What does the future hold? For mine demographics shape almost everything. Future demographic shape If that is true, what does Australia’s demographic shape look like over the next decade? The first table shows that baby boomers, who were helping drive generic house price growth over the past two decades, are …

Density must be off-set. That’s a good yardstick.  The chummier our homes – think apartments – the bigger and better the outside space needs to be. Brisbane is planning to become a very urban city, with many more residents living in mid to high-rise apartments and many of them in the downtown …

A change in population is dependent on three things: Natural increase – in short, births versus deaths. Net internal migration – this means movements within the country, including interstate moves but also movements within the same state or territory. Net overseas migration – people moving to Australia from overseas. South …

Here is my summary of ten things I think you should know about the Sunshine Coast. 1. The Sunshine Coast Regional Council holds 312,000 permanent residents and is growing by 8,000 new inhabitants per annum.  If you include Noosa Shire, then 370,000 people live on ‘Sunshine Coast’. This wider area grew by …

Here’s a quick summary of the Australian economy (well the one that really matters).  Let’s call it 10 Things: The Economy. 1. Working longer hours for less pay per hour. 2. Stuff all wage growth, which is unlikely to change – digital stuff, automation, the internet of things, baton change to service …

1. Most of Ipswich’s housing types are in the recovery phase of the property cycle.  All should peak sometime over the next 12 to 18 months. 2. Sales volumes have more than doubled in the last five years and I think the local market will grow another 20% in size before …

In a recent book physicist Geoffrey West has shown that there are both economies of scale (in infrastructure) and increasing returns to scale (in human creativity) from the process of urbanisation. In his words: “Cities are … the cause of the good life.  They are the centres of wealth creation, creativity, innovation, and …

We know that the number and proportion of unoccupied homes across Australia is increasing.  The latest national count found that 11.2% – or about one million – of our private dwellings were empty at this time last year. Some statistics Now, I need to bore you for a few moments …

A billion – in Australia – is $1,000,000,000.  You see this amount written everywhere these days.  You cannot escape it. It was brought home to me a few weeks back, whilst driving through New South Wales.  Road work signs proudly announced $2.3 billion worth of construction here, another $1.7 billion …

Here are my seven most important urban trends: Increasing in household size.  More people are living in blended households.  The now defunct baby bonus was taken up with gusto, so lots more kids in our population mix and migrants to Australia are generally young adults, with an average age of …