“New book reveals politicians’ policies inflate property values, making homes less affordable; insights for buyers from Terry Ryder.”

Politicians often speak about housing affordability, but a new book reveals how their policies are in fact fuelling higher property values and making homes less affordable. Terry Ryder from Hotspotting joins to discuss his new book Why Property Values Rise.

We explore what politicians really want when it comes to property prices, how location myths mislead buyers, and why luxury features like pools or prestige suburbs aren’t what really drive value.

Ryder also explains how constant change shapes the housing market, what myths investors should ignore, and the key insights every buyer needs to know.

The biggest single problem causing Australia’s housing crisis is the cost of creating new dwellings.

The cost of the standard city house-and-land package is now $950,000 and is getting scarily close to $1 million for a newly constructed house in our capital cities.

Governments of all levels and persuasions tell us constantly that they desperately want to improve housing affordability, but what few of them shout about as loudly is that about 40% of the cost of new housing is made up of government taxes, fees and charges.

It seems incongruous that when cost is the biggest factor preventing new dwellings from being built, governments, which promise they are working on solutions, are doing nothing to ease the tax burden.

Builders and developers cannot deliver their normal products because the cost of construction is prohibitively high.

Earlier this year, the Productivity Commission revealed that government interference and bureaucracy had massively reduced productivity in the building industry.

Delays double the timeline

It now takes twice as long to deliver a new home compared to the 1990s.

This alone added considerable cost to new homes to the point where it is often no longer financially viable to build.

Recent analysis by the National Australia Bank confirms this. Its quarterly Residential Property Survey found that high construction costs and delays in getting approvals are by far the biggest barriers to producing new homes across Australia.

While much of the media would have us believe that interest rates are a big barrier, that was not the case, with very few of the survey respondents nominating that or tight finance as an issue.

It doesn’t matter how many new homes the Federal Government says it will build: until the issues of bureaucratic delays, high property taxes and the overall cost of construction are dealt with, building targets will not be met and the shortage will remain.

Terry Ryder is the Founder of Hotspotting and Host of  The Property Playbook on Ticker.

Prices begin to shift after two-year pause as sales surge across key cities.

The first signs of revival are beginning to show in the Regional Victoria property market, where prices have been on pause for much of the past two years.

Hotspotting analysis of sales activity in the first quarter of 2025 detected early signs of increased buyer activity in Regional Victoria, and the June Quarter data has confirmed this. Transaction levels are now rising strongly in its leading regional cities and are at the highest level since the peak of the pandemic property boom at the end of 2021.

Sales volumes are now 16% higher than a year earlier and 28% higher than the same quarter two years ago. Bendigo, Geelong, Shepparton and Wodonga are leading the charge with rising sales activity which generally leads to future price growth.

In Bendigo, sales volumes are 41% higher in the June quarter and there are similar increases in Geelong and also in Shepparton. Shepparton’s market has been on a general upward trend in the past year and the number of sales in the first half of 2025 was 35% higher than the same period in 2024.

Ballarat’s sales levels in the June quarter are 28% higher than a year earlier and the city is showing signs of a solid revival after a couple of weak years in which prices fell. Something is happening in these key markets in Regional Victoria and part of the reason is that large numbers of Melbourne residents are leaving the big city and moving to regional areas for a different and more affordable lifestyle.

A key factor is that property prices are attractive in these places, after two years in which Victoria has not seen the big capital growth that has occurred in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. So, the timing is good to get into Victoria markets, before markets become competitive and prices start to grow.

You just need to keep in mind that taxes like stamp duty and land tax are much higher in Victoria than other parts of Australia and the State Government of Victoria keeps coming up with new ways to hit property owners and businesses with new or higher taxes.