🎙️ Australian Property Market Update: Will Prices Ever Come Down? with Arjun Paliwal

 What’s really happening in the Australian property market right now?

In this episode, Molly Benjamin from Ladies Finance Club chats with property expert Arjun Paliwal (InvestorKit) to unpack the latest housing trends, data, and opportunities for Aussie buyers and investors.

They cover:
🏡 National growth trends and why the lower-priced suburbs are leading the way
📈 How to calculate and access equity in your home
💰 Tips to negotiate better mortgage rates (even when your bank says no)
📍 Why Melbourne is showing signs of recovery and where Arjun is personally buying
💬 How the 5% government deposit scheme is shaping demand
🌏 Which suburbs and regions across QLD, WA and VIC are growing fastest right now

Whether you’re a first-home buyer, rentvestor or building your property portfolio, this episode gives you practical insights to make confident moves in 2025’s ever-changing market.

🎧 Listen now for an honest, data-driven update on property prices, supply, demand, and sentiment - all explained in simple, relatable language.

This episode is brought to you by InvestorKit, Australia’s #1 Buyers Agency for 2023 and 2024. They specialise in helping investors find high-growth properties utilising industry leading AI and data driven research process across Australia. 70%+ of the properties they purchase are off-market and they have consistently outperformed national average capital growth rates by over 49%. Whether you’re looking to build your property portfolio or secure your first investment. Check them out here.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome to Get Rich
01:16 – Monthly Property Update: Arjun’s Back
01:36 – Australia’s Market in Three Numbers
03:10 – Will Prices Ever Come Down?
06:40 – Rates Chat: Do RBA Moves Even Matter?
08:06 – How to Calculate Your Home Equity
10:20 – Getting a Better Rate When Banks Won’t Budge
12:22 – Melbourne Deep Dive: Is a Turn Coming?
16:47 – 5% Deposit Scheme: Is It Pushing Prices Up?
17:57 – Where Buyers Are Active Right Now
19:37 – What Is a Buyer’s Agent (Really)?
22:00 – Wrap-Up & What’s Next

LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Arjun’s Property Podcast – The Property Nerds: https://www.investorkit.com.au/podcasts/

CONNECT WITH ARJUN PALIWAL

Website: https://www.investorkit.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arjpaliwal/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/propertybuyersagent/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@investorkit

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
Website: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladiesfinanceclub/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/

TAKEAWAYS

• We have $11.4 trillion worth of real estate in Australia.
• Not one property is representative of the whole market.
• When you buy a property, you're buying a singular property in a location.
• What the whole country does doesn't matter.
• You can find investment properties that are not falling in value.
• Data from media can be misleading regarding local opportunities.
• Location is key in property investment.
• Investors should focus on specific areas rather than national trends.
• There are always opportunities within the market.
• Understanding local market dynamics is crucial for success.

SOUND BITES

"What the whole country does doesn't matter"
"You're buying a singular property in a location"
"House prices down 3%"

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Molly: Welcome to Get Rich, the podcast that helps you do just that. Get rich and stay rich. Hey, I'm Molly Benjamin. I'm the founder of Ladies Finance Club, one of Australia's largest financial education platforms for women. But before I started helping thousands of women take control with their money, I was a hot financial mess when it came to my own finances and not the fun kind of hot, more like crying in a supermarket, wondering where all my money went kind of hot.

[00:00:29] But here's the thing, if I can go from financial mess to owning a share portfolio, investing in property, and building wealth. Then you can too. My mission is simple to make women rich because when we have financial freedom, we have choices, confidence, and control over our future. Every week on Get Rich, I sit down with some of the best experts in the industry to break down how we can all start investing, growing our money, and creating long-term financial security without the jargon, boring bits or overwhelm.

[00:01:02] Because when women get rich, we don't just change our lives, we change the world. So if you're ready to start making some smart money moves, hit that subscribe button and let's get Rich together.

[00:01:16] Hey, Arjun, welcome back for another property update.

