# Headlines vs Reality in Australia’s Property Market | Wilson Monthly Market Update EP 4 April

An episode of [Money Mentor Podcast™](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1632604767), 18 Apr 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://episode.flightcast.com/sb3v8e6ge8gzmhoa163m9q5g.mp3

In this episode, Rachael Howlett and Dr Andrew Wilson unpack the latest forces shaping Australia’s housing market as interest rates remain uncertain and global pressures continue to influence inflation.Drawing on the latest monthly data, they discuss:• The upcoming RBA decision and why it’s a close call between holding or raising rates• How rising oil prices and global tensions are driving inflation expectations• Why electricity costs continue to push inflation higher as subsidies unwind• What Australia’s strong labour market means for economic resilience• The ongoing housing supply shortage and why new construction isn’t keeping up• Surging property prices in Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide despite higher rates• What ultra-low vacancy rates and rising rents signal for the months aheadWith headlines dominated by uncertainty and “doom and gloom,” this episode breaks down why the data tells a more resilient story. From record-low vacancy rates to continued price growth across key markets, the fundamentals of supply, demand, and a strong economy remain firmly in play.From Brisbane and Perth to Sydney and Melbourne, this episode cuts through the noise to explain what’s really happening and what it means for homeowners, investors, and renters navigating today’s market. Money Mentor YouTube Channel: @moneymentorau Dr Andrew Wilson on LinkedIn: /dr-andrewIf you enjoyed our podcast, make sure you follow and subscribe to stay up to date with the latest episodes. 👉 Follow the link https://bit.ly/43V2jKN to watch the free webinar and start your Infinity journey now!

## Transcript

[0:06] Welcome back to the Wilson Monthly Market Update on the Money Mentor podcast.
[0:10] I'm your money mentor, Rachel Howlett, and as always, I am joined by the legend himself, Dr. Andrew Wilson.
[0:17] This is an episode where the headlines are currently saying one thing, but the data and the reality underneath is saying something completely different, and we are going to break that down today as always.
[0:27] Doc, how are you?
[0:28] Yeah, I'm great, Rachel.
[0:29] It's been a big month again in property and economics and world whatever, you know, and it looks like continuing on.
[0:37] It's perhaps gone a bit further than we originally anticipated.
[0:41] And it's good news to see that oil price down a little bit, but I think the government's stepped in and
[0:47] had a reduction in the excise.
[0:49] And a number of other governments are doing the same thing.
[0:52] We've got a Reserve Bank meeting coming up, of course, at the beginning of May.
[0:56] That'll be a very interesting meeting.
[0:58] Yeah, we're all anticipating that.
[0:59] Yeah, not sure which way they'll bounce, obviously.
[1:02] Well, inflation's been steady, so it's going to be interesting.
[1:05] Yes, but of course we are anticipating more inflation through higher fuel costs.
[1:10] The US have just had their inflation data released for March and that was higher.
[1:17] So that's obviously been pushed up by...
[1:20] higher fuel costs.
[1:21] So I guess we anticipate that will happen.
[1:25] And regardless of what happens in the Middle East, and our fingers are crossed, of course, and, you know, it's looking better, but it was looking better a couple of weeks ago.
[1:34] But it will take some time, I think, for us to get back to normal in terms of oil prices.
[1:40] So that means, and we know oil prices are a big contributor to
[1:43] to the cost base of everything in Australia.
[1:46] So we know inflation will rise as a consequence of that.
[1:50] But the question is, you know, will higher interest rates, and that's what the textbooks tell us, will they work to, you know, make sure that inflation starts to fall?
[2:00] Because it doesn't really influence the price of oil per se.
[2:04] Yeah.
[2:05] But I think what the Reserve Bank is trying to avoid is that the expectations for higher inflation are ramped in because that can always be the problem that people then expect 3%, 4%, 5% and start adding that to their cost base.
[2:21] And then, of course, wage earners say, well, I need to cover those higher costs.
[2:26] I need more wages.
[2:27] It's a flow-on effect.
[2:28] The flow-on effect, the wages price spiral, which is the bugbear of economies and economists.
[2:34] So that's what they're trying to avoid.
[2:37] But it's interesting, of course, the minute we talk about higher interest rates, we say, well, do them in gloom for the property market.
[2:43] And we've had lots of that since we had our two interest rate increases this year.
[2:48] Of course, February followed up with March.
[2:51] But it's not, as you said in the intro, it really hasn't panned out that way.
[2:56] You know, with a couple of exceptions, and we'll look at that, markets are still chugging along quite nicely, particularly the big three.
[3:03] And of course, that's Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
[3:06] And Perth is now challenging Brisbane in terms of its median house price.
[3:11] Who would have believed?
[3:12] Um, next stop, Sydney, I don't know, but, uh, certainly it's, it's, you know, moving at a rate of knots.
[3:20] Um, so, you know, the, the market's in a little bit of a holiday mode at the moment.
[3:24] It is, uh, April is the holiday month school holidays.
[3:27] Easter, of course, was a little earlier this year.
[3:30] Anzac Day.
[3:31] So buyers and sellers are a little distracted and it won't really be until we get into May that we see the full normal market, I guess.
[3:41] But nonetheless, the data that we're
[3:46] a story.
[3:46] So shall we get into that story before I talk myself out of spit?
[3:51] But yeah, so this is our monthly look at what's happening in the market in terms of the dynamic.
[3:59] My housing market, of course, is my brand.
[4:01] I act as an independent commentator.
[4:03] for the housing market and we produce or provide evidence-based commentary as well as our own in-house data.
[4:10] So we try to be very objective along with infinity with our view of the marketplace.
[4:16] Shall we say it's a click-free zone because clickbait free zone I meant, but because clickbait doesn't really do anybody any good and we're really in a I guess a very fertile environment for clickbait aren't we?
[4:29] Yeah.
[4:30] Lots of negativity, lots of doom and gloom.
[4:32] We'll sort of point to that in one of the slides today, which I think you'll find quite interesting.
[4:36] So shall we drumroll get it underway?
[4:39] Let's get right into it.
[4:40] So the latest housing market news and what we do every month, of course, is look at the latest data.
[4:46] And that includes prices, rents, vacancy rates and our auction market data.
[4:51] Also, we look at what's happening with new home building.
[4:55] It's no secret that Australia is an undersupplied housing market.
[4:59] That's a big club at the moment.
[5:01] Most countries in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada are all experiencing underbuilding and undersupply.
[5:09] So we'll have a look how that's panning out currently in Australia.
[5:12] And that's about building approvals, house building costs.
[5:15] and house building block costs.
[5:18] So I guess that's the whole supply chain for the housing market.
[5:22] And, of course, we've already discussed the economy.
[5:23] We'll look at that in a bit more depth, interest rates, the labour market, inflation, GDP and weekly earnings.
[5:30] And of course, the housing market outlook in terms of what we expect for the rest of the year, including some forecasts.
[5:37] So let's get moving.
[5:39] The economy, of course, is where we start.
[5:42] We had RBA raising rates again.
[5:43] Same story as last month because we haven't had a meeting over April.
[5:47] So what we do is we have a late meeting in March for the RBA, while second week in March they meet.
[5:53] They let us go over the holiday period.
[5:54] So no meetings in April, but then one in early May.
[5:58] It used to be every month.
[5:59] except January that the RBA met and made a decision on interest rates.
[6:04] But that's changed with this whole new reserve bank environment that we have with the new government.
[6:10] So we do miss months every now and again.
[6:13] Not sure that's a great idea, just in case something does come out of...
[6:17] come out of the ether.
[6:20] That is not predictable and we need the Reserve Bank to meet.
[6:23] But I do think that they can meet without it being on the schedule.
[6:27] But nonetheless, we've had to wait six weeks until the next meeting, which will be in the second week or the first week of May.
[6:35] Well, up to two rate rises.
[6:36] I think people are maybe happy they haven't met yet.
