Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Realty Talk: Small Cities Drive Growth + Climate Change Property Impacts + Bushy’s Budget Review

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

With a federal election in the air and much talk of interest rate hikes, what is happening with property around Australia? Core Logic’s Head of Research Eliza Owen joins us to unpack the latest Home Value Index.  As devasting floods & extreme weather continue to dog the East Coast of Australia, Mickael Roger from PropHero joins us for a timely discussion on the increasing impacts of climate change on property markets and what it means to you. And to round out the show, our host Bushy does a deep dive on the recent Federal Budget to see what flow-on effects it will have on a property.   RealtyTalk is your trusted voice in property investment and Australia’s most popular online property show.  RealtyTalk is brought to you by Realty, Australia’s leading search and social property distribution platform that helps investors like you beat the crowd, giving you the earliest access to property opportunities, listings, and insights. Check out Realty. RealtyTalk is hosted by top property investment expert, author, and founder of KnowHow Property, Bushy Martin. Find out how Bushy’s KnowHow team helps investors unlock freedom with finance and property here, and check out Bushy’s podcast Get Invested.  RealtyTalk is supported by BMT, a company that helps property investors save thousands of dollars each year by maximizing tax deductions from investment properties. Find out more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Realty Talk, the show that brings together the country's most authoritative and respected property experts. Follow us on all the socials and subscribe for updates and exclusive offers. Realty Talk is powered by realty.com.au, connecting buyers, sellers and agents differently. Welcome to this week's Realty Talk show. I'm Bushy Martin from Know How Property Finance, and we've got some very timely property insights for you in this week's show. With a federal election in the air and much talk of potential interest rate hikes, what's happening with property around Australia? CoreLogic's head of research, Eliza Rowan, joins us to unpack their latest home value

index with some very interesting results. And as devastating floods and extreme weather continue to dog the east coast of Australia, Michael Roger from PropHero joins us for a very timely discussion on the increasing impacts of climate change on property markets and what it means to you. And to round out the show, I do a deep dive on the recent federal budget to see what flow-on effects it's going to have on property. And before we get into it, make sure you don't miss an episode of Realty Talk by signing up on the realty.com.au homepage so that you can get every show in your inbox every week. And I'll even throw in a free copy of my award-winning book, Get Invested,

if you make the effort. We've got lots of property gold to share, so let's get on with the show. Hi and welcome. Now, last month saw the 17th consecutive monthly increase in CoreLogic's National Home Value Index, and while housing values were generally still rising, the pace of growth was continuing the trend downwards since April last year, with February's national growth of just 0.6 percent marking the lowest monthly growth reading since way back in October 2020. And interestingly Sydney and Melbourne displayed the sharpest slowdown with Sydney posting its first decline since September 2020 while Melbourne housing values were unchanged over the month. So with a federal election in the wings and much media talk of imminent interest

rate rises what happened to home values last month and what's continuing to happen with residential property across the country? And most importantly, what does this mean to you as a property owner, a buyer or a seller? Well, to find out, we're joined again by the head of research with CoreLogic and RealtyTalk regular, Eliza Owen, to talk through the results of the March Home Value Index. So welcome back to the show, Eliza. Thank you for having me. Always love you having on. So let's get straight into it. So can you sort of kick off by giving us a bit of a rundown on what the latest Home Value Index is telling us and what has changed, if anything, from recent months? Sure. So nationally, we saw a 0.7% increase over the

month of March. And that actually ticked up a little from that 0.6% that we were just talking about in February. That momentum on the monthly movement really came from the smaller capital cities, areas like Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, and Hobart that had monthly value increases of 1% or more. Meanwhile across the largest capital cities we saw a fall in values so a 0.2% decline across the Sydney market doesn't equate to much it's about a $2,500 drop on a $1.1 million median and then across the Melbourne market we saw a decline of 0.1%. So both of those markets have ticked just below the record highs that have been set through this cycle. And we're continuing to see trends like, you know, houses outperforming units and regionals outperforming capital cities,