[00:01:19] Arjun: Thank you for having me. Great to be on.

[00:01:21] Molly: So I went out to the community this week and I got their most dying. I need an answer to this question. So before we jump into those ones, I was just wondering if you could give us a general overview of the property market for this month.

[00:01:36] What have we been seeing?

[00:01:38] Arjun: Yeah, so the three numbers I can share with you there is a good sign to tell you about the market is that last 12 months property market growth in Australia is at 4.8%. So just below long-term averages, which kind of shows that it's doing okay, not the best at a overall country level.

[00:01:55] But then if we go to the last three months, that quarter average is 2.2%. Now, back of the napkin math, take that quarter times by four. That's like your run rate or ahead. At 2.2 times four, that's 8.8, meaning if that last quarter continues on for the next four quarters, you've gotta double the amount of growth rate likely to happen for the next 12 months in comparison to what happened for the last 12 months, and that would be an 8.8%, which means it's boom territory.

[00:02:26] Again, anything above 8% is a very strong market. If it's a momentum that keeps rising, like 2.2 becomes, 2.5, becomes three, then you're talking some very strong levels of growth. And the final stat to share with you is what I call the value segment. Meaning, okay, growth's happening, but where's the strongest level of growth happening over the last three months while it's happening in what we call the lower quartile, which is just another way to say the most affordable parts of the markets in Australia.

[00:02:53] And so clearly people with higher interest rates, other incentives, comfort in their financials, current affordability are trying to grab those properties on the lower end and they're moving faster than properties on the higher end. And so that's kind of the themes right now in Australia.

[00:03:10] Molly: Okay, awesome.

[00:03:12] And so we might jump into some questions. So the first question comes from Laura and she said. Will prices ever come down? Or will they kind of plateau and is the property market still increasing? Well, I think we just answered that question there. Yeah. But will prices ever come down? She's wondering.

[00:03:30] Arjun: It's a really good point to say, and there's some data points I wanna share that will answer this question directly, but give some different perspective too.

[00:03:37] The direct answer is that we have $11.4 trillion worth of real estate in Australia and not one property. Is representative of the whole market. So when you buy a property, you're not buying all of Australia, you're buying a singular property and a location. And so when you get that part right, what the whole country does, doesn't matter.

[00:03:58] So even if the data from a media or Core Logic or anyone basically said house prices down 3% within that figure, you would be able to buy a house in your budget across somewhere in Australia as an investment property that isn't a location that's not that 3% falling. Just like we have house prices growing 4.8% over the last 12 months, but over the last 12 months, that's National Townsville grew by more than 20%.

[00:04:24] So you can see that's like five times the national average. So from that perspective, that's the first point to consider it. Never worry about your individual decision on what the property market is doing because there isn't just a property market. It's a great point. Now the second part comes up, which is today there are market declining and rising even today.

[00:04:42] Otherwise that national average would be higher if every market was like Townsville. And then if every market was like, say, another city declining or being flat. Then Townsville wouldn't be performing. 'cause then the national average would be that. And so the key there is, that's the second part. There's always something happening.

[00:04:59] But the final thing to share with you is what causes decline. Usually the biggest causes of declines are three dot points here, number one. It's a very weak local economy. If you have a very weak local economy, it can mean so many different things. People don't feel comfortable buying and spending, upgrading, moving across different areas, renovating people, not getting the jobs they want to people out of jobs more than they should.

[00:05:25] People leaving the city 'cause of job situations. So many different things. Center around a local economy, new jobs not being created, new people not moving in. So the local economy and not economy as in just unemployment rate, but it's just local economy with all those things considered. Number two, there's supply.

[00:05:42] That established and established supply simply means how many houses are there for sale, and if there's a lot more than what there has been in the past, if there's a lot more today than there was last year. Then that's gonna weaken a market because just like choice is missing there, right? It's like we have a lot of choice.

