Latest news with #Lawless
Sydney Morning Herald
16 hours ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Highly aspirational': How much it costs to buy a top-end property
'If you're buying into the top 5 per cent of the marketplace, you're in a pretty elite segment of the market. You're right up there in terms of your paper wealth,' he said, adding many owners at this level would still have substantial debts. 'Maybe these numbers are a bit of a reality check – to get into the top 5 per cent of the marketplace it might be a lower benchmark than they had in their minds … For most people, that's still highly aspirational.' Home owners at this level would likely have a substantial deposit, and were unlikely to be first home owners. 'They've got an occupation where they make very good income or they're lucky enough to have a significant history of capital in their family that might be being passed down generationally.' Lawless said that in locations where the upper end was triple the median, there was more diversity of homes available. Loading 'The larger the difference between the median and the 95th percentile, then clearly the bigger the array of pricing is in the marketplace. There's a lot more diversity in the price distribution of properties, and it probably also speaks to the diversity of quality in the housing stock.' The Demographics Group co-founder Simon Kuestenmacher said more and more people could not dream of affording even a median-priced house. 'We run a country that for the last 60 years, 70 years artificially created a scarcity of land. Since the 1950s, we grew our population by leaps and bounds,' he said. 'The Gold Coast is the only new city we created … This is a designed housing shortage.' The rise in house prices over time in affluent neighbourhoods to multimillion-dollar levels was pushing out younger families. 'What we see quite often is that parents would have moved to what is now a middle suburb when they were quite young, houses were affordable back then, houses went up in price,' he said. Now, their children cannot always stay in the area. 'The choice is then that you probably don't live there any more, it's just that simple,' he said. Loading 'They want to replicate their own childhood for their family, and that's not possible.' But for the parents, he said the increase in their housing wealth was not useful unless they sold, often at the end of their life. Although some Australians downsized, many wanted to age in place and could not find smaller homes or apartments in their area after spending years opposing development, he said. Barrenjoey head of economic forecasts, Johnathan McMenamin, said the harbour views in Sydney in particular had pushed up house prices for homes around the water, while the city also had a larger finance industry with high-paying jobs. He thought zoning changes in high-value areas could create a pathway to creating more housing at a less expensive entry point, and tax changes could encourage some owners of family homes to downsize and free up housing stock. 'If state governments shifted their tax base away from transfer duty and more towards land tax, that would encourage greater turnover and downsizing and upsizing from buyers, depending on where they are in their life and how many kids they have at home,' he said. 'That could go some way to improving the market functions in those upper ends of the property market.'
The Age
16 hours ago
- Business
- The Age
‘Highly aspirational': How much it costs to buy a top-end property
'If you're buying into the top 5 per cent of the marketplace, you're in a pretty elite segment of the market. You're right up there in terms of your paper wealth,' he said, adding many owners at this level would still have substantial debts. 'Maybe these numbers are a bit of a reality check – to get into the top 5 per cent of the marketplace it might be a lower benchmark than they had in their minds … For most people, that's still highly aspirational.' Home owners at this level would likely have a substantial deposit, and were unlikely to be first home owners. 'They've got an occupation where they make very good income or they're lucky enough to have a significant history of capital in their family that might be being passed down generationally.' Lawless said that in locations where the upper end was triple the median, there was more diversity of homes available. Loading 'The larger the difference between the median and the 95th percentile, then clearly the bigger the array of pricing is in the marketplace. There's a lot more diversity in the price distribution of properties, and it probably also speaks to the diversity of quality in the housing stock.' The Demographics Group co-founder Simon Kuestenmacher said more and more people could not dream of affording even a median-priced house. 'We run a country that for the last 60 years, 70 years artificially created a scarcity of land. Since the 1950s, we grew our population by leaps and bounds,' he said. 'The Gold Coast is the only new city we created … This is a designed housing shortage.' The rise in house prices over time in affluent neighbourhoods to multimillion-dollar levels was pushing out younger families. 'What we see quite often is that parents would have moved to what is now a middle suburb when they were quite young, houses were affordable back then, houses went up in price,' he said. Now, their children cannot always stay in the area. 'The choice is then that you probably don't live there any more, it's just that simple,' he said. Loading 'They want to replicate their own childhood for their family, and that's not possible.' But for the parents, he said the increase in their housing wealth was not useful unless they sold, often at the end of their life. Although some Australians downsized, many wanted to age in place and could not find smaller homes or apartments in their area after spending years opposing development, he said. Barrenjoey head of economic forecasts, Johnathan McMenamin, said the harbour views in Sydney in particular had pushed up house prices for homes around the water, while the city also had a larger finance industry with high-paying jobs. He thought zoning changes in high-value areas could create a pathway to creating more housing at a less expensive entry point, and tax changes could encourage some owners of family homes to downsize and free up housing stock. 'If state governments shifted their tax base away from transfer duty and more towards land tax, that would encourage greater turnover and downsizing and upsizing from buyers, depending on where they are in their life and how many kids they have at home,' he said. 'That could go some way to improving the market functions in those upper ends of the property market.'