[6:38] Yeah, well, it's interesting you say that because when we looked at the background to the last rate rise, the March rate rise, it was actually a very close decision.
[6:47] Yeah.
[6:48] I think there was one deciding vote.
[6:49] One deciding vote higher.
[6:51] So there's still a little bit of, hey, let's keep them steady there, obviously.
[6:56] So...
[6:58] I'm not sure which way they'll swing.
[7:00] Obviously, a lot of anxiety about higher fuel costs, and that's probably been exacerbated over the last month.
[7:07] We'll look at the latest fuel costs or oil price, international oil price.
[7:11] So whether that's sort of wavered the steadiers or made more bearish the rate rises, we'll have to wait and see.
[7:21] But it certainly makes it an interesting, I guess, meeting in terms of what's likely to...
[7:26] to happen.
[7:26] So as we reviewed in last month's show, Rachel, we had those interest rates up again over March, followed the rate rise in February, another 0.25%.
[7:36] So official rates are now at 4.15%.
[7:41] And it certainly reversed what we saw last year.
[7:43] We had those three interest rate cuts.
[7:45] Of course, we did debate that it could have been a bit early.
[7:48] Yeah, it was like, it's good, but everybody's happy about lower interest rates.
[7:52] But we don't want to have to be giving them back.
[7:54] And guess what?
[7:55] Which is what's happening.
[7:56] We've given back two.
[7:58] So are we going to give it?
[7:59] So one more.
[7:59] They're all gone.
[8:00] But we're still one ahead.
[8:01] This is the point at the moment.
[8:02] And I think that's why, you know, it's money in the bank in a sense, because we've taken advantage of that.
[8:07] Certainly the housing market's taken advantage of that.
[8:11] And it's a positive for the economy as well, lower interest rates.
[8:14] And maybe that's been what's kept our unemployment rate continuing low.
[8:18] So we're still one ahead, I guess, over the last 12 months.
[8:24] And as I said, we didn't really think that the RBA could justify those cuts necessarily.
[8:29] last year on its premise that it was looking to get underlying inflation in its target range.
[8:35] Because as we'll see shortly, it's never really got...
[8:37] It's never been there.
[8:38] It's never really been there.
[8:39] Yeah.
[8:39] So it was like, hmm, we're going to have a bit of a guess at that.
[8:41] And of course, you know, Murphy's Law, it happens, right?
[8:45] And of course, we've had the issues with oil in the Middle East, with the Middle East war,
[8:50] Um, so, uh, the board has said that obviously it's now recognizing the potential for higher oil prices, um, as a risk to inflation.
[9:00] And, uh, it, um, it acted accordingly over, over March.
[9:05] So the question is, will the same thing happen, uh, in May?
[9:09] And as we've said, it's a real line ball thing.
[9:12] You know, uh, do you go early, uh, anticipating higher, uh, inflation?
[9:20] move up in the shorter term because oil prices were actually quite high a year ago.
[9:26] And our latest inflation data was actually positive for oil because oil is now tracking or was tracking lower than where it was a year ago.
[9:34] And the one thing about, and I'll say this before we get into the oil, the one thing about the current situation with the oil price and the woe and doom and gloom,
[9:44] that's around in terms of its impact on the economy, global economy and interest rates and inflation and interest rates.
[9:52] I think we were here like in 2022.
[9:53] Yeah.
[9:54] Has anybody heard of the Ukraine?
[9:57] Do you remember the Ukraine?
[9:59] What happened to the Ukraine?
[10:01] But, well, it's still going very sadly.
[10:04] But when Russia invaded Ukraine in the middle of 2022, we had the same dialogue, same commentary.
[10:10] We're just not talking.
[10:11] Oil prices went up and people like a glaze over when you talk about, well, the same thing happened and we sort of got through that.
[10:18] Okay.
[10:19] Now, everything's different and we don't know how this will pan out.
[10:22] But at the end of the day, it's a very similar scenario in terms of the commentary.
[10:26] Right.
[10:27] Right.
[10:27] So you've got to look past the clickbait, the doom and gloom and start rationalising.
[10:33] And one way to do that is to look at history.
[10:35] And we don't have to go back too far to see a very similar event with the same sort of projections of, you know, economic downturn and galloping inflation, which actually really didn't happen.
[10:47] But it did take some time.
[10:49] for that particular environment to settle again some months.
[10:55] So we're probably looking at the same sort of scenario.
[10:57] So moving on, official rates.
[10:59] There's our chart for official rates.
[11:02] And you can see...
[11:04] This looks a bit strange what happened last year.
[11:06] You see that?
[11:07] It's sort of up and up.
[11:08] You're steady, steady, and then zoom, down, and then up again, right?
[11:12] It just – you can see how it's more of a flow in the previous parts of the cycle.
[11:18] And, of course, this goes back 15 years.
[11:21] And you can just see there that it just looks a little bit wrong, doesn't it?
[11:25] Yeah.
[11:26] But, you know, they get the big bucks, so they've got to justify it all, I suppose, to Reserve Bank.
[11:31] But that's the cycle.
[11:32] Yeah.
[11:33] And we already mentioned inflation still high.
[11:36] Inflation was steady, which is good news over February.
[11:40] We've got the March inflation data coming out in a week or so.
[11:46] Sorry, headline inflation fell from 3.8% to 3.7%.
[11:50] But the main inflation measure that the Reserve Bank looks at is underlying inflation, which takes out some of the volatile elements.
[11:57] It was steady at 3.3%.
[12:00] When we look deeper into the inflation result from February, another crazy increase in electricity prices.
[12:07] I guess we don't have to tell people out there about that.
[12:10] 37% increase in electricity prices over the year to February.
[12:16] Do you notice higher electricity prices?
[12:18] Of course.
[12:18] Yes, I mean, 37%.
[12:21] And that was up from 32% over the year to January.
[12:27] Fuel price actually went the other way.
[12:29] That went down from a fall of 2.7% to a fall of 7.2%.
[12:33] And that's what I'm saying.
[12:34] We forget that a year ago...
[12:36] Fuel was actually quite high, but of course it's increased since then.
[12:40] So we certainly have the expectation of higher fuel costs coming through and that will impact, as we've discussed, inflation.
[12:47] Rental growth a little lower at 3.8%.
[12:50] We're going to look at the latest rental data as we do every month.
[12:54] That's actually showing the other way.
[12:56] It's actually showing a bit of an early sign of a breakout in rents.
[13:01] Of course, we look at asking rents for my housing market.
[13:04] So they're the advertised rents.
[13:06] So they're sort of like new rents.
[13:07] So they're reflecting the expectations of landlords and agents.
[13:12] the ABS, they look at all rents.
[13:15] So they're existing rents with leases.
[13:17] So it's not just new rents, it's existing rents.
[13:21] So 3.8%, a little bit lower.
[13:23] But the bad news for the housing market in terms of resupply is that we're seeing new dwelling prices continuing to rise.
[13:30] And we'll look at our measure of new house costs,
[13:35] shortly, but the ABS are measuring the same up from 3.5% to 3.7%.
[13:41] So there's definitely upward pressure on house building costs.
[13:46] And of course, with higher petrol prices coming through, I mean, you know, what does that do?
[13:50] You know, tradespeople, manufacturers, suppliers have all got to look at their cost base in terms of higher fuel costs.
[13:59] So
[13:59] So it'll potentially slow things down and we're already in a shortage crisis.
[14:03] Well, that's right.
[14:04] And it's going to mean those approvals that we have had, it's not going to mean, hey, can we afford to get this thing out of the ground?
[14:10] Because it's not matching our budget.
[14:14] So, yeah, higher costs for new dwelling prices.
[14:18] And, of course, the big picture is that the underlying target, which is 2% to 3%, is above that at 3.3%.
[14:27] So let's have a look at that.
[14:28] This is the inflation rate.
