Pete Wargent blogspot

PERSONAL/BUSINESS COACH | PROPERTY BUYER | ANALYST

'Must-read, must-follow, one of the best analysts in Australia' - Stephen Koukoulas, ex-Senior Economics Adviser to Prime Minister Gillard.

'One of Australia's brightest financial minds, must-follow for accurate & in-depth analysis' - David Scutt, Markets & Economics Editor, Sydney Morning Herald.

'I've been investing 40 years & still learn new concepts from Pete; one of the best commentators...and not just a theorist!' - Michael Yardney, Amazon #1 bestseller.

Thursday 28 March 2024

Wealth building strategies with Brett Warren

Wealth Retreat 2024

Great to catch up with the trusted source Brett Warren, and Michael Yardney here (or click on the image below):


See you at Gold Coast soon!

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 30,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out July 1!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Wednesday 27 March 2024

Australian Property Podcast: Buying commercial property

Property Podcast

This week on the poddie, Amy and I discussed commercial property: what it is, and how best to invest in it.

Tune in here (or click on the image below):


There's also a Youtube version here:


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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 30,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out July 1!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

6-month annualised inflation back to target

Inflation eases further than expected

Inflation came in a little softer than expected for the year to February, at 3.4 per cent.

Excluding volatile items, the monthly inflation reading eased slightly from 4.1 per cent to 3.9 per cent over the year. 


Source: ABS

Of course, a lot of these price increases were over 6 months ago, and over the past 3 to 6 months inflation has been broadly in line with the target, as graphed by Callam Pickering of Indeed. 


Overall, these were somewhat encouraging figures.

James Foster ran through the figures in more detail here.

Tradies shortage

A potential challenge for the inflation figures going forward may prove to be the shortage of housing pushing up rents.

ABS figures released today show public sector spending on engineering construction and related infrastructure continued to soar to over $5 billion in the final quarter of 2023.

Public spending has been higher before, during the global financial crisis nation building stimulus projects...but not by much. 

This latest surge reflects some huge infrastructure and transport projects being pursued in New South Wales and Victoria in particular. 

With mining engineering construction also strong, total engineering construction work is approaching the heady peaks of the resources boomtime years. 


This is naturally good news for the Aussie economy, but is also creating a shortage of available tradies and construction workers for the building of housing, where dwelling supply targets are being consistently thwarted. 

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 30,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out July 1!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

State governments fuel land tax fire

Cash grab!

It would take far too long to post too many details here, but it seems that it's not only Victoria that's going in for wild increases in land taxes as part of a state government tax grab.

Updates this week from Queensland suggest land value increases of up to 60 per cent or more, with plenty of property owners now reporting a doubling in unimproved land valuations in only a few years. 



It's been on this trend for the past four years since the beginning of the pandemic. 



New South Wales also seems to be making up for lost time in this regard. 


State governments appear to be attempting to claw back some of the phenomenal waste of recent years through ratcheting up land taxes and rates. 

This isn't that surprising in itself, but it's also going to be manifested in fewer private landlords and more large rent increases to cover the shortfall. 

Other implications? 

Presumably we will see relatively fewer private landlords owning detached homes, creating a rental shortage for family-friendly rentals.

And we may also see more investors choosing to buy units, pushing up entry prices there.

But, in this market - with rental vacancies already at record lows - mainly it will mean higher rents.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 30,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out July 1!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Tuesday 26 March 2024

Push is on for normalised lending

Time for risk on

A brief snapshot of a few of the lead articles today from the Australian Financial Review...



A fairly conclusive message from a range of different sources. 

It looks like a somewhat co-ordinated push to let banks lend again without needing to run extremely stringent stress tests for approximately 10 per cent mortgage rates which clearly aren't going to eventuate. 

The UK scrapped its equivalent buffer long ago, now requiring a minimum 1 percentage point buffer, while factoring in rising power prices.

Yet in Australia we're still stuck with an unprecedented 3 percentage point buffers. 


Time to get back to normal!

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 30,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out July 1!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Capital city growth the highest on record, reports ABS

Capital cities bust records

Enormous population growth figures were reported by the ABS for Melbourne (+167,500), Sydney (+146,700), Brisbane (+81,200), and Perth (+81,300) in the 2023 financial year. 