so things like that. But I guess what's most different now is the kind of diversity that we're really seeing in performance between Sydney and Melbourne and some of those more affordable capital cities. Yeah, interesting. Is there much change in the overall transaction numbers at all, Eliza? Yeah, so there has been actually. In the March quarter of this year, we've counted about 125,000 transactions across Australia, which is still pretty high for what you would normally see for the March quarter, but it was 14% lower than what we observed in 2021. Now it's hard to know if that is a sign of demand really shifting and coming out of people coming out of the market or if it's something more temporary to do with

the rise of the Omicron variant and as we've opened up again more people catching COVID. I think it's probably a little bit of both at this stage. But I think between higher average mortgage rates, particularly in the fixed space, some additional supply, and a bit of a loss in consumer sentiment, we are probably now shifting towards a softer phase in the property market. Yeah, okay. And are there any other things behind the slowing growth conditions that are now starting to evidence themselves? Yeah, so I mentioned a movement in typical fixed mortgage rates. The RBA publishes average mortgage rates for new home loans written in the month.

And we've seen that in the longer-term fixed rate space, those are now back above pre-COVID levels. So that's going to be reducing new demand for housing. Of course, the potential, you know, cash rate scenario, which we can go into more depth on as well, but certainly looking more likely that a cash rate increase could happen this year. And on the supply side, we're basically seeing stock levels start to normalise across cities like Sydney and Melbourne. More vendors recognising that the market's at peak, close to peak, and deciding now is the time to sell. So that means that buyers are getting more choice, they're getting more time to make their decisions, and it means that when it comes to prices, they've got a little bit more power at the negotiating table as well. Yeah, excellent. So there's been a bit of a common theme over the last couple of years of the differentiation between the capitals and the regions. Why are the regions, do you believe, continue to show resilience to the slowdown that we're now seeing in the major capitals?

Yeah, so this is really extraordinary. We've seen kind of the re-acceleration of growth rates across regional Australia for the past few months. And even in the month of March, values in the region still increase 1.7%, which is a huge monthly growth rate, compared to just 0.3% across the capital cities. I think when it comes to the regions, we will see momentum ease. So we are going to see those strong growth rates tick down a little more and more each month. But I think they're being sustained by the fact that we've just been through this massive structural change in the way that we work and how that influences where we live. migration figures are still showing for example strong movements from New South Wales and Victoria to the Sunshine State and we know that of regional markets the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast are usually very popular so I think with all of that and additionally a tight labor market so even if people aren't successfully negotiating wage rises right now they are more able to negotiate flexibility in their working from home arrangements. So that also supports regional growth trends as well. And it says a lot because when the cost of living is rising, you know, if

you can't get a wage rise, what you can at least do is try and reduce your housing costs, for example. So that kind of supports that regional trend. And I think when we move more firmly into this downswing phase and we start to see the cyclical declines take place across the property market. Regional Australia, I think, will be more resilient during that phase. Yeah, interesting. It'll be interesting to see how that actually flushes out. You've already touched on the supply side of the equation starting to normalise, but let's dive into rents for a minute. How are rents and rental yields faring then? Great question. And this is another really interesting change I think we're seeing in

the market at the moment which is we know rents have had a strong upswing over the past couple of years. Annual growth rates in national rent values peaked at about 9.7% back in November last year. Annual growth has since eased so it's up about 8% over the year but month to month we've started to see a bit of an uptick and we've seen that uptick led by some of those inner city apartment markets that were much weaker through the COVID period so I think what's happened is we've had this big shock to inner city rent markets in the absence of overseas migration in the absence of activity in our CBDs that's now shifted and and corrected and on top of that we've got ease restrictions for international arrivals again so international arrivals are

starting to come back and we know that whether it's a tourist, an international student or even a long-term migrant, they're most likely to at least initially be renting and they're most likely to be going to Sydney and Melbourne. So I think that's really driving that recovery and then in regard to gross rent yields, we're now at a stage where at least nationally rent value growth was at 1% through March compared to a 0.7% growth in property values, capital values. So growth rental yields have actually ticked up for the first time since August 2020. And it wouldn't surprise me if that continues into the coming months. Interesting. That'll whet the appetites of investors who have been