[14:30] This is the underlying inflation rate, Rachel, which is what the RBA prefers to measure.
[14:36] And when we look at the midpoint of that range, because it said that it wanted a consistent period where the underlying inflation rate was in the mid range.
[14:45] So that's 2.5%.
[14:47] Hey, where is it?
[14:49] It's...
[14:49] It didn't even come close.
[14:50] Didn't even get one month, right?
[14:52] And we were cutting rate.
[14:53] And now, obviously, we're sort of stuck there at that 3.3%.
[14:58] And, like, it's, you know, it's a real no-brainer that we're going to see higher underlying inflation, although...
[15:06] underlying inflation might not count in the first few months the impact of higher fuel costs because that's a volatile element.
[15:16] So it won't be included in the underlying inflation rate.
[15:20] So it might take a couple of months for that to be included.
[15:22] But eventually, of course, it will, and other factors will come through as well that will be pushing up prices and costs that will push up overall inflation.
[15:31] So these are the key elements for, as we've already discussed, you can see the big impact that electricity costs have compared to the other main costs.
[15:40] Fuel down, rents a little bit lower, new houses up, and the total, this is total inflation, not underlying inflation, so headline inflation just down a little bit at 3.7%.
[15:57] Um, so just dealing with that electricity scenario, you see that, uh, the gold bar chart there shows, um, electricity costs, right?
[16:07] You can see how electricity costs fell away.
[16:10] Uh, when we had the subsidy, the government introduced the subsidy in the middle of 2024 down came, which is good.
[16:16] And that's what it's designed to do, obviously, uh, cause the government was paying for electricity bills, not just the federal government.
[16:21] but state governments too, down, down, down.
[16:24] But when the impact of the subsidy started to fall, because the government only had a one-year subsidy and then they reduced the actual value of the subsidy for six months, we can see electricity costs banging, going up again.
[16:39] And you see the relationship between that and the inflation rate, obviously following what's happened with electricity,
[16:47] and way ahead of the underlying inflation rate.
[16:49] So it just shows you how electricity costs have really driven what's happened with inflation over the last two years.
[16:57] And, you know, the danger always is if you're going to give the handout, you've got to stop the handout.
[17:02] Well, maybe you've got to stop the handout at some stage.
[17:05] But what did they expect was going to happen when it did stop?
[17:08] Yeah, it was like, hey, everybody loves us.
[17:09] We could have bet on this and won some money talk that they were just going to shoot us.
[17:13] It's like, hey, everybody loves us because we're paying your electricity bill.
[17:16] Yeah, but we're only paying it for a year.
[17:18] Yeah.
[17:18] So what happens then?
[17:19] Well, then you're going to make up what you lost, what you gained.
[17:23] You're going to end up, as we can see on that chart, going in the other direction.
[17:27] Of course, it's very expensive to pay Australia's electricity bills or to subsidise them.
[17:32] So they couldn't keep going on.
[17:34] And this has put them in some, you know, having some problems with their fiscal position.
[17:39] Should they ever even introduce it in the first place?
[17:41] Well, that's the issue.
[17:42] And I mean, were they in love with the idea that eventually electricity costs were going to fall because of the new renewables focus, you know?
[17:50] But they had to have known when they weren't even on target for that either, though.
[17:53] I know.
[17:55] Anyway, now, you know, they've paid the price in that sense.
[18:00] And I think one of the reasons they're now looking perhaps a little more closely at the property market is to regain the tax base that they lost.
[18:09] Yeah.
[18:09] Due to those subsidies, you know.
[18:11] But obviously what's happened is it's also contributed to higher inflation.
[18:17] And that means the expectations for inflation have also risen.
[18:22] And that's what the Reserve Bank's always worried about, that people start expecting this is going to be the inflation, right?
[18:27] And they'll put it up at that expectation, regardless of what's happening underneath, you know.
[18:32] So, yeah.
[18:33] Yeah, it certainly hasn't ended up as a positive policy position, in my opinion.
[18:39] Now, oil price.
[18:40] Let's have a look at the oil price.
[18:41] Now, you want to see some interesting charts.
[18:44] This is one to look at.
[18:45] So, as you can see, the current oil price is just a little bit over...
[18:51] or just a little bit under $100 US a barrel.
[18:54] It got as high as $115 US a barrel.
[18:57] Yep.
[18:59] And, of course, when the headline comes out, oh, there's peace talks, it goes down.
[19:03] And then when the peace talks are cancelled, it goes back up again.
[19:07] So it's very much a speculator's, you know, environment.
[19:10] It's not really about the actual supply of oil.
[19:13] It's about the perception of what's going to happen as a result of what's happening in Iran.
[19:18] Yeah.
[19:20] Now, currently, and we don't want to do international politics here, but currently the US is blockading the Straits of Hormuz, right, where all the oil comes out.
[19:30] And it's only letting the good guys' oil come out, right?
[19:34] I mean, inverted commas, the good guys.
[19:36] The good guys.
[19:37] So how that'll pan out, I don't know.
[19:41] But Iran produces around about 20% of the world's oil.
[19:44] So it's a significant producer.
[19:46] And I think what they're trying to do is squeeze Iran to the point where they're going to say, okay, we give up or whatever.
[19:51] Yeah.
[19:52] Because we can't sell our oil.
[19:54] And that means, you know, that's where our income comes from.
[19:57] Um, but you know, on a daily basis, it's a little bit like a yo-yo, but we're certainly well above, um, well above where we were prior to this issue.
[20:08] And I think it will take some time and I'm talking weeks, maybe months for us to get back, even with a really good, uh, imminent result in Iran to get back to where, where our, uh, oil price was in the sixties, you know?
[20:23] Now, remember I was talking about the Ukraine.
[20:25] If we go back to that 123.70, which was back in 21, that was the COVID peak.
[20:29] The COVID peak, yeah.
[20:31] And then we started to go down and then came Ukraine.
[20:34] You can see that big spike after the COVID spike in 2022.
[20:39] That was the Ukraine impact.
[20:42] And you can see how, well, it took about three months to get back to, I guess, a reasonably stable position, three or four months.
[20:50] So maybe we can use that as a...
[20:52] you know, an historical guide of what we're looking at.
[20:56] So at that point, we're still looking past June, July, August, maybe if all goes well to start getting a reprieve.
[21:03] It's interesting during that time where it was 123 was we were seeing interest rates being cut.
[21:08] That's right.
[21:08] At the same time.
[21:09] That's right.
[21:09] So people do forget that it was higher back then, but we were getting interest rate cuts.
[21:13] So it felt like a better time.
[21:15] And that was part of the, and then we got the rises because that started to work its way into inflation.
[21:21] But as I said, the point is we've seen this all before in a way, and yet we're getting the sort of headlines that are end of the world stuff.
[21:28] Yeah.
[21:28] Right.
[21:29] And we'll relate to that in a second because it's.
[21:32] Um, and yet, you know, it's just that bad news sells.
[21:36] Good news doesn't.
[21:37] Right.
[21:37] And any potential for really bad news is, is used.
[21:42] And it's like the headline says end of the world.
[21:46] And then you think, oh my God, end of the world.
[21:48] That's bad.
[21:49] And you sort of, well, I couldn't be bothered reading the rest.
[21:51] And then you look at the whole article and it's like, well, end of the world might come.
[21:54] It's actually not that bad.
[21:55] Yeah, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, you know, could, should, would, right?
[22:02] And then you say, well, we all know that, you know, but the headline is the thing that grabs attention and people make decisions on that headline.
[22:09] So just on that, Rachel, now I don't like to read a lot, but of course in my business, I have to read a lot of media.
[22:16] Yeah.
[22:17] Um, and I just picked this one out from the Financial Times, which is a bit of a left of centre, um, international, I guess, publication, but I just thought the middle article there is quite interesting and it sort of works towards what I was saying.
[22:30] Yeah.
[22:30] Like Armageddon is off for now.
