Guest Contributors
-
NEWS
The lesson for Australia out of Victoria’s property tax hikes: two out of three ain’t bad
Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas’s three-pronged strategy to raise an extra $2.7 billion in property taxes over the next four years is a case of two out of three ain’t bad, writes Brendan Coates. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
The home renovation equation: A personal finance expert explains
Home renovation has long been something of a national sport for many Australians, but community demand for home fix-ups has reached fever pitch since the pandemic. …
Read More » -
NEWS
Would scrapping negative gearing lead to more affordable house prices?
House prices are back in the news, and out of control. In the past three months the median house price in Sydney has risen by more than A$100,000 to A$1.12 million. …
Read More » -
NEWS
Build-to-rent surge will change apartment living for Australians, but for better or worse?
Australia’s emerging build-to-rent sector is growing — “booming” by some accounts with a 70 per cent jump in value in the past year. …
Read More » -
Real Estate Content
Why isn’t there a big increase in tiny house living?
Heather Shearer, Research Fellow, Cities Research Institute, Griffith University and Paul Burton, Professor of Urban Management & Planning and Director, Cities Research Institute Griffith University, contributed this article to The Conversation. The original title was Loving the idea of tiny house living, even if you don’t live in one. …
Read More » -
Opinion
What if Google does pull its search engine out of Australia?
The Australian government’s push to make Google pay news organisations for linking to their content has seen the search giant threaten to pull out of Australia. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
The hits and misses for commercial property in 2021
COVID-19 changed the way we do commercial property, potentially forever says to Steve Palise, commercial property expert and author. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Renters in Victoria soon won’t have to deal with dodgy heaters and insulation
Renters will no longer have to contend with poorly insulated homes and Victoria will move closer towards 7-star home efficiency standards under a A$797 million plan announced this week. It’s purportedly the biggest energy efficiency scheme in any Australian state’s history. Energy efficiency essentially means using less energy to perform the same job. It’s… …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
A third of our waste comes from buildings. This one’s designed for reuse and cuts emissions by 88%
Designing buildings so they can easily be taken apart and the materials reused provides a feasible and commercial pathway for minimising waste and greenhouse gas emissions. …
Read More » -
Opinion
$1 billion per year (or less) could halve rental housing stress
COVID has shown us what’s possible when it comes to alleviating poverty. For six months JobSeeker payments were doubled and then maintained at a level 50 per cent above normal. When the bonus finishes at year end it is likely to be permanently increased for the first time in almost 30 years. Commonwealth rent assistance could do with the same sort of attention. Rent assistance is at present added on to other payments such as the pension and JobSeeker and is inadequate, …
Read More » -
Opinion
The suburbs are the future of post-COVID retail
The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a body blow to CBD retailers, but it’s just the latest of their challenges in recent years. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Healthy housing agenda needed
The World Health Organisation has always been interested in housing as one of the big “causes of the causes”, of the social determinants, of health. The WHO launched evidence-based guidelines for healthy housing policies in 2019. Australia is behind the eight ball on healthy housing. Other governments, including in the United States, United Kingdom and New… …
Read More » -
NEWS
Why more housing stimulus will be needed to sustain recovery
In response to the COVID-19 recession, federal, state and territory governments quickly provided support to the housing industry for two reasons. First, to safeguard jobs and, second, because investment in the housing and construction industries has a high economic multiplier effect. However, new research released today shows further housing stimulus measures will be essential to help drive an economic recovery into 2021 and beyond. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
The social science behind auctions
More than ever before, auctions shape the economy. Sites such as eBay have made them an everyday transaction. The placement of every Google ad is priced by an instantaneous mini-auction. Governments use them to allocate radio spectrum and to run emissions trading schemes. The 2020 Nobel Prize in economics has been awarded to two Americans, Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, for their work in analysing auctions and how to make them more efficient. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Am I coping well during the pandemic?
The pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges. Many of us have lost work, gained carer responsibilities and grappled with social isolation. Experts have warned of a looming wave of mental illness as a result. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Why do some people struggle to make ‘healthy’ decisions, day after day?
