Household Finances – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Get Your Finances Sorted This Twix-Mass!

The space between Christmas and New Year is often a nothing burger, as we wait for the old year to finally go and new one to arrive.

But this offers the perfect opportunity to check over your finances and ensure you have a clear plan in mind for next year. Over the next few days, I will offer some suggestions which may help you to keep your finances in fine fettle. The trick is to avoid the inertia which financial companies rely on to bolster their profits. But it does take a little work.

A good place to start is to make sure you know how your cash flow sits. My surveys should that more than half of households do not have a good handle on the money coming in and going out. Remember that financial stress as measured by cash flow in registering as high as ever, so more people would do well to get a grip on their cash flows.

Next look at the date for car and house insurance renewals. Write them down. This is important because most will auto-renew, but it is likely your existing company will be price walking you up meaning you will likely be paying more than a new customer would.

Third make a note of your current mortgage and savings rates on your accounts. Keep a note of the current rates you are paying or receiving. And keep up to date with the deals as they come and go. Many banks change rates on their products at odd times, and often do not pass full savings on. Funny that!

Finally, today make sure you know the type of credit card you have, if you have one.

Collect all this information and make a note somewhere you will remember and revisit it often. This could save you thousands across the year and help your finances survive in 2025.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Details of our one to one service are here: https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Get Your Finances Sorted This Twix-Mass!

00:00 / 00:06:49

Get Your Finances Sorted This Twix-Mass!

The space between Christmas and New Year is often a nothing burger, as we wait for the old year to finally go and new one to arrive.

Finally, today make sure you know the type of credit card you have, if you have one.

Collect all this information and make a note somewhere you will remember and revisit it often. This could save you thousands across the year and help your finances survive in 2025.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Details of our one to one service are here: https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

DFA Live HD Replay: The Great Housing Bust, And What Can Be Done About It: With Leith van Onselen

This is an edit of a live discussion with Economist Leith van Onselen, Co-founder of MacroBusiness, and Chief Economist at Nucleus Wealth. We will pick apart the latest housing disasters, and why things have gone so pear shaped, but also what could be done (with political will) to sort this mess out! It is NOT rocket science…

You can ask a question live!

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/ for our One to One Service.

Find more at https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/ where you can subscribe to our research alerts

Please consider supporting our work via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DigitalFinanceAnalytics

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

DFA Live HD Replay: The Great Housing Bust, And What Can Be Done About It: With Leith van Onselen

00:00 / 01:35:26

Household Money Worries? – You Are Not Alone!

We deep dive on the thorny question of household finances and the proportion of disposable income going to pay the rent or mortgage, using data from our core market model.

We find that conditions are quite severe in many parts of the country, but it is not uniformly spread. Which households are most under the pump in terms of these critical ratios?

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Details of our one to one service are here: https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Household Money Worries? - You Are Not Alone!

00:00 / 00:18:03

Property Winners And Losers…

Core Logic released their annual Best of the Best report, and they say that while at first glance, the Australian housing market was surprisingly resilient through 2024, it can be characterised as having stronger conditions ‘out of the gate’, which slowed over the course of the year under waning demand, rising levels of advertised supply and a changed outlook for inflation and interest rates.

There were significant variations across property types and locations, with significant rises and falls, and units doing better than houses.

Melbourne dominated the list of the worst-performing house and unit markets, underscoring the city’s weak showing this year. House prices in Chelsea, Doncaster, Dromana and Bonbeach slumped between 9 per cent and 10.2 per cent, while unit values in Sunshine, Frankston South, Carnegie, Murrumbeena and Caulfield South dropped by as much as 13.8 per cent.

Sydney suburbs Zetland and Cronulla were among the weakest house markets in the country, with values dropping by 9.7 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively. And that’s the point really, because the truth is, values are all over the shop at the moment, with the likelihood of further falls in some areas, unless or until we see significant rate cuts. Given what we saw yesterday reflected in the lower unemployment rate, the RBA won’t be cutting soon, so 2025 will be “interesting”….

Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.

If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.

Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.

Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.

Edwin understands your needs. So why not engage a licensed professional to stand alongside you. With RPC you know you have: experience, knowledge, and master negotiators, looking after your best interest.

Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Property Winners And Losers…

00:00 / 00:13:39

Have A Very “Squeezy” Christmas!