[22:35] Isn't that the way, though?
[22:36] I mean, this guy's supposed to be a reasonably balanced journalist.
[22:41] But I thought, are you kidding me?
[22:43] Armageddon is off.
[22:44] Armageddon?
[22:45] I mean, Armageddon is a religious end-of-the-world scenario, right?
[22:50] But for now, so we can say...
[22:52] Armageddon is off.
[22:53] Oh, thank goodness for that, right?
[22:54] But for now, so you wait till next week and we'll run Armageddon again.
[22:59] And I just thought that says it all.
[23:01] And again, it's okay.
[23:02] Well, they're probably a little disappointed in terms of headline chasing that there's some sign of resolving the Iran business.
[23:10] Um, so they go, oh, you know, uh, but you wait till next week, you know, then we'll probably have it all over again.
[23:16] So I just thought that, and look, this is all just about people rationalizing and, and understanding that there are agendas behind a lot of the commentary that we see, particularly in our legacy media, uh, which is struggling for headlines or struggling for, to survive and needs those sort of headlines to gather, um, views on their particular product.
[23:37] So note that.
[23:38] So this is the latest unemployment data hot off the press for March.
[23:42] So the unemployment rate over March was steady at 4.3%, which is good news, steady.
[23:48] Jobs were up again, 17,900.
[23:49] Australia is still creating a lot of jobs.
[23:53] The unemployment number fell by 3,700, and that was up over the last couple of months.
[23:57] So some good news there on the number of people unemployed falling.
[24:01] Jobs up 1.8% over the year.
[24:03] Unemployed is also up by 7%.
[24:05] Now, the reason we didn't have a lower unemployment rate, which you would expect if you had a steady jobs increase or jobs increasing and unemployment down, was because the participation rate actually fell marginally from 66.9%.
[24:17] But still high.
[24:19] It's still high, absolutely, near record level still.
[24:21] But that's why we didn't get a 4.2% unemployment rate given more jobs and less unemployed.
[24:27] It's because the participation rate dropped below.
[24:30] So it was a smaller population we were actually looking at for the rate.
[24:35] But still a very good result going forward.
[24:38] Queensland, really good result for Queensland.
[24:40] They have a very low unemployment rate, 3.7%.
[24:44] But as I said before, we've got to watch out the impact of those higher rates on Queensland.
[24:49] a continuing strong labour market, particularly given the issues in the economy with higher fuel costs, you know.
[24:58] So let's have a look at the chart for the unemployment rate, 4.3%, 4.1% a year ago.
[25:03] So it really hasn't moved much in the past year.
[25:06] We've been saying that for a while, a little bit higher.
[25:08] Yeah.
[25:09] So maybe some early signs there.
[25:10] I mean, we've had a low unemployment rate for a long, long time, certainly in the full fall.
[25:15] pre, sorry, post-COVID period, our unemployment rate has been low.
[25:19] And I think people get a little bit complacent about that.
[25:22] Yeah.
[25:23] And it is still, and they think, oh, you know, 4.3%, that's, you know, higher than where it was a year ago.
[25:29] Yeah, but have a look.
[25:31] The long-term chart for the unemployment rate shows that prior to COVID, we were tracking in the fives.
[25:37] Yeah.
[25:38] And back during the big mining booms, we were 4.9% during the second big mining boom in 2011-12.
[25:45] And we were at 4% during the biggest mining boom we've had in the 2008-9-10 period.
[25:53] So it's not far away from where we were.
[25:56] in our strongest periods of economic growth.
[25:59] So this is good news and this just validates, you know.
[26:02] But again, I'm not sure the good news cuts through as much as the bad news cuts through.
[26:07] I like that you said we became a bit complacent with this because it would have been interesting to see what this data would have looked like if we didn't have COVID, which obviously we would have seen that increase because people do forget how resilient Australia really is.
[26:18] That's right.
[26:19] Yeah.
[26:20] And we've outperformed all the leading advanced economies really over the past two or three decades.
[26:30] And particularly in that post-GFC period, which is where we look at 2008, because that was the GFC, unemployment rate just ticked up a bit.
[26:39] through 2009, but then it fell again because we had another mining boom.
[26:42] You know, we're just, as you said, very resilient economy.
[26:47] And prior to COVID, we were having problems with our economy.
[26:51] 5% unemployment rate was entrenched, 5% plus, and that's when we cut rates.
[26:56] And then along came COVID.
[26:58] And, you know, since then, really, we've had a very strong labour market.
[27:03] And of course, I'm
[27:05] you know, believe that I know interest rates are important in the shorter term, but the labour market particularly is fundamental to a robust and resilient housing market.
[27:14] Because if you haven't got a job, you're not buying a house, right?
[27:16] Because the banks won't lend you the money.
[27:18] And that's the problem that we should focus on to a large degree is how our economy is performing, particularly in relation to the labour market.
[27:27] And still...
[27:28] going really well.
[27:29] Participation rate down a little bit, 66.8 to 66 from 66.9.
[27:35] But again, it's well above where we were during those very strong economic periods.
[27:39] So what it means is, you know, if you want a job, you can get a job more or less because there are plenty of jobs out there.
[27:44] Now, it's not all good news in that sense, because we're getting more people participating in the economy or in the jobs market.
[27:51] maybe because they're struggling a little bit with higher costs, et cetera.
[27:54] So they need to get a second job, et cetera.
[27:57] So maybe that's part of the reason we have had this strong participation rate.
[28:02] But nonetheless, it does mean that there are jobs available out there, which is what you want, really.
[28:07] You know, because you see those lower participation rates during periods where we had higher unemployment, you know.
[28:15] So that's another positive for the labour market.
[28:18] And just looking at the state's performance, it's actually Queensland, not Adelaide, that are the lowest at 3.7%.
[28:23] That's a very low number for Queensland, which is continuing as a state to be a very strong economy.
[28:30] It's actually, Queensland as a whole is now outperforming what Brisbane does in terms of the capital city unemployment rate.
[28:37] So it just shows that there's a lot of positive energy through Queensland as a whole, the state.
[28:42] And we're seeing that with some of those regional prices.
[28:45] Anyway, we need to get through quickly.
[28:47] We're starting to move out of our economic viewpoint into some hard data, which is I think what we really want to see is what's happening in terms of the hard data in the housing market.
[28:57] So inflation was steady over February.
[29:00] Rise is likely to come with oil.
[29:03] It's still outside the target range.
[29:06] Electricity prices will keep rising as the government subsidies fail.
[29:10] But then we go through to when the government, not fail, but fade.
[29:14] But when the subsidies end, we then go back to what the underlying cost growth, price growth in electricity is.
[29:22] And I believe that's around 5% for electricity.
[29:26] Anything can happen in terms of that.
[29:29] And there's still pressure on particularly state governments to provide subsidies.
[29:32] But as we've seen, it can be a cleft stick, you know, double-edged sword providing those subsidies.
[29:38] And then do you keep going?
[29:40] Do you keep having to raise the taxes to cover that, knowing that at the end of the day, you know, it's income that you're foregoing?
[29:47] Yeah.
[29:48] For other issues.
[29:50] Oil surge is the wild card.
[29:51] Once again, we have to account for that.
[29:54] Electricity and fuel were higher, but the economy is still strong over the longer term.
[29:59] They were higher.
[30:01] But I think that with those oil price rises and the jobless rises over the year, are likely to keep rates steady over May.
[30:11] But I do think it's a very close decision.
[30:13] Yeah.
[30:13] As we saw in the March decision, where there was only, you know, it was a tie virtually except for one for either a rate rise or rate steady.
[30:24] So it'll be very interesting to see what they decide, but it'll be very interesting to see or to read what they say in terms of the decision.
[30:32] So let's have a look just quickly at home building for the month.
[30:36] We actually saw a surge in home building after a couple of months of falling home building approvals, up by 31.6%.
