reserve Bank Philip Lowe has apologised to the nation. In particular, he has apologised to all those Australians who believed his forecasts about interest rates and went out and borrowed to buy homes and investment properties, in the expectation that mortgage rates would not be rising in the near future. As apologies go, this is a particularly empty one.
Perth Continues To Be A Nation-leading Market
November 28, 2022 01:05 - 3 minutes - 3.62 MBPerth has shown strong resistance to downturn pressures as it maintains high levels of sales activity and good price growth. In contrast to trends in the biggest cities, Perth has delivered strong levels of sales volumes in recent quarters, despite all the disruption from interest rate rises, high inflation figures and all that ridiculously negative media. In our latest quarterly survey, most of the suburbs in the Greater Perth area are categorised as rising or consistency markets. Thi...
Price Trends Across Australia Look Increasingly Positive.
November 24, 2022 10:16 - 3 minutes - 3.03 MBAlthough media reports CoreLogic data as if it’s the only source available – and the gospel truth – there are other reputable, credible sources whose figures are somewhat different. CoreLogic claims that prices fell everywhere in October but other research sources like PropTrack and SQM Research disagree. In the latest data on prices from SQM Research, house prices have risen nationally 2.5% in the past month, according to the SQM Prices Index. Regional markets, overall, continue to be...
How To Double Your Wealth Faster - Using property to accelerate "The Doubling Game"
November 09, 2022 05:58 - 57 minutes - 52.5 MBAndrew Courtney of Plenitude Wealth is an acknowledged expert on "The Doubling Game". He explains it like this: "If you start off with $1,000 and double it 10 times you get to $1 million. Double it 10 more times you get to $1 billion. In other words, if you could double your net assets 20 times you would be a billionaire." Courtney joined Hotspotting founder Terry Ryder on Wednesday 9 November to explain how "The Doubling Game" works and how real estate investment can accelerate the proc...
Brisbane Poised To Resume Its Price Growth Path In 2023
November 07, 2022 08:36 - 4 minutes - 4.08 MBFew markets across Australia have better prospects for growth than Brisbane’s. It has all the major ingredients for upward movement in values, including strength in the underlying economy, a high level of spending on infrastructure and the biggest population boost from internal migration of anywhere in Australia. It is one of the nation’s leading beneficiaries from the Exodus to Affordable Lifestyle trend and it has the prospect of significant economic and real estate uplift from the imp...
Did House Prices Rise Or Fall In October?
November 03, 2022 23:33 - 3 minutes - 2.82 MBIf you’re someone who tunes into mainstream media, you can be forgiven for thinking they fell for the sixth consecutive month – because that’s what many media outlets have reported. But this is because of the tendency by journalists to use the data published by CoreLogic, an organisation driven by a desire to generate media sensation, rather than a desire to provide quality information to consumers. Others research entities – and I mean credible, reputable sources of price information – ...
Interest In Regional Queensland Revives After Land Tax Scare
November 03, 2022 23:16 - 3 minutes - 3.53 MBRegional Queensland is a natural consideration for property investors because many of its cities offer attractive affordability and good yields within the nation’s leading population growth state. The market’s appeal was temporarily curtailed by plans from the Queensland Government to introduce an onerous land tax policy, causing investors to shelve plans to buy in the state. However, more recently the State Government has been forced to admit that its tax proposal was unworkable. Since t...