To navigate our way through the world, we constantly make choices. While we’ve all made our fair share of regrettable ones, most of us eventually learn from these – and we generally take this ability for granted. …
Read More » -
Opinion
COVID impacts demand a change of plan: from commuting to living locally
Long-term planning has delivered mass transit systems to cater for high-patronage, hub-and-spoke transport systems. Unfortunately, this has left many city residents without basic access to public transport services. And we could never have planned for the impacts of COVID-19. Our previous plans were based on the best available data at the time. Today, these plans must be critically reviewed using new data that properly represent the world and our transport needs as they are now. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Cutting JobSeeker payments will cause crippling rental stress in our cities
As soon as the COVID-19 pandemic caused businesses to shut down, state governments acted to avoid evictions by introducing moratoriums, and the federal government introduced the Coronavirus Supplement of A$550 on top of the fortnightly JobSeeker payment. These measures were intended to enable 1.6 million Australians to ride out the pandemic-related business shutdowns. This welcome… …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
It’s about to become easier to lend irresponsibly, to help the recovery
What used to be known as a requirement to lend responsibly is now regarded as red tape. …
Read More » -
NEWS
Scott Morrison names six priority areas in $1.5 billion plan to boost manufacturing
The federal government is selecting six priority areas for support in a $1.5 billion manufacturing plan Scott Morrison will outline in a pre-budget address. They are resources technology and critical minerals processing, food and beverage, medical products, recycling and clean energy, defence, and space. The plan will also focus on… …
Read More » -
NEWS
Common COVID-19 cleaning mistakes in the workplace
Lisa Macqueen reveals the eight common health and safety mistakes that workplaces are making on their premises …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Economics academics say the Reserve Bank should do more
Former prime minister Paul Keating isn’t alone in wanting the Reserve Bank to do much more to ensure economic recovery. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
The easing of regional Victoria’s restrictions signals hope for Melbourne too
Regional Victoria will take the third step out of COVID-19 restrictions. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Why COVID-19 might not change our cities as much as we expect
What will be the normal way of urban living when the COVID-19 crisis passes? What aspects will remain with us and what will disappear? The coronavirus pandemic has thrust us into a moment of rapid change. Like all change, it is difficult to predict. But lessons from history provide us with two important insights. First, temporary change sometimes has remarkably little lasting effect. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Ultraviolet light can make indoor spaces safer during the pandemic – if it’s used the right way
Ultraviolet light has a long history as a disinfectant and the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, is readily rendered harmless by UV light. The question is how best to harness UV light to fight the spread of the virus and protect human health as people work, study, and shop indoors. The virus spreads in several ways. The main route of transmission is through person-to-person contact via aerosols and droplets emitted when an infected person breathes, …
Read More » -
Opinion
After COVID, we’ll need a rethink to repair Australia’s housing system and the economy
A new report from the New South Wales Productivity Commission (NSWPC) announces that “[higher] housing costs […] impose broader economic costs”. That chimes with our own newly published research. The implication is that Australia’s heavily capitalised housing market will weigh down economic recovery from the shocks of the coronavirus pandemic. A niche group of economists and epidemiologists had warned the world for decades that a pandemic would have devastating economic and social consequences. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Have we just stumbled on the biggest productivity increase of the century?
One of the most striking responses to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the sudden shift of around half the workforce to working at home. In many cases, this was combined with an equally sudden shift to home schooling. Contrary to what might have been expected, working from home was one part of the pandemic response that went remarkably smoothly. Most kinds of office work continued almost as if nothing had changed. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
House hunters are rarely told the home energy rating
Most Australian homes have been built to notoriously poor standards. The energy performance of existing homes in Victoria, for instance, averages 1.8 stars – 6 stars is mandatory for newly built homes under the 10-star Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NaTHERS). Decision-makers typically fail to appreciate the importance of a low star rating, even though it have profound impacts on households’ health and budgets. …
Read More » -
Opinion
Trouble at the mall as landlords and tenants ponder mutually assured destruction
“This is not a bluff,” Scott Evans, the chief executive of Mosaic Brands, has said of his threat to permanently close 300 to 500 stores in Australia unless landlords reduce rents. Mosiac’s network of about 1300 apparel stores includes Katies, Noni B, Rivers, Rockmans, Millers and Crossroads. With stores shuttered temporarily due to COVID-19 restrictions, it posted a A$170.5 million loss in the year to June. …
Read More » -
Opinion
Why more companies are going dog friendly
Bringing pet dogs into the workplace is becoming increasingly common. Large companies like Google, Ticketmaster and challenger bank Monzo are just a few that have joined companies in the pet sector (like Pets at Home) that allow employees to bring their dogs to work. Dogs are even being labelled as a new “must-have accessory” in smart offices. But research shows that 64 per cent of workplaces do not have policies in place to support pets joining them. …
Read More » -
Real Estate Content
‘Meanwhile’ building use: another way to manage properties left vacant by the COVID-19 crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily shut down cities across the globe, resulting in abandoned buildings and deserted streets. How might we better use our own vacant buildings during the crisis and beyond? We can learn from the benefits and challenges of the UK’s “meanwhile” building use sector. Sometimes referred to as meanwhile housing or property guardianship in its residential forms, it’s a recognised property tenure solution for vacant buildings in the UK and Europe. …
Read More » -
Opinion
When houses earn more than jobs: How we lost control of Australian house prices and how to get it back
Real home prices across Australia have climbed 150 per cent since 2000, while real wages have climbed by less than a third. Sydney and Melbourne rank among the most expensive cities in the world. Australia-wide, home ownership levels have fallen from 70 per cent to 65 per cent in the last 20 years and home equity levels have fallen from 80 per cent to 75 per cent. …
Read More » -
NEWS
More urban sprawl while jobs cluster: working from home will reshape the nation
For most of us the experience of working from home this year has, on balance, been positive – enough that it may well become the norm after the COVID-19 crisis ends. But modelling by Victoria University’s Centre of Policy Studies shows there will be costs alongside the personal benefits, with more urban sprawl, job flight to the biggest cities and greater economic disparities between regions. …
Read More » -
Elite Agent
Shorter meetings but longer days – how COVID-19 has changed the way we work
One of the many things COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on is the way many of us work. Those fortunate enough to be able to work from home have been able to adapt to this new reality – and it certainly has been “new”. Perhaps the biggest question for both employers and employees is whether working from home has led to a decrease in productivity. …
Read More » -
INDUSTRY NEWS
Unused buildings will make good housing in the world of COVID-19
We are entering an era of profound change in how we work, learn, socialise and live with COVID-19. Many people will adjust to this new world order and work remotely at home if they don’t have to attend an office or other workplace. This, in turn, will create an opportunity to adapt unused buildings, which were needed for the previous economy, …
Read More »