[30:43] That is a huge increase following that 8.6% fall the previous month of January.
[30:49] And it was units, again, 101% increase in units with houses.
[30:55] That's a big, yes, but hang on.
[30:58] It was because Victoria Intradue had a massive building approval.
[31:02] Huge development came through in Victoria and that bumped it up.
[31:05] And this is what happens with the unit data set for building approvals.
[31:10] One month you can have like nothing and the next month you can have a massive development that comes through, usually in Sydney or Melbourne, and that pushes it up.
[31:18] And when we look at the chart, you'll see that volatility.
[31:20] But it was that very big development that came through in Victoria and,
[31:23] that pushed up the overall total following two months of falling numbers.
[31:29] So, hey, it's good, but there's not some consistency there, which we need to see, particularly from house building approvals, which are pretty flat.
[31:38] Well, we're miles behind and we'll go to that.
[31:40] So this is the comparative data.
[31:42] Of course, this is the year to date, which only covers two months.
[31:45] So this is January, February versus January, February last year.
[31:49] You can see the big rise in units.
[31:53] over the year.
[31:54] No, sorry, units despite that are still down 11.2%.
[31:57] So you see how the monthly data can mask the big picture.
[32:02] And even units over the full year, so that's the year to February versus the year to February the previous year, are up by 19.3%.
[32:08] Now, that's good, but that's a lot different to what we've seen in this measure over recent months where it's been massively increasing.
[32:15] Now, we're starting to see an actual waning of the surge in unit approvals that happened in Sydney and Melbourne last year.
[32:23] It's not at the same rate as it was.
[32:25] Obviously, there's been a big result in Melbourne.
[32:28] But even accounting for that big result in Melbourne, the year to date is still down by 11.2%.
[32:33] So it just shows how weak the early year stuff was.
[32:38] And even houses just up by 2.3%.
[32:42] And that's just not enough in terms of house development because we need that in the shorter term because all these apartment developments will take years for them to become actual livable dwellings, you know.
[32:54] So moving on.
[32:56] Let's have a look at the trends.
[32:57] You can see they're, you know, bounced down and then bounced back up again, but overall still flat for long-term trends.
[33:03] Now, how good's your maths, Rachel?
[33:05] Let's multiply 18,000 by 12.
[33:09] You do this to me every time.
[33:10] No, we won't do it.
[33:11] But overall,
[33:13] We've been averaging around about 16,000, 15,000, 16,000 on the annual growth.
[33:20] Sorry, on the monthly growth.
[33:22] If we multiply that by 12,000, we get around about 180,000 building approvals for homes per year.
[33:30] Now, the target was 2.1 million.
[33:33] Right.
[33:33] So over five years for the government's target.
[33:36] So can you divide that by five?
[33:38] No, we won't.
[33:38] So that's 240,000 houses a year.
[33:41] So we're tracking at under 200,000 over the past couple of years.
[33:45] So we've got a shortfall, shortfall, shortfall.
[33:47] So there's no way now we're going to meet that target.
[33:50] It was an aspirational target.
[33:51] The government wasn't silly enough to say this is going to happen because the government doesn't build houses.
[33:56] Builders build houses.
[33:57] And it's really the state governments that manage that new supply environment.
[34:01] But nonetheless, I think that the government has now decided, well, I'm not sure we're going to get a result with this.
[34:07] resupplying our housing markets.
[34:10] So I think it's now switching to let's shift around demand.
[34:15] Let's now introduce policies, either differential taxation policies or handouts to first home buyers that will change demand around.
[34:26] So that will offset the lack of supply, which it won't
[34:30] No, I think they're misguided in their taxes.
[34:31] They've got no choice.
[34:33] They've got no choice.
[34:34] And sort of introduce this mixing of, you know, housing aspirations or housing ownership between various buyer types, first-time buyers, investors.
[34:46] And, you know, you're only going to make some friends.
[34:48] but you're going to make some enemies doing this once you start shifting that around.
[34:52] But my point is, I think there's been an abandonment now of, hey, we're going to build our way back into a more balanced housing market.
[35:00] I don't think that's going to happen.
[35:02] And the data is just not giving us that sort of an insight.
[35:05] So these are the trends for units and houses.
[35:07] You can see it bounces up and down all over the place, that unit development operation.
[35:13] measure, up a little bit from where it was last year, but the same month last year, of course.
[35:20] But it's still flattened out after a good start to 2025, you can see that, and I've
[35:28] I think unless we're going to get some really big developments coming through, we're going to flatten out for unit development as well this year, which means we've got this ongoing issue of undersupply in our housing market.
[35:38] What's happening in our capital cities for new supply?
[35:41] Melbourne, as usual, top of the pops.
[35:43] But gee whiz, you can see obviously what happened over February has impacted the unit development, which has pushed it up.
[35:51] significantly.
[35:51] But I think Perth is very interesting, Rachel.
[35:54] Look at the new development happening in Perth.
[35:56] In fact, Perth, they're sitting there in third place quite comfortably and not too far behind Sydney for total development.
[36:04] And that's just another reflection of just how strong that Perth housing market is.
[36:08] And we'll have some more data shortly to validate that.
[36:11] So over the year to date, in terms of houses, this is the first two months of this year versus the same period last year.
[36:18] Look at that, houses up 30% in Perth.
[36:21] That's a real building boom for houses.
[36:24] Units also up and overall in Perth up by 24.6%.
[36:28] But Brisbane also having a big year to date with its unit approvals.
[36:32] But I think that reflects what was a quiet start to the year for Brisbane unit approvals.
[36:36] So, um, I'm going to say,
[36:37] The big picture is this is our long-term trend.
[36:41] This tells us the oversupply environment.
[36:43] Still down 26.6% the annual.
[36:46] These are capital city dwellings compared to the peak way back there in 2015 and 16.
[36:52] Just about every advanced economy, you know, when you put it all together, has that same sort of –
[36:59] Same sort of chart falling away over the last 10 years.
[37:03] So we're not alone there.
[37:04] And when we look at units and houses, units have been the big collapse in terms of reduction of supply.
[37:12] Still down by 42.9% despite that big increase last year, Rachel.
[37:17] So some work to do still.
[37:20] And houses, we saw that big spike earlier.
[37:22] back in 2021 in the previous government's home builder allowance.
[37:26] And we just really have gone nowhere since picking up early in 2023 on the back of more demand coming through with lower interest rates.
[37:35] But again, really no joy there for houses.
[37:38] So house building costs were alluded to, the ABS reporting higher house building costs.
[37:42] My housing market is reporting the same, a little bit steady over, and these are three monthly per month by month house building cost index.
[37:53] Similar to the previous month, a little bit higher.
[37:56] But when we look at the annual change in house building costs, Rachel, still up by 4.6%, a little bit better than the previous month.
[38:03] We've been tracking over 5%.
[38:06] But long term, we usually have around about 2-3% annual increase in house building costs.
[38:12] Very competitive industry.
[38:13] And usually that reflects certainly a modest underlying increase in prices.
[38:21] But really no relief there.
[38:23] And similar to what the ABS is reporting.
[38:26] So, and just to add the cherry on the top of the cake for supply, let's have a look at what house building costs are doing.
[38:33] And this, of course, is interesting.
[38:35] This isn't the full data yet, but it is the March quarter data for house building blocks.
[38:38] So these are house building blocks.
[38:40] They're not development sites.
[38:42] They're building blocks for houses in each of the capital city.
[38:45] And you'll only get this graphic from my housing market.
[38:50] And all the capital cities have recorded higher house building costs.
[38:53] It's interesting that they tend to follow what's happening in the capital city markets.
[38:58] The house building costs, no surprise with Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth leading the charge in terms of higher house, sorry, not house building, land costs, house building blocks costs.
[39:08] costs, Sydney up 7.2%, Melbourne up 1.5%.
[39:12] Have a look at Perth.
[39:13] House building blocks in Perth up by 52.4% over the year.
