Hallmark Buyers Agency Australia, Sydney (2026)

03/09/2026

Half the advice circulating on the new property tax rules is out of date. Here is what is settled and what is not.

WHAT IS LAW.

Negative gearing has not been abolished. What changes from the 2027-28 income year is where the loss can go. If your deductions on residential property exceed your income from residential property, the excess no longer comes off your salary — it comes off your other residential property income and any capital gain, and whatever is left carries forward to the next year. That is the new section 26-155 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, inserted by the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026, Royal Assent 26 June 2026.

It applies only to property you last acquired after 7.30pm, by legal time in the Australian Capital Territory, on 12 May 2026. For a contract purchase the clock starts the day you sign, not at settlement. Property you held before that keeps full negative gearing until you sell it.

Also law: from 1 July 2027 the 50% capital gains tax discount is replaced by cost base indexation plus a 30% minimum tax rate on gains accruing from that date. The rate itself is set by the companion Income Tax Rates Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026, assented the same day.

Two things most summaries leave out. For a new build, the investor chooses at sale between the 50% discount and indexation plus the minimum tax — one or the other, not both. And the existing capital gains tax discount of up to 60% for qualifying affordable housing is fully retained.

WHAT IS NOT LAW.

The definition of a "new build" — the thing the entire exemption depends on. The Act says a dwelling is new only if it meets requirements the Minister sets by legislative instrument. No such instrument exists. The requirements exist as a draft Treasury released for consultation, consultation closed on 21 August 2026, and Treasury has said the final definition will be written into primary legislation instead.

That draft sets out four separate ways a dwelling could qualify. One of them turns on a window running from the certificate of occupancy, and Treasury's own release says that window is wider than the one described on Budget night. It is still a draft.

Also draft and not law: the exemptions for specialist disability accommodation, community housing, public housing and build-to-rent.

The practical point is narrow. If someone is advising you off Budget-night reporting, they are working from a version that has already moved — and on the definition itself nobody can give you a final answer, because it does not exist yet.

What this means for you: the grandfathering everyone talks about covers negative gearing only, and the capital gains change applies to gains accruing after 1 July 2027 on property you already own — so ask your accountant about both, not just the one in the headlines.

We are buyer's agents, not tax advisers. This describes the state of the law. What it means for your position is a question for your registered tax agent.

General information only — not financial, super, tax or legal advice.

02/09/2026

In 1974, Australia built one new home for every 91 people. Last year we built one for every 158.

Same country. Nearly twice as many people waiting on each home we finish.

That is the clearest way we can put a number the ABS publishes as "6.32 completions per 1,000 people". It is the lowest in the entire series, going back to 1974, when it was 10.93.

Here is the part that surprised us. It is not houses.

Detached house completions have barely moved in fifty years — 104,908 finished in 1973-74, and 113,650 last year. The population roughly doubled in between, and we build about the same number of houses.

What collapsed is apartments. 105,051 completed in the year to September 2017. 63,794 in the year to March 2026. A fall of 39%.

So the shortage is concentrated, not general. It sits in the part of the market apartments serve — which is where most first home buyers and most renters are.

And here is the part that cuts against us, which we would rather say than leave out.

The projected shortfall narrowed. Last year the government's housing council projected a gap of 79,000 homes over the Housing Accord period. This year it projects 37,000. The outlook improved. You will still see 79,000 quoted widely — that is last year's edition of the same measure, not a better number.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU. A median Australian home now costs about 8.2 times a household's annual income. Building fewer homes per person does not make that multiple smaller. But the national figure tells you nothing about your street — supply pressure is local, and that is the question actually worth answering.

ABS Building Activity 8752.0, March 2026 quarter. NHSAC State of the Housing System 2026.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

02/09/2026

In 1974, Australia built one new home for every 91 people. Last year we built one for every 158.

Same country. Nearly twice as many people waiting on each home we finish.

That is the clearest way we can put a number the ABS publishes as "6.32 completions per 1,000 people". It is the lowest in the entire series, going back to 1974, when it was 10.93.

Here is the part that surprised us. It is not houses.