[00:05:57] Right? And so then the third and final part is actually gonna be sentiment. Sentiment is how people just feel. Mm-hmm. And so if investors have a town that they see lots of value in, and let's just say it's Toowoomba as an example, and we're talking Queensland. And so if people feel a bunch of investors.

[00:06:15] That that represents great value. That is a segment of the market that has good sentiment. And then if we feel locals go, wow, it's good value here, I like here, then that's also sentiment. There's lots of different indicators that go into it, but how do people feel? How much property for sale? How's the local economy is the three fastest and easiest ways to look at whether our market's going down or not, and you can look at that locally.

[00:06:39] Great.

[00:06:40] Molly: And we are expecting a rate cut, well, not a rate cut. We're expecting a update from the RBA. Do you have kind of a bit of a feeling on what way that might go?

[00:06:50] Arjun: We just use the data that they tend to broaden a lot of their decisions around, which is, I use rates as a tool. To make sure the economy is in a healthy place that makes sure that inflation isn't too rampant, but also not too weak because of where the economy is.

[00:07:06] Mm-hmm. The things would suggest that with jobs data recently put out that we're probably looking at another cut.

[00:07:13] Molly: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Arjun: Now I'm by no means in that boardroom making the decision, so I'm not gonna sit here and say every time I've been right. In fact, I've been wrong many times on RBA decisions. Remember, I'm a housing commentator, and RBA isn't all the things to do with housing.

[00:07:26] They're just one small part. I could find you a dozen markets, even when interest rates are flying up like pert, like Adelaide, like Brisbane, like Townsville, like Rockhampton, like Toowoomba. That still grew a lot, even as rates were going up. So rates, yeah. Cool to know. Great to budget, great to see where your capacity for borrowing is.

[00:07:45] Molly: But to

[00:07:45] Arjun: buy a property that performs has nothing to do with interest rates.

[00:07:49] Molly: Yeah. Such. Yeah. Making a lot of sense, Arjun. Thank you. And this is just great knowledge for people to have as well, um, as we keep learning and, and growing that knowledge. Another question just came through, and I'm not sure this might be one for a mortgage broker, but I'll put it to you anyway.

[00:08:06] How do we calculate equity in our home?

[00:08:09] Arjun: So we'll use a, a figure, like a million dollar home, right? The million dollar home is the, the cool new example figure of le. Now in a million dollar home, you can take a loan on a million dollar property and that loan can come in many ways. It could come in with a 20% deposit, 15%, 10%, 5%.

[00:08:26] If we just use the example of a 10%, you could go up to a 90% loan, which means your loan is 90, uh, percent being 900 k, and equity is 10% being a hundred K. But then let's just say your property loan now is 70%. It's now 700 K. Mm-hmm. There's something called equity. The first example I gave with a 90 versus 10 is equity.

[00:08:50] That's a hundred K equity sitting in there. The second example is usable equity, meaning if you have 70% being 700 K against a million dollar property. And you have a 90% that you wanna bring the 70% loan up to that is a difference between 70 and 90 of $200,000 from those two figures. So now your loan is 700 K going up to 900 K, and that 200 K can be used for something.

[00:09:17] Now, three uses can come up. Traditionally, number one uses, I just wanna feel good and have money in my bank account and look at it and feel okay. And that's just putting it in your offset and you might not even use it. Another use case would be, I want to use that money to build more wealth. And then that 200 K becomes your deposit, your stamp duty, your buyer's agency lawyers, things like that, and a bit of rainy day money.

[00:09:39] Number three. Is borderline silly stuff, borderline smart stuff. This is where it could go. Some people have used it for personal stuff like boats and lambos and cars and all that sort of stuff. We're getting funky here with it. Uh, and then some people have used it for renovations, um, for improvements. And so you can go in any direction, but three things there.

[00:10:00] Mindset and buffer, investment, growth, and then fund or strategic fund,

[00:10:06] Molly: right? Yeah. Yes. And we always say be very wary of the fun for fun's sake. And how do you negotiate better rates when your bank is being stubborn? This one came from a member yesterday.

