Ray White Now May 2022

Although I’m 100 per cent sure that all property forecasts published right now won’t get the outlook spot on, one thing we can be certain about is that this year, price growth will be slower than last year. Interest rates are now on the move and with this, growth in the cost of finance, as well as increased difficulty in getting finance. This in turn influences sentiment and we’re firmly in the next stage of the housing cycle.

While interest rates are one influence on the market, they’re not the only one. Property is far more complex than that and depending on where you’re looking, it can be influenced by a wide range of other factors including population growth, construction costs, land prices, urban regeneration, access to finance (ease of lending), increasing wealth, government policy, the level of debt that people hold, sentiment towards property and localised economic growth.

This month, we take a look at regional Australian property markets. Since the start of the pandemic, they’ve been particularly strong performers and very low interest rates have been only part of what’s driven them. If you bought pretty much anywhere at the start of the pandemic and sold now, you’d have likely been the beneficiary of a particularly high capital gain on your property. But with house prices now starting to soften, is house flipping still going to yield the same return? We take a look at how profitable it’s been over the last decade.

Finally, as we head to net zero in 2050, how’s the property industry responding to rising expectations about emissions, energy efficiency and green buildings?

We hope you enjoy this month’s Ray White Now and we’re proud to be providing you with relevant, timely and interesting content and data in 2022.