Detached house completions have barely moved in fifty years — 104,908 finished in 1973-74, and 113,650 last year. The population roughly doubled in between, and we build about the same number of houses.

What collapsed is apartments. 105,051 completed in the year to September 2017. 63,794 in the year to March 2026. A fall of 39%.

So the shortage is concentrated, not general. It sits in the part of the market apartments serve — which is where most first home buyers and most renters are.

And here is the part that cuts against us, which we would rather say than leave out.

The projected shortfall narrowed. Last year the government's housing council projected a gap of 79,000 homes over the Housing Accord period. This year it projects 37,000. The outlook improved. You will still see 79,000 quoted widely — that is last year's edition of the same measure, not a better number.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU. A median Australian home now costs about 8.2 times a household's annual income. Building fewer homes per person does not make that multiple smaller. But the national figure tells you nothing about your street — supply pressure is local, and that is the question actually worth answering.

ABS Building Activity 8752.0, March 2026 quarter. NHSAC State of the Housing System 2026.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

01/09/2026

A conflict eight thousand kilometres away made your next home more expensive to build. Here is the chain, step by step.

In late February, conflict in the Middle East closed the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude went from US$71.32 on 27 February to US$138.21 on 7 April — a 94% rise in six weeks.

In Australia, automotive fuel prices rose 32.8% in March alone. That is the largest single month in the ABS series since it began in 2017. The government responded with a 32 cent per litre excise cut, which ran from 1 April to 2 August and cost $2.9 billion.

Most people experienced that as a petrol price. Here is the part that matters for housing.

Fuel is an input to building a house. It moves the timber, the steel, the concrete and the trades to site. It is also a feedstock — PVC and other petroleum-based products sit inside every new build. When fuel spikes, construction costs follow, with a lag. House construction prices rose 5.9% over the year to June, the sharpest annual increase since 2023.

And this is not our inference. The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council — the federal government's own housing advisory body — set out the same chain in its April report, and then modelled it. Their prolonged scenario, a 10% construction cost shock, removes 33,000 dwellings from the Housing Accord period. Their shorter scenario removes 10,000.

Why it reaches existing homes too: every home that already exists competes with the cost of building a new one. When building gets dearer, the house already standing becomes the cheaper way to get a roof over your head. That is true whether or not anyone intends it.

A war in the Gulf, priced in Australian homes that never get built. That is the whole chain.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

01/09/2026

A conflict eight thousand kilometres away made your next home more expensive to build. Here is the chain, step by step.

In late February, conflict in the Middle East closed the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude went from US$71.32 on 27 February to US$138.21 on 7 April — a 94% rise in six weeks.

In Australia, automotive fuel prices rose 32.8% in March alone. That is the largest single month in the ABS series since it began in 2017. The government responded with a 32 cent per litre excise cut, which ran from 1 April to 2 August and cost $2.9 billion.

Most people experienced that as a petrol price. Here is the part that matters for housing.

Fuel is an input to building a house. It moves the timber, the steel, the concrete and the trades to site. It is also a feedstock — PVC and other petroleum-based products sit inside every new build. When fuel spikes, construction costs follow, with a lag. House construction prices rose 5.9% over the year to June, the sharpest annual increase since 2023.

And this is not our inference. The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council — the federal government's own housing advisory body — set out the same chain in its April report, and then modelled it. Their prolonged scenario, a 10% construction cost shock, removes 33,000 dwellings from the Housing Accord period. Their shorter scenario removes 10,000.

Why it reaches existing homes too: every home that already exists competes with the cost of building a new one. When building gets dearer, the house already standing becomes the cheaper way to get a roof over your head. That is true whether or not anyone intends it.

A war in the Gulf, priced in Australian homes that never get built. That is the whole chain.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

31/08/2026

The property investor in every headline owns six properties. In the actual data, that person is 0.9% of investors.

Here is what the ATO records.

2,335,540 Australians hold an interest in a rental property.
1,672,616 of them own exactly one.
438,906 own two. 135,327 own three.
About 20,152 own six or more.

Nearly three in four property investors in this country own a single property. The portfolio investor the headlines picture is a rounding error.