sitting on the sidelines a little bit and starting to jump back in. So let's take out the crystal ball then for a minute. What's your sort of current forecast on where property values across the country will trend in coming months and your thoughts on why? So if we look at the major banks, the midpoint of their forecasts for calendar year 2023 is a decline in property values. a decline in property values of um eight percent is sort of the midpoint of the different forecasts for the combined capital cities um so i think that the argument these that these forecasts are kind of based on is the idea that a higher cash rate will reduce demand for new mortgages because after all interest is the price of the mortgage and when you increase the price of a

good demand for it comes down so that all kind of makes sense that and we do see a little more buyer hesitancy amid downswings. But I guess, realistically, if we look at the extent and the length of downswings compared to upswings in the property market, they tend to be shorter and they tend to be not as deep as in terms of the magnitude of the upswings. That's why property values have generally trended higher over time. So it'll be really interesting to see if that kind of continues in, you know, the next few decades, given that we're coming into a whole new world when it comes to interest rates. But I think if nothing else, we've got that kind of tailwind of returning migration, which is seeing some increased rental demand in capital cities. I mean, Australia really

hasn't had population growth from overseas migration for the better part of two years and we've still seen plenty of housing demand so I think that's going to be an important tailwind to watch out for. Agreed and I think the big question Mark is the level of wage increases and the impact that they may if they actually eventuate because it's been very flat in that area for a long time. Have you done any research or any thoughts on that aspect at all Eliza? Yeah, so that's going to be really important to the RBA's decision making, even from the rate decision we saw handed down today, where the RBA noted that they're willing to be patient and then they're waiting for this wages growth. And at the moment, wages growth is still sitting just under 2.4%. So it's sitting just under the decade average.

And the March wage data, I think, is next out in May. So that's going to be a very important data release for the RBA. And in the meantime, I guess we just talk to our employers. And wait to see what happens with your election in the meantime. Exactly right. Now, just to sort of close then, I'd just like your thoughts on, you know, as we're now sort of cautiously emerging from the clutches of COVID over the last couple of years, how do you see the pandemic shaping housing markets long term and what have we learned from it, do you think? I think the main structural shift has been the normalisation of remote work. We've seen an almost 40% increase in regional property value since the onset of the pandemic. That's probably the biggest one.

I mean, at the end of the day, I think property market performance is still going to be coming back to those fundamentals of population interest rates. and even though we've seen a big pivot to things like detached housing and lifestyle markets a lot of that has also been the fact that we've had a lot of owner-occupier participation in the market. Once we see more normalized rates of investor to owner-occupier participation I think that's where we'll start to see a pickup in those inner city apartment markets and things like that and in terms of what we've learned from the pandemic I think it's to not underestimate the power of institutional response at the beginning of of the pandemic a lot of people including myself were saying okay it's feasible that the property market could fall you know about

10 percent loss of migration potential people in stressed financial situations because of job loss and what have you. And then we saw this package of unprecedented monetary policy of quantitative easing of cash rate at 0.1%. We saw the government step in and pay people where they couldn't go to work. We saw banks defer mortgage repayments where they couldn't go to work. And that coordinated response from a monetary, fiscal and private sector perspective was, you know, it really carried us through the COVID period. And I think it just goes to show the stops that can be pulled out when there is a potential negative economic shock. Yeah, totally agree. I thought it interesting that the federal budget is also on an ongoing basis committing fairly significant monies to

regional infrastructure, which of course will underpin and support that continued growth in the regional areas, I would have thought. Any comments on that? Oh, absolutely. And they need it. You know, it's not just in terms of the infrastructure, but the housing development. There is extreme instances of affordability constraints and compounded by recent extreme weather events. it's clear that where people have that flexibility to work remotely they are keen to go regional so the infrastructure needs to match that the technology needs to to match that and the housing needs to match that as well so I think that's definitely a positive from the federal budget yeah totally agree well always love your insights Eliza and