[39:19] I had to look at it and I thought, nah, that's wrong.
[39:21] There's a glitch somewhere.
[39:23] So I had to go through it all saying, oh, you know, have to look at all the data.
[39:25] No, it's just been that.
[39:27] And we saw the massive increase in building approvals.
[39:30] Well, now we're seeing a massive increase in costs to buy a block of land in Perth.
[39:35] And it was interesting in one of the Infinity Masterclass, we had a question or we had a statement and a question from somebody in the Masterclass regarding how building blocks in Perth
[39:50] have just exploded in terms of price.
[39:55] So that sort of validated the data that we have here.
[39:58] So, you know, it all starts with a block of land, doesn't it?
[40:01] And we've gone back to where it all starts and we're seeing that there's a really strong escalation there and following what's happening in housing, Mark.
[40:08] And this is the latest data.
[40:10] And with the land price going up, we're just going to see home prices going up.
[40:14] Well, of course.
[40:14] Well, you know, it starts with a block of land.
[40:16] And we still have the housing shortage.
[40:17] And now we have another constraint where we have the interest rates increasing, which is going to impact serviceability.
[40:23] That's right.
[40:24] So it's strange that the government's trying to push more people into homes so we can meet that demand.
[40:29] That's right.
[40:29] And I think they've given up.
[40:30] Yeah.
[40:31] It's like, hey, that goes in the too hard basket.
[40:33] See you later.
[40:35] Don't mention the word supply.
[40:37] We're going to fix everything with demand, right, on the demand side.
[40:41] Well, you know, good luck with that.
[40:43] But the other thing here was look how low some of these numbers are.
[40:46] Just 51 sales of building blocks in Brisbane, just 27 in Adelaide, and just 49, which is certainly an improvement, but still not big numbers.
[40:55] You know, you expect for new homes blocks coming through.
[40:59] So no good news there.
[41:01] So let's have a look at our hard data for the month.
[41:04] Rents were rising.
[41:05] This is the rental data for March, Rachel.
[41:11] As you can see there, every capital city recorded higher rents over the month.
[41:16] I think there's a little bit of seasonal effect here.
[41:18] because it's following the, I guess, the holiday period, which was February, January.
[41:26] And we're seeing a breakout now in rents, maybe an early sign that this is going to be some, there's going to be some consistency here.
[41:32] And over the years, we're also looking at a bit more of an increase in rents over the year.
[41:39] Nothing like we had a couple of years ago when we're getting double figure rents.
[41:42] increases consistently in rents.
[41:44] But the real interesting fact is, look at these vacancy rates.
[41:49] Are they crazy vacancy rates or are they crazy vacancy rates?
[41:52] I've never seen anything as...
[41:53] They are crazy.
[41:54] Now, everybody has a low vacancy rate.
[41:57] Even the worst vacancy rates, which is Sydney, is 1.3%.
[42:00] Which is still incredibly low.
[42:02] It's very low.
[42:03] When you consider the 2% is the benchmark.
[42:06] So 2% is like neither rising nor falling.
[42:09] And we've got most of them below 1% there.
[42:12] and the ones that are above 1% are just above 1%.
[42:16] Similar scenario for units over the month, not so strong as house rent increases, but again, the vacancy rate's slightly higher for units compared to houses.
[42:28] But again, look at these vacancy rates.
[42:30] They're low, low, low.
[42:31] I mean, how low can you go?
[42:34] And look at that Melbourne unit vacancy rate.
[42:37] That's at 1.3%.
[42:38] That's down nearly a full percent over the year in terms of the vacancy rate in Melbourne.
[42:45] So, you know, some extraordinary low vacancy rates continuing.
[42:48] And my point is this will only add to rents over time because there is a strong competition for property.
[42:54] There's not a lot of property out there available.
[42:57] So, you know, agents...
[43:00] And landlords are in a position to push up rents because of the demand is so high.
[43:04] I think they've been sitting on their hands to some degree over the last year.
[43:08] I think there's been affordability issues because rents increased so strongly.
[43:11] In Melbourne, rents were up nearly 50% over a year.
[43:15] And that really needed to happen.
[43:16] And a lot of that's driven demand into the investment market, particularly units in Melbourne because of...
[43:23] investors taking advantage of those higher yields.
[43:26] But nonetheless, I think that we're likely to see, given these continuing low vacancy rates, we've been saying that, higher ends coming through for the remainder of the year.
[43:34] There's a QR code.
[43:35] If anybody watching would like to take a scan of that QR code, they can get the full My Housing Market Rent Report for the month of March.
[43:42] So house prices, yep, house price boom, it's still happening.
[43:46] So this is the monthly report for house prices over March.
[43:50] So this is covering those two months where we had higher interest rates.
[43:54] So what's happened to our housing markets?
[43:55] Well, if I can say it in a word, nothing.
[43:59] Nothing still happening.
[44:00] And, of course, March precedes April, which is the holiday month.
[44:04] We've already discussed that.
[44:06] But prices rising everywhere again.
[44:10] Again, it's the big markets, and I mean big in terms of growth, of Perth and Brisbane that are accelerating.
[44:19] Hobart's starting to pick up.
[44:21] But Perth up 1.6% over the month.
[44:23] Brisbane up 1.5%.
[44:25] Over this year so far, Brisbane house prices up 3.1%.
[44:29] This year so far, Rachel, that's the first three months,
[44:32] um in Adelaide up 3.6 percent Perth house prices are up 7 percent over this year so far now let's have a look at the median so we sort of skipped over that it's all over a million dollars it's all over a million almost every single capital city in Australia yeah but look look at Melbourne
[44:49] Melbourne house prices are $1.1 million.
[44:51] Brisbane, $1.2 million.
[44:53] Adelaide, $1.13 million.
[44:54] So that's high.
[44:55] Perth is now just under $1.2 million.
[44:59] I predict that by the end of April, Perth will become the second most expensive capital city in Australia, only behind Sydney.
[45:07] That is extraordinary.
[45:08] If you said that like 12 months ago or even, say, two years ago, they would have shot you with being a lunatic, right?
[45:14] Yeah.
[45:14] Are you kidding, Perth?
[45:16] Anyway.
[45:16] You can see why now there's so much push and demand for units when houses are becoming so far average for some people.
[45:22] Yeah, that's right.
[45:23] And look at the full-year growth in Perth, 24.8%, 19% up there in Brisbane, 15%.
[45:32] in Adelaide.
[45:33] And Darwin is still chugging along on all eight cylinders.
[45:37] Very strong result.
[45:38] So units, similar results to units.
[45:41] In fact, all capital cities, with the exception of Canberra, recorded unit price increases.
[45:48] We're going to look at the daily prices, as we usually do, which is an exclusive for our podcast, Rachel.
[45:55] As you know, we show everyone daily prices.
[45:57] These, of course, are quarterly prices, month by month.
[46:00] So I'll show you what's actually happening on the ground now.
[46:03] But again, Brisbane leading the charge with unit price growth.
[46:07] That Brisbane market shows no sign of slowing down for units, 7.3% so far this year.
[46:12] Over the past year, I can't believe it, 27% growth in unit house prices in Brisbane, 30% in Perth.
[46:19] Now, Perth is a smaller, Perth and Adelaide are smaller unit markets.
[46:22] There tends to be some volatility there.
[46:25] And that also means that if you get a period where you're getting higher or bigger units, more expensive units coming into the market that can act to look like it's pushing up prices.
[46:34] But there's no such issue of that in that Brisbane market up by 27%.
[46:37] And look how close it is to Sydney.
[46:39] Yes, I know.
[46:41] And that's almost as remarkable as Perth closing in on everybody and everybody except Sydney, overtaking everybody except Sydney.
[46:51] If you're looking for the full...
[46:56] my housing market house report for March.
[46:58] You can take that QR code and scan it and you'll get a PDF copy of that report.