In fact, these were the highest figures since the data series began more than half a century ago in 1971. 


In percentage terms, Perth had the highest growth rate at +3.6 per cent.

Population growth in regional Australia (+1.4 per cent) was slower than in the capital cities (+3 per cent) as immigration resumed. 


Source: ABS

Most new migrants continue to head to Sydney and Melbourne, but it was interesting to see the growth in popularity for Perth on these figures, moving right up alongside Brisbane. 


Source: ABS

It may even be the case that the figures for the 2024 financial year prove to be even higher again.

The sub-regional data also revealed some interesting patterns in terms of the most (and least) popular destinations and population growth hubs, but the macro picture is that lending settings are tight and there could prove to be nowhere appropriate for all these new arrivals to live. 

For the time being mortgages are being assessed with a 3 percentage points lending assessment buffer - even though markets are pricing for lower interest rates over the next 18 months - and lending for the purchase and construction of new homes is tracking at around all-time lows.

This is now becoming a major policy issue for the government, and the record population growth rebound is happening as tent cities have variously been sprouting up in Sydney CBD, Wentworth Park, Enmore, Dee Why, NSW South Coast, inner-city Melbourne, Perth, Fremantle, South Brisbane, Toowoomba, Gold Coast, Caboolture, and elsewhere.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 30,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out July 1!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Monday 25 March 2024

Immigration train not slowing yet

Student numbers hit records

The government has ostensibly put some measures in place to slow down the rate of immigration, in part through tightening the rules around student visa applications, including higher refusal rates and a reduced scope for stay extensions. 

Policy reforms take time to turn these things around, however, and in February 2024 net student arrivals figures look to be close to +150,000 (well up from around +119,000 last year). 

February is a key month for student arrivals due to University term times and course commencements. 

Student arrivals are the largest contributor to the change in net migration, and this latest month of figures takes total international students in Australia up to around 700,000. 


The rapid rate of immigration is one important factor in the dwelling shortage, alongside higher interest rates, very tight lending regulations, and the extremely steep increase in construction costs since 2020. 

There's also currently a shortage of skilled tradies, partly due to competition for labour from infrastructure projects, such as the Western Sydney Airport and Melbourne's suburban rail loop, and a wide range of mining projects.

BuildSkills Australia estimates that Australia needs an additional 90,000 tradespeople over the next three months, which is obviously an impossible goal. 


Ironically, this is likely to result in the call for a higher intake of skilled construction and trades workers, in turn exacerbating the housing shortage. 

All a bit circular, but there's no chance of the government hitting its 1.2 million homes over 5 years target.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 30,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out July 1!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.

Sunday 24 March 2024

Podcast: Australia's population bomb assumes centre stage

2-Sense podcast

I joined Batesy to discuss Australia's population bomb and and all the other latest news. 

Tune in here (or click on the image below):

You can also watch the video version here:

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 5 ways I can help you manage your own money and go next level wealth:

  1. Boom or Bust – 20 minute online workshop for investors

Register for my next free online training - Boom or Bust? How to change your investment plan - book in here

You also download a free copy of my e-book The Only 6 Ways to Become Wealthy here.

    2. Download our property buying guide

Download our free property buying guide here

You can also check out a few of our recent property investment purchases here

Get in contact with us today if strategic property investment is your thing. 

    3. Subscribe to our Top 10 Podcasts for Investors

Listen in to our podcasts

The Australian Property Podcast is rapidly becoming one of Australia's biggest business podcasts, now with over 32,000 unique listeners per month.

And our popular Low Rates High Returns Show also remains available on Spotify.

    4. Subscribe for my free daily blog

Subscribe for my free daily blog with well over 3.5 million hits here

You can also catch up with me daily on Twitter here, where I'm active daily and have over 13,900 followers. 

By the way, I'm a 7-times published author on finance and investing, so you can check out some of my books here (next one is due out 1 July 2024!). 

5. Work with me privately

For a limited time you can book in a free diagnosis call with me here, so book in a call today.