I really want to thank you again for your sharing your time with us today and thanks for coming on board and enlightening us all to what lies ahead. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for having me again. Thanks, Eliza. Well, if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what's happening in property around the country, make sure you grab yourself the latest copy of CoreLogic's Hedonic Home Value Index, which you can download in full by jumping on corelogic.com.au. Stay with us for more here on Realty Talk. Successful property investment is a game of finance. Do you have the right team and the right game plan? Realty Talk is brought to you by KnowHow Property. More than mortgage brokers, Bushy Martin and his team of investment architects set you up with a

sustainable strategy structured to lower your costs, tax, risk and stress while increasing your capacity for growth. KnowHow has helped over 1,900 homeowners and investors secure more than $800 million in property wealth. So get set to live more, work less and live your legacy. Want to know how to invest in your freedom? Visit knowhowproperty.com.au. Hi, welcome. Now in recent years, Australia has been experiencing higher temperatures, more extreme droughts, devastating bushfire outbreaks, frequent floods and much more extreme weather due to the increasing impacts of climate change. Rising sea levels add to the intensity of high sea level events and all of this is an increasing threat to our housing

and our infrastructure. Now last year's bushfires and the recent floods in Queensland and New South Wales are great examples of this increased devastation. So to discuss the increasing impact and risks of climate change on property markets, we're joined by the co-founder and top hero, Michael Roger. So welcome back to the show, Michael. Thanks for having me, Boucher. A great subject to be diving into because it's very current given what we've just been through in Sydney and Queensland in recent times.

So in broad terms, how do you think climate change is going to affect the Australian property market moving forward? Look, about two weeks ago, the United Nations released their latest report on climate change. And their report looks at the impact of climate change on health, economy, infrastructures, and many other domains. And the key insight from the report is that climate change is accelerating faster than what we thought before. That's the main learning from the report. and concretely what it means is that extreme weather events are likely to grow both in intensity and in frequency over the coming years and when we said the coming years it's not in 50 years it's

like in the in the coming years like really and what it means for australians particularly is that the extreme weather events that we have all experienced over the past weeks days years are likely to get even more extreme and more frequent in the coming years. And I think we all have friends in Queensland who have been recently affected by the flood. And unfortunately, we will all have to be even more ready to address these events in the future. It's a very good point.

The old talk about once-in-a-hundred-year events is, I think, a hundred years is decreasing rapidly given what we're experiencing in that regard. So tell me then, what does climate change mean more specifically for investment risk if you actually own a property? So if people listening to us have to remember one thing, it's that they should not look at the past to predict the future. As I mentioned before, things are accelerating faster than what we thought before. And so, as you just said, well, let's say you have an investment property in an area that used to have floods once every 100 years. Well, this may actually happen every 10 years now, which means that suddenly something that was very unlikely to happen to you will very likely happen to you during your time of ownership.

And that changes everything, right? So let's say any one of us that owns property anywhere, imagine that tomorrow your insurer tells you that your insurance cost increases from $1,000 to $5,000 a year. Suddenly, your investment is not profitable anymore, so you want to sell, but all your neighbors want to sell, right? And so what we are going to see, in our opinion, at Procureur, is that many areas are going to see significant changes in prices and in rents because of climate events. And we've talked about floods, but I think not many people talk about droughts. What we are seeing is that it's an increase in areas that will face severe water restrictions and tensions between the agriculture world and residential areas. And again, not many people talk about it, but what we are seeing in the data

is that many areas are going to face significant droughts, which means that there will not be attractive areas to live in anymore. One last thing, you mentioned bushfires. An interesting turn of events during the past two years was that more and more people invested in regional areas, in beautiful regional areas. What really worries me is that many people,

both in areas that are in high bushfire risk, right? And I think that we will see, unfortunately soon, that many of these areas, which indeed are beautiful to live in and where you can get big land, et cetera, are just too risky to have people there. So I think that, well, as property owners, property investors,

think about all of these risks. Don't look at the past and assume that things, unfortunately, are likely to get worse in the coming years. Yeah, very interesting times. And it was a very clear takeaway from what you're saying in that for property investors in particular, pretty much anywhere in Australia

is likely to be more risky than it's been historically due to the flow and effects of climate change. So you touched on insurance. So what part can insurance play in? And is insurance still a good solution to this risk, Ben Michael? Well, in finance, you know, I've got a finance background in finance we say that there is no freemium and this is true for