More households are feeling the pinch in the run up to Christmas according to our latest research and as demonstrated in the results to the end of November 2024, which we look at today.

We start with an overview of “financial stress”, defined in cash flow terms, then look at mortgage, rental, investor and overall stress across the country, as we dive into the top postcodes and consider the future scenarios for interest rates.

If you want a deep dive into a specific post code, drop it into the comments below, and I will make a subsequent show including the granular data I hold.

The full detailed set of data is available via our Patreon programme: https://www.patreon.com/DigitalFinanceAnalytics

Details of our one to one service are here: https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Find more at https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/ where you can subscribe to our research alerts

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Have A Very “Squeezy” Christmas!

00:00 / 00:24:27

Lets Put Another Numberwang On The Barbie!

The latest monthly CPI data from the ABS showed headline inflation going sideways and underlying inflation rising, despite the massive Government support to households across electricity and rents.

Nothing here to signal rate cuts in the short term, and the RBA will continue to look through to the underlying rate of 3.5% which is up from last month and higher than their target.

Of course, politically speaking we will hear loads about Government support, and bearing down on inflation, despite the fact that many of the actions of Government are driving inflation higher.

Its another classic case of numberwanging, because the real costs for people are so much higher.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Lets Put Another Numberwang On The Barbie!

00:00 / 00:05:54

Homeless; Renters Punished And Perth Is Worse Than Sydney!

Last week I published a show titled “The rental stress pips are squeaking” where I did a deep dive into rising rental stress across the country, to underscore the crisis we have in the rental sector. I called it the hidden crisis, because we get massive coverage of mortgage stress in the mainstream, media but rental stress not so much.

To underscore the crisis, new modelling from Impact Economics and Policy, a group of expert economists and policy specialists, estimates that back in 2022, as many as 3.2 million people were at risk of homelessness across the country, where one negative shock could result in them losing their home. This represents a 63% increase between 2016 and 2022 in the number of Australians at risk of homelessness.

A recent survey showed that 39% of Specialist Homelessness Services had to close their doors to people seeking help because they were unable to cope. With the homelessness services unable to cope despite the increase in people needing help, not enough are being assisted, and many are not even seeking help because they know they won’t get through.

Now, SGS Economics and Planning has release the tenth edition of the Rental Affordability Index (RAI) today, which shows that since 2015, rental affordability has declined in most cities, limiting where people can live and work and reshaping communities nationwide. Once affordable areas like South West Sydney and South East Melbourne are now increasingly out of reach for average rental households. Their analysis based on a different approach aligns with what I have been reporting.

The report lands as the Albanese government struggles to get support to pass two key housing bills, dismissing a last minute offer from the Greens as more about politics than progress.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Is It Inter-Generational War Then?

OK folks a rant warning. It seems you are better placed financially and socially, if you are old with property compared with being young with none or a massive mortgage! And its structural thanks to bad policy across the board. One reason why younger people are turning away from the major Uniparty.

If you are one of the many thousands of younger Australians struggling to try and get on the property ladder, you will already know there is a war on youth, thanks to mass immigration, a permanent per capita recession, the rent shock, the energy shock, unaffordable homes, crushed wages, rampaging mortgage repayments, destroyed and expensive education, plus a ruined built environment a wrecked natural environment, oh and a dying planet.

But Older Australians are in a completely different world. CBA says Australians are freeing up more of their wallet for discretionary purchases with a focus on value and convenience, according to the latest CommBank iQ Cost of Living Insights analysis. Overall spending continues to trail inflation, up by just 1.5 per cent compared to the same time last year.

The combination of higher prices and mortgage rates has pushed the percentage of median household disposable income spent on mortgage repayments on a median-priced home to a record high of 50.6% nationally.

But on another planet, far, far away, cash sales in property surged 14 per cent to $138 billion across NSW, Victoria and Queensland over the past financial year, fuelled by wealthy downsizers, retirees and investors, a new report shows.

So it’s better to be old, with property, than young with no property or a massive mortgage, and the intergenerational gap is continuing to grow. Trouble is, unless things change trends are set to deteriorate further. Sure if you have parents with property who will fall off the perch sometime in the future, you may gat a look in, but if not, permanent renting is the order of the day. So much for the Australian dream of property ownership.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Find more at https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/ where you can subscribe to our research alerts

Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.

If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.

Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.

Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.

Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Is It Inter-Generational War Then?

00:00 / 00:19:06