[47:04] So just continuing with the dollar scenarios, Rachel, this is the difference over the past year to March in the median house and unit price.
[47:13] You can see there, rather than quoting percentages, let's have a look at the actual dollar value over the year.
[47:19] So in Perth,
[47:20] If you're a Perth homeowner, you're up by $238,000 over the year.
[47:26] Nice money if you can get it, the typical Perth homeowner.
[47:29] The Gold Coast, which I just put in there, is up by $248,000 over the past year.
[47:34] Well, you have to put it in there.
[47:35] It's competing with Brisbane.
[47:36] That's right.
[47:37] Well, that's right.
[47:39] And just as an interest point for what's happening in, I guess, Australia's second biggest non-capital city housing market, $156,000 up the Gold Coast units over the past year.
[47:49] Brisbane up $164,000 over the year.
[47:51] Perth up $157,000.
[47:52] These are massive gains.
[47:54] This is the...
[48:02] dollar gain over 12 months to March.
[48:05] And it's including a period where we've had higher interest rates.
[48:09] Now, let's have a look.
[48:12] And this really needs a big drum roll.
[48:14] So two drum rolls for this.
[48:15] So this now captures the daily data.
[48:17] So this is the daily data up until yesterday.
[48:20] We won't say what yesterday was because, you know, anyway.
[48:23] So it is the latest data.
[48:25] So what we take here is the daily median house price over three months.
[48:29] So it's daily, daily, daily, daily, daily.
[48:32] So it gives you a clear indication of what's happening in terms of the trend.
[48:36] And this is really quite interesting, Rachel.
[48:39] So this is Sydney.
[48:40] You can see there a little bit of dip away early in the year in Sydney, perhaps some seasonal effect there.
[48:45] It's starting to pick up again.
[48:46] I think what we're seeing is a bit of a holiday effect in Sydney at the very end there, school holiday and Easter holiday effect just flattening out.
[48:54] So we need to keep an eye on that.
[48:55] This is Melbourne, which is bad, bad news for houses.
[48:58] So this is houses we're looking at, Rachel.
[49:01] So Melbourne houses have actually fallen off a cliff this year.
[49:05] Obviously seasonal effects there, but also I think Melbourne is now becoming, I guess, clearly an outsider in terms of performance for housing, right?
[49:17] So Melbourne down, no change in Brisbane.
[49:20] We saw those numbers.
[49:21] It's still heading for the clouds onwards and upwards to Brisbane market.
[49:26] Adelaide still rising.
[49:29] And it's interesting when we look at the auction results in a sec that the Adelaide auction results are still the strongest in the country.
[49:35] So that still shows some positive growth.
[49:36] So this is what's happening, you know, virtually to today in terms of our housing market activity.
[49:43] So this gives us a real sign of the,
[49:46] I guess, higher interest rate environment as it stands on a daily basis.
[49:50] And we can see that Sydney and Melbourne, Melbourne particularly have been influenced by those, I would suggest, by a lot of negativity in the media in Melbourne, as well as the, I guess, the affordability issues with higher rates.
[50:02] So Perth, again, a little bit of an easing in the Perth market, but certainly very, very strong, as you can see that.
[50:08] Oh, sorry.
[50:09] Yeah, Perth market, very strong.
[50:10] So let's have a look at units.
[50:12] Sydney units, just similar to houses there, flattening out a little bit.
[50:14] I think there's a holiday effect there, but it has had a good start to the year.
[50:18] Now, this is really interesting, Rachel.
[50:20] We're seeing a revival in Melbourne units.
[50:23] It's very different to what's happening in houses.
[50:26] And I think it is that perception, particularly from investors, for higher yields and a lower entry point into that Melbourne market.
[50:32] But that's clearly – and this surprised me because I thought, oh, we're going to see the same sort of trend that we saw in houses for units.
[50:37] But no, we've actually seen a pickup in Melbourne units over the last few weeks, even though it's been constrained by higher interest rates.
[50:46] but also the holiday market as well.
[50:49] And when we look at the breakdown of the auction markets, we can see Melbourne units continue to outperform houses in auctions.
[50:56] So I guess there's a real flight towards value, not just value in terms of the price of property, but also value in terms of return on housing.
[51:08] investment yields in that Melbourne unit market.
[51:12] Brisbane units, no surprise, continuing to boom the Brisbane booming market.
[51:17] So we'll finish off now with looking at our auction markets, as we usually do.
[51:22] We use auction market activity because it's a great forward indicator of what's happening in our housing markets on a weekly basis.
[51:30] Now, we're looking at the monthly results here.
[51:32] But I do urge everybody to have a look at the My Housing Market auction results.
[51:37] We'll show you how to get a hold of those every week in a minute.
[51:40] So the reason why we do look at auction results, weekend auction results or weekly auction results, is because there's a very close correlation between clearance rates and house prices, as you can see on that chart in Sydney.
[51:52] Same deal there in Melbourne.
[51:53] And you can see how clearance rates have fallen and Melbourne house prices have started to ease.
[51:58] So it does tell you a good story going forward.
[52:00] Well, not a good story, but a story of relevance going forward to what's happening with the housing market.
[52:06] So these are the latest weekly auction results.
[52:08] Last week was the first part of the week where we had, and we'll look at the last week or the week following the Easter break, the week.
[52:17] We had holiday listings, so listing numbers were down and the clearance rates were quite reasonable.
[52:23] Sydney's steady, but in the mid-60s now, Sydney market's been in the mid-60s following the first two months of the year where they were in the 70s.
[52:32] Melbourne market down a little bit.
[52:34] First time Melbourne's been under 60% for the year so far.
[52:38] Um, Brisbane market picked up, uh, over 50%, anything over 50% for Brisbane is a positive result.
[52:44] Adelaide still remains the strongest, uh, market for auction market in the country, capital city auction market.
[52:50] Um, and Adelaide actually had quite a strong result.
[52:53] So, um, we're seeing, uh, the Sydney market.
[52:56] So let's have a look at the monthly trends down a little bit, Rachel, compared to March.
[53:01] We expect that of course, with those, uh,
[53:03] with those holiday impacts and higher interest rates and tracking lower than a year before.
[53:08] So very similar.
[53:10] Melbourne, the same story.
[53:11] Down first time under 60% for the year and down compared to where it was a year ago.
[53:21] The Brisbane market producing strong results, stronger than March, and that validates what that data was showing.
[53:27] Certainly the data trend was showing us for house and unit prices in Brisbane.
[53:33] Adelaide, strongest auction market still in Australia, still tracking quite consistently in the mid-70s, which is a very good result for sellers and higher than where it was a year ago.
[53:43] And the Canberra market, a surprise, perhaps just a one-week event there for the Canberra market.
[53:47] We'll keep an eye on that.
[53:48] over the remainder of the month to see if it can maintain the raise, but certainly lower than where it was over March.
[53:58] So if you want to get hold of the latest auction results, there's the link to my LinkedIn channel, Doc Andrew Wilson at LinkedIn.
[54:08] Every Saturday night at six o'clock, you can get the weekly auction results.
[54:11] And Sunday you can get the full weekly report, national weekly report, which includes regional breakdowns for Sydney and Melbourne and the top 10 sales under the hammer for each of the capital city markets.
[54:24] If you missed the latest weekly market report, national report, there is a QR code.
[54:30] You can scan that and get a hold of it.
[54:32] So let's wrap it all up as we usually do, Rachel.
[54:37] Let's have a look at the outlook for the housing market with higher rates.
[54:41] Certainly, housing markets remain chronically undersupplied for both houses and land.
[54:46] We've shown that continuing to date.
[54:48] House building costs are also on the rise.
[54:51] Migration remains high.
[54:52] Our latest migration data showed a little bit of easing, but still numbers are high.
[54:57] Australia is a high migration country.
[54:59] Rental markets have tightened and rents are still rising over March following early signs of rising growth.
[55:07] over February.