insurance as well in some areas that I know you know like in North Queensland we've seen insurance premium get multiplied by five so don't think that insurance will get you out of it my honest feeling is that the best insurance that you can get for yourself is to buy in the right area in the first place right that's just like the best thing that you can get and the way you know like to think about it is you know like you you've got like this flood map uh bushfire risk map etc available in most states look at these areas understand uh maybe okay i mean if you understand this like understand what buffer you should take in terms of like height above sea level about a distance from uh from uh from forest etc and take a big buffer because things that they're like

the droughts and the floods, et cetera, are likely to get bigger. So again, insurance, yes, maybe in the short term, but in the long term, there is no premium. You will have to pay for it. Yeah, absolutely. And there's even areas now where insurers won't go into it as a result of what they assess as the increased risk. So certainly not something to rely on.

Tell me then, how do you actually factor climate risk into your models at COP Europe? That's a look. I mean, we are a data-driven company, as you know, Bouchier, right? And me, personally, my background is in data and AI. So overall, for every property that we buy for our clients, we look at over 200 different variables. And a few of these variables are linked to climate risk. And we actually worked with an insurance company that is very deep on this to understand which areas are at risk today. It's useful, but not enough. And which areas are at risk for the next 10 or 20 years. And with this extended mapping, we even took a bigger buffer, right? Because our objective is to, yes, maximize returns, but also minimize risk for our clients.

So we took, honestly, extra buffers, which is a bit frustrating because we are missing on many great areas, but we know that maybe not today, but in 5, 6, 7, 10 years, there will be risky areas. And just, I would like to say that, what's the opportunity for property owners here? I think that not that many people talk about it today, but I'm certain that in a few years, people will see the areas that are far from the risky areas as prime locations. And if you invest today in prime locations that are less likely to be affected by climate change, one day people will realize, oh, well, this is an oasis that they have found and we should all be there because they are not risky areas. And that, I think, is an important message for property owners, property investors. Take this into account and invest in the future by taking this buffer to make sure that you will be less affected by these changes. Totally agree. And certainly myself and a lot of investors we assist,

we're only investing for 15 to 20 years or more. And a lot has happened over the last 20 years and a lot more is likely to happen over the next 20. So I agree with you. The best insurance is getting the right property in the right place that isn't going to attract or be affected by those home returns type impacts. So very interesting, mate. Look, I really want to thank you for your insights on this, Michael.

and thanks again for joining us on the show today. Thanks, Bushir. Thanks, Michael. Well, as you can see, we're living in times where natural disasters of all kinds are becoming much more commonplace. So if you're adopting a borderless approach to building your long-term property portfolio,

you need to be working closely with independent property professionals who are actually factoring these increased climate change risks into their property selection locations, like Michael and his team at PropHero, who you can find at prophero.com.au. Keep watching Realty Talk, your go-to place for all things property. Greetings and welcome.

Now that the dust has settled on this year's federal budget, with a show bag of goodies on the eve of the federal election, I thought it timely to unpack what it all means to property. And it's fair to say that I love pre-election federal budgets. There's always a suite of suites that are offered to us to tempt our voting taste buds particularly in marginal seats where a lot of government spending concentrates, creating great future property possibilities. And I need to stress

that this is an agnostic, politics-free zone. I'm purely interested in what impact this year's budget will have on property locations and property markets. So is this year's budget good, bad, or neutral when it comes to property? Whether you're an existing property owner, buyer, seller, or investor, at a time when Australia's property value growth is cooling and plateauing and shifting to

multiple speed markets where the major capitals of Sydney and Melbourne have slipped into negative and flatline growth while Brisbane, Adelaide and some of the regional hubs are still growing strongly. Will the budget throw more petrol or water on the property fire? Now to set the scene it's important to note that I'm looking for budget initiatives that will facilitate change and improvement in property because it's change that creates property opportunities. And changes in property values are most affected by changes in the balance between supply and demand along with committed expenditure on new infrastructure, particularly transport infrastructure related to road, rail and public transport that opens up areas and reduces travel times. So against this