The Journal
2 days ago
- Business
- The Journal
Applications open for the free college courses on offer for the next academic year
APPLICATIONS ARE NOW open for Springboard, an initiative that offers free and heavily subsidised college courses. The courses on offer for this year were announced last week . They are mainly available in areas aligning with national economic priorities such as infrastructure planning, sustainable building, renewable energy, digital skills, cyber security, and artificial intelligence. You can view here the full list of courses made available. The courses are provided 'at certificate, degree, and masters level leading to qualifications in areas where there are employment opportunities in the economy'. Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless said that the initiative is 'one of the most impactful' investments made by the government in further education. The courses on offer are designed to respond to evolving skills demands. 'It offers thousands of learners the chance to upskill or reskill in areas where Ireland needs talent from artificial intelligence to infrastructure planning to cybersecurity,' he said. Lawless added that Springboard is meant to make upskilling more accessible and achievable for everyone. Advertisement It will deliver 7,719 places across 249 courses for the 2025/26 academic year. All courses will commence between 1 July and 31 October 2025. Courses are flexible and accessible, with 96% delivered online or in blended format, designed to support working professionals, jobseekers, and those returning to further education alike, the department said. Some of the universities offering courses that are covered include Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University College Cork, University of Galway, University of Limerick, and University College Dublin. A large number of places are also available in technological universities and institutes, with a large volume available for applications in ATU campuses across Ireland. You can check your eligibility for the initiative here . You must have a valid PPS number and be living full-time in the Republic of Ireland. 'Applicants currently unemployed, or seeking to return to the workforce after a career break to care for loved ones, qualify for a free place on a higher education course,' a statement said. If you are in employment, 90% of the total fees are covered by Springboard, with the remaining 10% covered either by the applicant or their employer. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Property market records one of the quickest downturns ever
The latest property market downturn has become one of the shortest and shallowest on record, ending just three months after it started. Dwelling values took a hit between November 2024 and January 2025, falling 0.4 per cent nationally, latest data from Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) shows, after a series of interest rate hikes and cost-of-living pressures weighed on buyers' hip pockets. But in February, the month of the first interest rate cut in more than two years, the market started to turn around. The Reserve Bank cut the cash rate in February and May, to have it now sitting at 3.85 per cent. Cotality's Home Value Index for May showed dwelling values have jumped 1.7 per cent over the first five months of the year. Values in every capital city rose in May, by at least 0.4 per cent. Sydney values rose 0.5 per cent in May, Melbourne was up 0.4 per cent, Brisbane 0.6 per cent and Perth 0.7 per cent. Cotality research director Tim Lawless said the latest slowdown was more like a levelling-out of values, rather than an actual downturn, and was a lot less steep than the short downturns of 2020 and 2015. Dwelling values fell 1.8 per cent between April and June 2020 (the start of the COVID-19 pandemic), before skyrocketing on the back of cuts to the cash rate that ultimately reached rock bottom at 0.1 per cent. A similar, quick market turnaround also happened in 2015, when the Australian Prudential and Regulation Authority tightened lending criteria, particularly for property investors. Values fell 1.4 per cent in the December 2015 quarter. 'It really shows how much access to credit, or the ability to borrow money from the banks, can affect housing values,' Lawless said.
The Age
3 days ago
- Business
- The Age
Property market records one of the quickest downturns ever
The latest property market downturn has become one of the shortest and shallowest on record, ending just three months after it started. Dwelling values took a hit between November 2024 and January 2025, falling 0.4 per cent nationally, latest data from Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) shows, after a series of interest rate hikes and cost-of-living pressures weighed on buyers' hip pockets. But in February, the month of the first interest rate cut in more than two years, the market started to turn around. The Reserve Bank cut the cash rate in February and May, to have it now sitting at 3.85 per cent. Cotality's Home Value Index for May showed dwelling values have jumped 1.7 per cent over the first five months of the year. Values in every capital city rose in May, by at least 0.4 per cent. Sydney values rose 0.5 per cent in May, Melbourne was up 0.4 per cent, Brisbane 0.6 per cent and Perth 0.7 per cent. Cotality research director Tim Lawless said the latest slowdown was more like a levelling-out of values, rather than an actual downturn, and was a lot less steep than the short downturns of 2020 and 2015. Dwelling values fell 1.8 per cent between April and June 2020 (the start of the COVID-19 pandemic), before skyrocketing on the back of cuts to the cash rate that ultimately reached rock bottom at 0.1 per cent. A similar, quick market turnaround also happened in 2015, when the Australian Prudential and Regulation Authority tightened lending criteria, particularly for property investors. Values fell 1.4 per cent in the December 2015 quarter. 'It really shows how much access to credit, or the ability to borrow money from the banks, can affect housing values,' Lawless said.
