Category: finance

A dream gift of $25,000 making home ownership possible for thousands of Australian families was announced today through the government’s new HomeBuilder scheme. Those who qualify stand to receive the handout towards their new home construction or renovation.

The program is designed to help builders, tradies and the construction industry withstand the fallout from Covid-19 and give a helping hand to people buying or improving their home.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it is for keeping the dream of building alive.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars to support those Australians whose dream it was to build their home or to do that big renovation,” Mr Morrison said. (more…)

Before Covid-19 hit, the Perth property market was at the beginning of a rebound, with pent up demand and renewed optimism starting to fuel prices.

This was confirmed by CoreLogic’s Hedonic Home Value Index, with Perth house values up 0.5% for March and 0.9% for the quarter.

But since the coronavirus crisis, the resurgence is on hold, with a decline in active buyers in the market and no upward pressure on prices. (more…)

While most Perth property is only just starting to perk up, interest in subdivision and development sites has been building up for the last year. The right sites have a buzz of interested buyers at the home opens.

As an example, a corner triplex site in Greenwood auctioned recently had 9 registered bidders vying for the property in a fierce bidding war. A whopping 61 bids delivered a sale price of $521,000. This was $80,000 over the reserve price! It was by no means a bargain, and there were many hugely disappointed bidders left without a property. (more…)

Have you seen a few banks lowering their interest rates further than your current bank?

With several banks dropping rates after the RBA cut, you may be thinking why hasn’t your lender passed on the rate cut?

Should you be racing out to change lenders?

Our advice:

• Wait a little longer to see how all the lenders pan out in terms of rate changes.
• Look more deeply into the actual rate you are paying. Your rate is often dependent on the discount the lender has given you off the standard variable.

(more…)

The 2019 Federal Budget was announced last Tuesday – so who are the winners, you might ask?

Low- and middle-income earners are one of the winners from the 2019 Federal Budget. If you fall into this category you will receive personal tax cuts, for singles this is a maximum of $1,080 or couples a maximum of $2,160.

From a business perspective, small- and medium-size businesses received a positive outcome from the budget with the instant asset write off being increased to $30,000. This will benefit an additional 22,000 businesses.

For everyday Australian commuters, the budget announced $15 billion to be used for new roads and rail projects to help with congestion issues on our roads. Not only is this good for jobs and ease of travel, it is important for property investors who could benefit from investing near the right projects, such as the under-construction airport link. (more…)