backdrop, what is this year's federal budget promising? How is future government expenditure going to affect property supply, demand and infrastructure? On the supply side, in terms of the supply of new housing, there's no surprise that there's nothing here in the budget as governments of all descriptions have pretty much washed their hands of housing supply by handballing it all to the private sector. This is one of the major reasons that Australia continues to suffer a significant housing shortage, which is likely to get worse in coming years. And while this is great for existing property owners because a supply shortfall tends to boost values in areas of strong demand, it continues to exacerbate the runaway train of housing affordability and

accessibility for those trying to get onto the property ladder. However, the budget does provide an additional glimmer of hope on this front with the announcement of an additional $2 billion for more affordable housing in low-cost financing to the government's National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, which will further support the provision of social and affordable homes for vulnerable Australians, bringing the total liability cap to $5.5 billion. Now, this increase to the liability cap of the affordable housing bond aggregator is targeted to support an extra 27,500 dwellings. This, in addition to the doubling of the government's home guarantee schemes administered by a panel of banks and lenders, will make

available up to 50,000 places each year moving forward, including a new regional home guarantee open to non-first home buyers that will continue to support regional demand. This will certainly enable more Australians to achieve their aspirations of owning a home, and it's likely to add demand-side pricing pressures and increase building costs and build times, particularly in good lifestyle regional areas, so be mindful of this if you're playing in this space. To achieve this, the Federal Government plans to expand three homeowner schemes that were due to end in June, with double the number of places to be offered to help buyers break into the housing market. under the expanded home guarantee scheme the government will make available 35 000 guarantees

each year up from the current 10 000 from the 1st of july 2022 under the first home guarantee and this will support eligible first home buyers to purchase a new or existing home with a deposit as low as just five percent it will also enable 10 000 guarantees each year from the 1st of October 2022 right through to the 30th of June 2025 under a new regional home guarantee to support eligible home buyers including non-first home buyers and permanent residents to purchase or construct a new home in regional areas subject of course to the passage of the enabling legislation. And finally an additional 5,000 guarantees each year from the 1st of July 2022 through to the 30th of June 2025 to expand the family home guarantee that's targeted at

supporting eligible single parents with children to buy their first home or to re-enter the housing market with a deposit of as little as just two percent. In addition demand side pressure will also escalate with the government's first home super saver scheme maximum superannuation release being increased to $50,000 for a housing deposit from July 1st this year, which is up from $30,000, which allows you to save money for your first home inside your super fund. This helps first home buyers save faster for their home deposit due to the concessional reduced 15% tax treatment of your superannuation. Now, beyond these direct housing initiatives, property demand side spending drivers will also be boosted in the short to medium term by cost of living and fuel excise

tax savings that will help to offset inflation increases and potential future interest rate rises. Specifically, $5.6 billion has been provisioned for the $420 tax offset for low to middle income earners for this financial year, as well as a $250 payment to pensioners, carers veterans and other social assistance recipients 2.9 billion dollars has also been apportioned for a short-term six-month halving of the fuel excise from 44 cents down to 22 cents to offset rising travel and transport costs which will be significant for regional areas so these additional initiatives are all adding to demand side pressure which will continue to support and lift property values. Turning now to the additional infrastructure front that is a key

driver of change and improvement for property, the federal government budget announced an additional $17.9 billion in spending on road, rail and associated infrastructure projects across Australia that will increase the 10-year pipeline to $120 billion. Now this is true nation building stuff and will create strong and growing property potential in areas affected by this. Now infrastructure spending is always good for property as it opens up new areas and it reduces travel times with positive flow-on effects for property values in the areas that benefit from the improved infrastructure. So it'll be worth investigating areas in and around the new infrastructure that will benefit from the improvements that will always worth because

it's always worth investing in areas prior to the new infrastructure being completed to enjoy a potential spike in resulting capital growth. So let's quickly break down the new and augmented infrastructure spend. Key new commitments funded in the 2022 to 23 budget include $3.1 billion in new commitments to deliver the $3.6 billion Melbourne intermodal terminal package in Victoria, which includes a whole raft of things that and just running through them 1.2 billion for the interstate freight terminal in Beveridge taking the total investment to 1.62 billion 280 million for road connections including Cameron's Lane interchange to the Beveridge interstate freight terminal