[55:09] Significant first home buyer government policies are pushing more people into the market, first home buyers into the market.
[55:15] We have a chronically underperforming share market.
[55:17] So as an asset alternative, you know, the share market doesn't offer a lot of joy over the longer term, but it is a different product.
[55:25] to housing, but nonetheless, it remains interesting to make the comparisons.
[55:30] Investor incentives, regardless of the chat that's happening in terms of the tax mix for investors changing, will remain at some level.
[55:38] The point is there's still very strong connection to home ownership and investment through all demographics.
[55:44] And by demographics, I mean really cultural types, you know, particularly.
[55:50] that are very connected to the positives of property ownership and investors for wealth generation and financial security.
[55:57] Typically, of course, higher rates affect confidence in the short term, but they do provide buying opportunities because those that are being affected by the fear campaign that is up and running as usual when we get higher rates currently.
[56:10] Um, there's not as much competition amongst buyers who are sitting on their hands.
[56:15] Um, and, uh, so it does provide those opportunities, uh, that history tell us are clear opportunities to get into the market.
[56:23] Um, and of course, these sort of tax mix policies that the federal government is talking about, uh, are problematic because they represent a shifting of wealth, you know, from the perceived haves to the have nots.
[56:35] Um, and I'm not sure that has, uh,
[56:37] even some currency in terms of its political value.
[56:41] Incomes and wages are still rising solidly.
[56:43] So that maintains affordability as prices and rates rise.
[56:47] And we still have a strong economy as we saw.
[56:49] So let's have a look at an interesting graphic that I've put together here, Rachel.
[56:56] So we had interest rate rises.
[56:57] We actually had 13 interest rate rises between March 22 and March 24.
[57:02] So that's 13.
[57:03] In fact, we had one every month.
[57:05] through 22, which was almost unprecedented.
[57:09] Now, of course, that was when inflation was at its highest level since the early 70s.
[57:13] So what happened then to house prices with all those interest rate increases?
[57:16] Well, certainly confidence was affected in the shorter term, as it always is, as it is now.
[57:21] But during that period, we actually still saw very strong growth in house prices.
[57:26] In fact, Perth house prices were up by 23% over that period where we had those 13 interest rate increases.
[57:33] It was only Melbourne, which was flat.
[57:35] Melbourne's had its own story, as we know, in terms of its housing market activity being flatter than the rest.
[57:39] But all the rest recorded growth during that period of higher interest rates.
[57:44] Now, all cycles are different.
[57:46] It depends where you're coming from as to where you're going as well.
[57:49] But I think that's a lesson showing that higher interest rates don't necessarily mean lower house prices.
[57:54] And they certainly didn't.
[57:55] Following that period of higher interest rates, what happened to housing markets?
[57:59] Once they settled down, there was no more higher interest rates.
[58:01] We actually saw housing market booms.
[58:04] And that's continuing now.
[58:05] Perth up 25.1%.
[58:09] in the period after those interest rate increases, and that's between June 22 to June 24.
[58:16] And this is preceding the interest rate rises this year.
[58:19] So you can see there very strong growth follows those interest rate increases because the market then relies on the fundamental underlying drivers, such as undersupply,
[58:30] and a strong economy.
[58:32] And that pushes prices up.
[58:33] And that's what we've seen.
[58:34] And I think that's what we're going to see following our interest rate cycle here.
[58:37] And it's been really what we've seen in the longer term when we look at what's happened with Australia's house prices.
[58:44] When we look at capital city house prices over the past 40 years, we can see we've only had four years where we've had negative growth.
[58:53] And following that negative growth, we've had very strong growth.
[58:57] And that equates to what's happened with interest rate changes during that period.
[59:02] As we saw, they typically have a modest impact on house prices.
[59:08] And they proceed, however, very strong growth in the market.
[59:11] in-house prices.
[59:12] And I feel that will happen again.
[59:14] Certainly history is telling us that.
[59:15] I still believe we'll get positive results this year in terms of house prices.
[59:20] Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty now.
[59:22] Our fingers are crossed that the Iran issues will settle sooner rather than later and not act to push up interest rates significantly.
[59:32] But I think the real challenge for housing markets, all markets, is the economy.
[59:39] And I think that as long as our economy remains strong
[59:41] So will our housing markets, because there's really no sign that we're going to resupply and provide more supply into those markets.
[59:47] So they're my predictions.
[59:50] And we always have a look at what's happened to, cheeky one, maybe we won't show this from now on, to house prices versus the share market.
[59:57] It has had a bit of a roller coaster right over the last month with what's happening with the oil price.
[1:00:04] But still, Sydney 200% higher than where it was at the end of 2007, which is our benchmark period because it was a very strong period.
[1:00:13] in our growth.
[1:00:14] US Dow has outperformed the Australian share market quite considerably.
[1:00:18] And even cash in the bank has recorded an 80% increase over that period of time in terms of the term deposit.
[1:00:25] It's interesting that Perth is now starting to catch up, but it just shows you, despite how strongly Perth has grown recently, Rachel, that it's still behind the growth over the past 20 odd years.
[1:00:39] So we're going to finish now just about with our app, the Infinity My Housing Market app.
[1:00:45] We talked a lot about capital cities and some regions, but we need to be able to focus on what's happening in our suburbs.
[1:00:51] Yeah.
[1:00:51] Well, we can do that with the best giveaway.
[1:00:53] Well, it's just about a giveaway in housing, and that's the My Housing Market Suburban Data app.
[1:00:59] If you want to get a copy of this, there's a QR code or a link.
[1:01:02] You have to go through to get the password, the good folks at Infinity, which will show you the process of how to access this fantastic app because it does show you what's happening in every suburb.
[1:01:12] It also gives you the latest news, property market news, on a daily basis as well as updating the prices, the various prices and rents.
[1:01:24] And it gives you a link also to...
[1:01:26] the latest podcast from Rachel and myself.
[1:01:30] So this is a screenshot of what you can get.
[1:01:33] You can filter for house for prices or rent.
[1:01:36] These are asking prices.
[1:01:37] So they're what's being asked today from agents and vendors for these particular suburbs.
[1:01:43] You can filter for the outside capital city region or the capital city region.
[1:01:50] We're looking at Blacktown here, a big suburb in Sydney.
[1:01:52] You can filter for house, unit or townhouse and also filter for the number of beds.
[1:01:57] So four bedroom house in Blacktown currently has a median asking price of $1.4 million.
[1:02:04] We also give you the range.
[1:02:05] So it has a low of $1.3 and a high of $1.6 and 24 properties for sale.
[1:02:11] You can do exactly the same thing for the rental market.
[1:02:13] That gives you the current rents for a four bedroom house in Blacktown and
[1:02:18] and also we provide for investors' interests, the top yielding suburbs, the top 10 yielding suburbs in each of those regional breakdowns, and as well as the top 10 yields, we give you the vacancy rate, the number of properties for rent and for sale.
[1:02:30] So get a hold of that one, Rachel.
[1:02:33] It'll mean you'll never have a sleepless night again because you'll have so much fun playing with that property app.
[1:02:39] And anyway, if you want to have a look at today's presentation in a PDF format, there's a link to it.
[1:02:46] So I guess we're done and dusted for another month.
[1:02:50] So there we go.
[1:02:52] What's going to happen next month, Rachel?
[1:02:53] Well, you'll find out here in four weeks' time.
[1:02:56] Correct.
[1:02:56] Thank you so much, Doc.
[1:02:57] That's my pleasure.
[1:02:59] Well, there you have it.
[1:03:00] Another episode of the Wilson Monthly Marker Update.
[1:03:03] No clickbait bullshit here.
[1:03:05] And everything is probably not as doom and gloom as you are being told.
[1:03:08] You have all the factual data at your fingertips with us here on the Money Mentor Podcast.
[1:03:12] I'm Rachel Howlett.
[1:03:13] Until next month.

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