[00:10:20] Arjun: Hmm. This is a tough one. A lot of banks processes differ.

[00:10:23] Molly: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:24] Arjun: But there's gonna be moments, and that's where I think negotiation comes in. And the, the two biggest moments usually are, actually, I'll give you three moments. One moment is when you're just getting the business. So you're just taking out the loan. That's the point of someone's fighting to win it and you're deciding who to give it to.

[00:10:40] Yeah. And so this is the moment we create a bit of dialogue between the banker to go, I've seen X Bank offer me this. Mm-hmm. What can you do? And you want to look at banks in certain tier. So if you're talking to a big four, you don't mention the person on the fridge magnet that's fighting and has no branches, no staff, no service in person, no digital features on the product.

[00:11:04] It's not apples and apples. They'll just, they'll give up, they'll let you go. You'll lose the business and maybe you should have considered them from the get go, like that's your call to make for your scenario. But you want to try and give them something that they can say, wow, that's actually a very similar term.

[00:11:16] So that's at the time of getting the business. Then the second time is when you're annoyed. You've looked around and you're contemplating leaving. People don't wanna lose your business. Yeah, so that's the timing. It's the conversation. Again, it's being well-informed. I'm getting things elsewhere. I'm understanding this number.

[00:11:33] What can you do? Get the proof, send it, speak to someone. Where can you raise it? And the banks have their departments for that. The third and final part is not when you are leaving, not when you've just gotten the loan, but when you're getting more business. And guess what? Banks see an opportunity to have one.

[00:11:50] They wanna stack it up. They wanna stack it up. They want all your properties with them, and they want to win your business again. And your business is now a bigger pool. The $3 million of loans get slightly more valued than the million dollar loan. The $10 million of loans get slightly valued. So use that value engine that you're building of more and more loans to go, Hey, I'm coming with you now at a bigger pool.

[00:12:11] Can you look after me? So these are the three moments. You have the conversations. It's actually not always what you say. It's not the hardest thing, it's the three things of the timing. 'cause if you time it right, the conversation just works better.

[00:12:22] Molly: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, I hope that answers your question and then, uh, another one that came through yesterday and one of our followers said, I would love to know Arjun's view on the Melbourne markets, please.

[00:12:37] Arjun: Yes, there's a lot happening. And school transparency. I bought a property in Melbourne for myself this year, just a few months back. That property, this is where it sounds crazy, Molly, 10 years ago someone bought that property for 940 5K.

[00:12:52] Molly: Yeah.

[00:12:53] Arjun: Guess how much I bought it for?

[00:12:54] Molly: Oh my

[00:12:54] Arjun: gosh.

[00:12:55] Molly: Oh, I don't, I don't know the same price.

[00:12:59] Arjun: I bought it for the same price. 945.

[00:13:02] Molly: Okay. That was an half guest, by the way. I'm proud of that one. Wow. They had no gross.

[00:13:06] Arjun: They had no gross.

[00:13:08] Molly: Do you know what they needed? A buyer's agent 10 years ago?

[00:13:10] Arjun: Yes. Yes, it was a father and the son who had had purchased it, I'd purchased it off market, uh, for myself and actually presented it to another client.

[00:13:19] First circumstances changed for that client. They had to back out of the deal. So I came in to save the deal just to make sure it's still went ahead 'cause it was a great deal. But basically with that particular property I did that. And there's a reason for me to say that is that a 20, a 30 and a 40 year average of Melbourne isn't that five to 7% vicinity.

[00:13:35] Mm-hmm. It's never had a moment where it's become. Two decades in a row over the last 30 or 40 years of just absolutely no growth, right? Yeah. Now, I don't believe in simple things, like things should catch up to this, and things should catch up to that because that's not really data, that's just hope. But what is true is we can't say sentiment doesn't play a part in people's decisions, and sentiment is many, many layers.