740 million for the western interstate freight terminal in Trugganina and 920 million for the outer metropolitan ring south rail connection to the western interstate freight terminal in queensland 1.6 billion is going to be allocated for the brisbane to sunshine coast beewar to maruchi dual rail extension and a further 1.1 to 1 billion for the brisbane to gold coast caribbee to beanley faster rail upgrade new south wales benefit from 1 billion dollars allocated for the Sydney to Newcastle, Tuggera to Wyong faster rail upgrade, as well as $336 million for the Pacific Highway Wyong Town Centre. The Northern Territory, WA and Queensland also score an additional $678 million for the Outback Way project. $336 million is being allocated for

the Tasmanian Northern Roads Package Stage 2, while South Australia will benefit from $200 million for the Marion Road-Anzac Highway to Crossroad upgrade, as well as $120 million for the Adelaide Hills Productivity and Road Safety Package. Western Australia will receive $145 million for the Thomas Road Dual Carriageway-Southern Western Highway to Tonkin Highway interchange, along with $140 million for regional road safety upgrades. In the Northern Territory, 132 million will go towards Central Australian Tourism Roads and the ACT scores 46.7 million towards the Athlon Drive duplication. Now the budget also includes additional funding for existing projects and roads of strategic importance corridors that include 2.264 billion for the

North-South Corridor Torrance to Darlington Route in South Australia, 352 million for the Milton Ulladulla Bypass in New South Wales, $320 million for the Bunbury Outer Ring Road Stages 2 and 3 in Western Australia, along with $200 million for the Tonkin Highway Stage 3 extension. Victoria scores an extra $45 million for the Ballarat to Oyen Road network, and an additional $68.5 million is being set aside for the Cooktown to Weeper Corridor upgrade in Queensland, bringing the total Australian funding to this corridor to $258.5 million. Now, this budget also includes $7.1 billion for transformative investments in regional Australia, including the Northern Territory, North and Central Queensland, the Pilbara region in Western Australia, and the Hunter in New South Wales. Now, this investment will unlock new economic frontiers of production in agriculture, low-emissions manufacturing and renewable energy.

Including its $8.9 billion National Water Grid Fund, the federal government will provide a further $7.4 billion to improve Australia's water security and open up new land for irrigation. As well as projects in each state and territory, the federal government is also investing $2 billion through the Regional Accelerator Program to drive growth and productivity in regional areas, $501.7 million for local councils to deliver priority road and community infrastructure projects across Australia, and $2 billion in additional funding for the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, bringing total funding to $7 billion. Now, this substantial infrastructure spend will create a wealth of change, improvement and resulting property opportunity. So, as you can see, this budget adds strong property demand side drivers alongside significant new enabling infrastructure. So, on the balance of good, bad or neutral, the budget is clearly favouring the good for property side with the regions being the big winners as the exodus to lifestyle from the big cities to the country continues. And existing property owners, buyers, sellers and investors all appear to benefit from this. We'll now eagerly await the federal election to see which party's policies will add, detract or otherwise impact on property. But for now, that's more food for thought.

Stay tuned for more. Property deductions can save you thousands of dollars each year. To make sure you maximise deductions, you need to work with the most experienced quantity surveyor in the country. BMT Tax Depreciation is the leading specialist in the industry. They've completed over 700,000 tax deduction schedules for residential investment and commercial properties Australia-wide. BMT guarantee to find double your fee in the first full financial year deductions. Call BMT on 1300 728 726 today for an obligation free quote.

Well, that's another wrap for this week's show. another big thanks to our special guests eliza owen and michael roger and to make sure you don't miss an episode of australia's longest running and most popular online property show subscribe to realty talk now on apple podcast google podcast spotify youtube or wherever you listen and make sure you sign up on the realty.com.au homepage to get a free copy of my book get invested so that you get every episode in your inbox every week. And while you're there, make sure you check out one of Australia's most extensive range of properties for sale from over 7,000 agents nationally. Thanks again to realty.com.au and BMT Tax Appreciation

for their ongoing support. I'm Bushy Martin from Know How Property Finance, and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Miss something in this week's show or want to catch up on past shows? Do it anytime at realty.com.au where we connect buyers, sellers and agents differently.