Interest Rate Shifts: What They Mean for Today’s Real Estate Market

The love affair with real estate is ingrained into the Australian psyche. You can touch it, see it, drive past it and improve it. But with home prices falling, policy questions over tax incentives and less availability of credit, perhaps the love affair with residential property investment is over. So what does this mean for commercial real estate?

Don’t rule out property investment until you’ve done the numbers.  You’ve read the books, magazine articles and reports. And you’ve been religiously checking real estate websites for properties. But when push comes to shove, you never follow through.   Don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact, despite real estate being a national pastime, only 8.4% of Australians, or roughly 2.1 million people, owned an investment property, according to the Australian Tax Office.

Getting finance approvals has become more of a challenge and banks are now scrutinising people’s spending patterns etc with a fine tooth comb.  Make sure your pre-approvals are in place before making any offers as the time taken to get approvals have blown out considerably compared to last year.

New figures have revealed the popularity of townhouses is soaring, with approvals for new townhouses at record levels in Australia’s biggest cities.

Like any major investment, buying real estate off-the-plan can be high risk if insufficient research has taken place. But there are also perks to buying property that has yet to be built.