[00:13:58] One sentiment is investor sentiment. I believe that this hasn't grown. It should be valued more, and I'm attacking it with ferocity because I think it could be worse more than, I don't wanna be that person that comes in later, and everyone else has got that sentiment is a person in our team. We've had team members that go, I'm wanting to move to Melbourne in the past.

[00:14:16] Why I asked them, because Sydney's warmer, the food's better. I mean, I'm just being biased here, Molly, I'm being biased. But, uh, Sydney's warmer, the food's better. We got better beaches. We got all the cool Harbor bridge, the opera house, the shows, the things, and then someone goes, it's just cheap and it's just as big of a city.

[00:14:35] It's nicer. So it's not nicer. It's nice as well. And uh, it's got all these things going for it. And I said, you know, it makes sense. And then I noticed it wasn't just one person, it was friends. And so then it made me realize, lemme check this data out. And you look at the internal migration, and Melbourne's probably been one of the worst for interstate migration for about two decades.

[00:14:53] It's constantly had people leaving Melbourne who are Aussies who lived there already. All that growth has been the external migration from overseas, but for the first time in many years. That migration pattern has been going from deeply negative to slightly negative to less negative to less negative.

[00:15:07] So the bleed is becoming lower because affordability plays a part, right? Yeah. So that's not the only data. But on top of that, now you go to the trends. The trends are sales, volumes are rising, listings are coming down, uh, people are selling quicker. All the signals of a market becoming healthier. Then you go to the next trend, which is auction clearance rates in some pop uh, markets.

[00:15:28] Not all parts of Melbourne are improving. So when you look at the dynamic of the Melbourne market, it's likely to improve.

[00:15:35] Molly: Yeah. But it

[00:15:35] Arjun: does have one part that's not super strong yet, but it's improving. And that continues to be the local economy, the state position. But you have to look at all things considered.

[00:15:44] I've seen times where certain cities had nothing crazy going for it in the local economy, nothing crazy, but supply was constricted. The sentiment was very strong and the data looked promising. Places like Mount Gambia over the last two years are a perfect example. How much skyscrapers and brilliant economic stories and things like that were happening over there in Mount Gavia?

[00:16:06] Um, not a lot, but there was all this just sentiment. There was all this, uh, belief. There was this, uh, supply being tight and it still performed. So markets have a way of surprising people in Melbourne is gonna surprise some people. It already is. It's recovering. Yeah. We're finding it harder and harder to buy there, but you can't expect it to boom without the whole puzzle coming together sustainably.

[00:16:28] But it's still doing well. Just like when I gave those other examples. Yeah, they did well even without the full picture.

[00:16:34] Molly: Brilliant. Okay. Fantastic. Great to know. And um, a few controversial things said there about Sydney, but I'm with you because I love Sydney. I think it's awesome. Okay. We just got three quick fire questions.

[00:16:47] So first one is, has the 5% government scheme push where you only need a 5% deposit? Has that pushed prices up already?

[00:16:58] Arjun: Yes, it has. Yeah, it has. And it's just, uh, simple stuff being seen at open home data. How many people now versus before? Obviously it's selected by location because people could have the opportunity to do it everywhere, but people are doing it more in some areas than others.

[00:17:13] But yeah, uh, it's proven. Uh, we've got white papers released on how government impact is actually a demand creation. Uh, like, you know, there's a problem we have if for the first time is getting in. Is that the governments have a four year window to look the best they can before it's not their time again, or it is their time when maybe a little bit longer.

[00:17:35] And that has pros and cons, right? Yeah. The pros are lots of things can move quickly in some areas, but the cons are nothing long-term sustainable that can help transform things comes through. So the short answer to this is, yeah, it's impact.

[00:17:49] Molly: Yeah. Awesome. Next quickfire question, where is Agen seeing most people buying at the moment?

[00:17:57] Arjun: Or we always get the question. Yeah. We are a national buyer's agency and then we go where trends go. And the fastest growing locations in Australia are still Queensland and wa. Yeah, so Bunbury per geraldton. Then you've got Townsville, Rockhampton. These couple of areas here are like still the fastest growing but fastest growing.