This matters if you have been thinking about your first investment and quietly assumed you would be joining some other category of person. You would not be. You would be joining the clear majority.

We are not going to tell you that makes it right for you. Whether the numbers work depends on your income, your borrowing capacity, your timeline and what you are actually trying to build. That is a real question and it deserves a proper answer rather than an encouraging one.

But the barrier a lot of people describe is a picture, not a number.

ATO Taxation Statistics 2023-24, published 17 June 2026.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

31/08/2026

The property investor in every headline owns six properties. In the actual data, that person is 0.9% of investors.

Here is what the ATO records.

2,335,540 Australians hold an interest in a rental property.
1,672,616 of them own exactly one.
438,906 own two. 135,327 own three.
About 20,152 own six or more.

Nearly three in four property investors in this country own a single property. The portfolio investor the headlines picture is a rounding error.

This matters if you have been thinking about your first investment and quietly assumed you would be joining some other category of person. You would not be. You would be joining the clear majority.

We are not going to tell you that makes it right for you. Whether the numbers work depends on your income, your borrowing capacity, your timeline and what you are actually trying to build. That is a real question and it deserves a proper answer rather than an encouraging one.

But the barrier a lot of people describe is a picture, not a number.

ATO Taxation Statistics 2023-24, published 17 June 2026.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

30/08/2026

Three things we nearly told you this month. All three were wrong.

We caught them in review, before they reached you. Here they are anyway, because how a firm handles the things it gets wrong tells you more than the things it gets right.

ONE — THE DEVELOPER.
When a large Western Sydney developer entered voluntary administration, the figure going around was 22,000 apartments and 3,000-plus houses. We had it in a draft. It came from the company's own marketing material. The ASIC filings say roughly 2,000 dwellings under construction and about 13,000 in the pipeline. Still a serious event. Not the number we nearly published.

TWO — THE COLLAPSES.
Two developers in trouble inside a month looked like the start of a wave, and we drafted it that way. Then we checked the series. FY2025-26 was the first annual FALL in construction insolvencies since the post-COVID wave began — 3,472 against 3,596 the year before. Residential building construction specifically fell 13.1%. The trend runs the other way. Two collapses in one week is two collapses in one week.

THREE — THE RENT CAPS.
We had "rent caps spreading across the states". No Australian state or territory caps the size of rent increases, except the ACT, which has done so for decades. What every jurisdiction has legislated is a limit on frequency — once per twelve months. Caps and freezes were explicitly rejected by National Cabinet in 2023.

We are not posting this for credit. We are posting it because the checking is the job. If a number reaches you from us, it has been through this.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

29/08/2026

We went looking for the forecaster predicting a 20% crash. We could not find one.

The number gets quoted constantly. So we tried to trace it to whoever actually published it.

Here is where it comes from. Cotality published scenario modelling at 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% — explicitly hypothetical exercises, the kind every analyst runs. Commentators then quoted the 20% in order to argue against it. The RBA publishes no house price forecast at all.

The most bearish named forecast in the Australian market is ANZ, at −10.6% peak to trough, published on 11 August.

The number everyone is arguing about is nobody's actual prediction.

And the deepest national fall ever measured in Australia? −8.9%, between April 2022 and January 2023. On the ABS index the deepest was 2017–19 at −8.7%. Every measured national downturn in Australian history is a single-digit number.

The honest qualification: two cities have fallen more than 20%. Darwin, down 24–27% between 2014 and 2020. Perth, down about 20% from 2014 to 2019. Both were single-commodity economies in a mining bust, and neither took the country with it. Sydney has never fallen 20% — its worst was −14.9%.

And the part that cuts against us, which we would rather say than leave out: one thing genuinely has changed, and it is not population or supply. It is leverage. Household debt to income was 68.9% at the 1989 peak. It is 177.7% today. That is the same market carrying far more debt.

We are not going to tell you what happens next. We can tell you what the data says, where it is contested, and which claims fall apart when you check them.

Waiting is a legitimate position. It should just be a deliberate one, rather than a default built on a number nobody actually published.

General information only — not financial, super or legal advice.

Hallmark Buyers Agency Australia

03/09/2026

02/09/2026

02/09/2026

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