[00:18:18] You just mean pure capital growth. Like let's just look at each month, how far it's going. When you look at the recovery though. You could actually know with one more location. Albury, Wodonga and Mildura are up there with the fastest growing too. Yeah. Okay. So they're up there, but now you look at the rest, the rest is like, okay, some people don't wanna buy the fastest growing.

[00:18:36] Some people wanna buy what their portfolio doesn't have or should have based on what the other assets in their portfolio are. And from that perspective, the, a lot of percentage of our transactions is across Victor and New South Wales. And it's kind of flipped from Queensland wa not to say Queensland WA not growing.

[00:18:52] They're the fastest growing locations alongside those other cities in Victoria, new South Wales, Aubrey, Wodonga, and Mildura. But. In terms of the overall amount of buying New South Wales and Victoria is representing, uh, more than half of the purchases at the moment. So I would say that those two states stick out for what trends say for, you know, what we're seeing and what client's portfolios are missing.

[00:19:14] But then in terms of the fastest growing right now, it's still sits in those other super low supplied markets.

[00:19:19] Molly: Yeah. Fantastic. And then our final question, and I feel like I could answer this one. But I've got the question, what is a buyer's agent? And before I just jump into this one, I have multiple women reaching out to me every week saying, I've just been to an auction, I've missed out.

[00:19:37] Or all the places I'm wanting, I'm not getting a. Ladies, user buyer's agent, that's literally what they did. You might buy two properties in your lifetime. They might buy two properties in one day. This is their bread and butter. They're so good at it. And if you're gonna spend over half a million to a million dollars on this decision, pay a little bit more and have an expert guide you.

[00:19:58] But Arjun, in your terms, what would you say is a buyer's agent?

[00:20:02] Arjun: I like to define a buyer's agent with two parts. One is what they aren't like. So a buyer's agent is not someone. Who sells you an off the plan or a new build property. A buyer's agent is not someone who receives commissions from anyone else but you in terms of a fee for service for the buyer.

[00:20:24] And then what a buyer's agent is here to do is even out the playing field from the sellers, having a seller's agent try to get them the best price and sell their property for as much as possible. With the buyer, having a buyer's agent to buy the right property that doesn't fail due diligence 'cause a seller has to sells, agent has to sell any property.

[00:20:43] Do you think a fails agent doesn't sell a property 'cause it's on a main road? No, they just try to sell it for as much as possible and hope someone makes a mistake where a buyer's agent who does the right thing won't buy it on the main road. So pricing, due diligence, and that's the key piece. But what we do, we, for the simplistic side of things, say we're a buyer agent.

[00:21:01] But actually we're a property advisory firm. Mm-hmm. Which is the same things advise agent does purchase, well represent you purchase in line with due diligence, but there are extra layers on top. Mm-hmm. And what those extra layers on top is fit for the portfolio that you're trying to build. And you have currently that's called strategy.

[00:21:19] Mm. The second part is buy based on research data across the country, using AI DataScience team to be able to get the best results so you perform better, not just buy a property that you think in a city that you wanna buy in. And then the final piece is handhold. Not just in the purchase, but when the purchase is done, not disappear.

[00:21:41] Review your portfolio, review the property, review where your goals are, review how things are going each year, so you actually hit a goal. And not a property. The property is just a tool, so that's a buyer agent at its first level on what it isn't. Then it's a buyer's agent for what they're here to do and what they do.

[00:21:57] And then there's us as a property advisory, which does all of that, plus that.

[00:22:00] Molly: Yeah, amazing. And even just from this conversation, you can just hear how much knowledge Arjun and his team have you want them on your side. Arjun, thank you so much. I love doing these property updates. I always learn so much. I know our audience does as well, so we will see you and hear from you next month where we look out what's happening in the Australian property market.

[00:22:24] Thank you.

[00:22:25] Arjun: Thank you.

KEYWORDS

Australian real estate, property investment, market analysis, location significance, investment strategy