Is Australian Housing Collapsing?! (Based On History)

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]The news is screaming that the Australian housing market is collapsing.

[00:00:03]Most high-income earners are looking at these headlines and thinking the smart move is to hold onto your cash and wait for the crash. But the reality of it is that that's the single most expensive financial mistake that you can make. I'm Victor Manisovv, 8 figure property investor, and I've helped over 1,600 clients acquire more than $1 billion worth of property portfolios. And in this episode, I'm going to expose the data that the headlines aren't reporting and give you the five essential truths that you need to know before making another financial decision. Let's get into it. Truth one, every time the market has collapsed, something surprising happens next. Let me take you back to March 2020. Borders are closed, economy shutting down, and unemployment is spiking. And every economist, every financial commentator, every property expert in the country is saying the same thing that brace for a 30% crash. If you were a high income earning professional sitting on cash at that moment, what would you have done? Well, most people did exactly what felt safe. They held their cash. They waited for the crash and told themselves that they were being smart. So, what actually happened? Well, national property prices fell less than 2% and less than 2% during the worst global health crisis in a century. And then from September 2020 to April 2022, prices surged by over 28%, the biggest 2-year boom in Australian property history happened right in the middle of a pandemic. The people who waited for the crash missed one of the greatest wealth creation opportunities in the last 40 years. But here's what I want you to understand. This is not a fluke.

[00:01:49]This is a pattern. And it has repeated itself throughout every major economic crisis in the last 50 years. In the 1970s, the oil crisis, interest rates were climbing. Inflation was out of control. Sound familiar? Well, the Sydney median house price doubled in 5 years. 1990 recession, the one that we had to have. Unemployment at 11%.

[00:02:11]Property prices fell nationally and then bounced to record highs within four years. The Asian financial crisis, the dotcom crash, the GFC, every single time the prediction was collapse. And every single time the market recovered and hit new heights over 60 years, Australian property prices have doubled seven times. Not grown, doubled seven times. So why does this keep happening? Why do property prices defy every crisis? Well, here's the aha moment. Every crisis triggers a government response, stimulus package, emergency cash injections into the economy. And every single time, the money flows directly to residential property. The government's cure for economic crisis is the exact same medicine that sends property prices higher.

[00:03:04]Rates have risen recently. Yep, that creates short-term noise and fear. But zoom out. The crash that everyone is waiting for has never come. And because the government cannot allow it or afford for that to actually happen. But if that's true, you're probably asking yourself, well, why are the headlines screaming collapse right now? That brings us to truth number two. Truth number two is that the market is broken, but not in the way that you think.

[00:03:30]Here's a question I want you to sit with for a moment.

[00:03:33]If demand for housing is at record highs and the government is still pumping money into the economy, why does it feel like that the market is in trouble?

[00:03:42]Well, the answer is that the market is broken, but not in the way that you think and not in the way the media is telling you. Think about a game of musical chairs. 10 players, nine chairs.

[00:03:53]When the music stops, someone is left standing. Now imagine that game keeps adding players, 10 more, 20 more, 100 more, but nobody's adding enough chairs.

[00:04:04]What happens to the value of owning a chair?

[00:04:08]That's the Australian housing market right now. On the demand side, in 23, Australia recorded over 560 overseas arrivals, the highest in history. Every single one of those people needs somewhere to live. And the following year, 446,000.

[00:04:24]We're adding the equivalent of the size of CRA in population every single year.

[00:04:30]On the supply side, our government set a target of 240 for 5 years. 240,000 new builds, and this year we're on track for 130. Do the maths. So, why can't we just build more? Well, construction costs have jumped 40% since precoid. We have trade labor shortages and we have higher interest rates. So, the reality is the cost of construction has permanently reset higher.

[00:04:54]Here's the aha moment. The housing market is not collapsing because too much supply and not enough demand. It's actually collapsing because of the exact opposite. There is a catastrophic shortage of supply and record demand.

[00:05:10]The market is broken and that brokenness is working in your favor if you own property. But if that's the case, why do the headlines keep saying the prices are falling? That's the truth number three and it's the one that will genuinely make you angry. Truth number three is that the media is using statistical tricks to scare you. I want to ask you something. When you read a headline that says Sydney median house price falls, what do you picture? You probably picture a suburb where every house on the street just loses value and drops in price and your investment properties are going backwards. You picture the crash finally arriving, right? Well, that picture's wrong. And the media knows it.

[00:05:53]Here's how this trick works. The median price is the middle value of property selling. Half are above that, half are below. It measures activity. So, when the interest rates are higher and borrowing capacity drops, there's less people buying at the expensive end and more people buying at the affordable end. And the median naturally drops not because all property prices fell, but because there's more activity happening at the affordable end of price points.

[00:06:19]And right now that's shift in buy behavior. It's happening in real time.

[00:06:24]So at the top end the market is quieter and at the affordable end it's still moving. So when the median falls and the media calls it a collapse, it's exactly what happened in Sydney and Melbourne. The media right now is reporting falling medians, but the National Home Value Index, which actually tracks the value of individual properties, rose by 8.6% in 2025, the strongest since 2021, by the way. Now, the market did not crash. The buying activity shifted from to the more affordable price points, and the media reporting statistical illusions as though it were the truth. Here's the aha moment. The headlines are not lying to you by accident. Fear drives clicks.

[00:07:08]Stories about boring statistics don't sell newspapers. Sydney pricing housing collapse does. Every time you read a headline about falling medians, you're making a decision, a financial decision based on deliberately misleading statistics. The question is, if you know that the national picture is stronger than the headlines suggest, well, where exactly is the opportunity? because not every city is performing the same way at the same time. And that's truth number four. Truth number four is the map has changed and almost all people are looking at the wrong cities. Here's something that might surprise you. Right now, there are suburbs in Australia where property values have grown by more than 30% in just one year. And there's also suburbs where the market is genuinely pretty flat with properties sitting on the market for months with no buyers. So both of those things are true at the same time in the same country in the same market. Now those headlines are calling it a collapse.

[00:08:10]The reason most investors get this wrong is that they invest based on familiarity not data. They buy in the city that they live in suburbs that they know because it's what feels safe. But right now familiarity is one of the most expensive bices that you could possibly have. Let me give you the breakdown. Brisbane and Queensland in general has seen huge growth and with many areas essentially doubling since pre-COVID. FTH has been a particular standout performer in recent years seeing massive 33% growth and the fundamentals are great and there's still some runway left in that growth.

[00:08:47]Adelaide has finally been a quiet achiever finally seeing really strong growth cycle which we've been waiting for. Now, Sydney premium suburbs are operating on their own cycle, kind of insulated from borrowing costs and pressures because buyers there are just not relying on mortgages, but broader Sydney market is quite flat. The median house price to income ratio is approaching nine times annual income.

[00:09:13]So, the affordability ceiling is very, very real. And Melbourne, well, this is the one that I want you to pay the closest attention to. The media is labeling Melbourne as a basket case.

[00:09:25]Land tax changes, tenency reforms, investing, investors leaving. But here's where the data points change everything.

[00:09:33]Melbourne is now only 40,000 more expensive than Adelaide. It's actually a little bit cheaper than Brisbane, little bit more expensive than Perth.

[00:09:43]And the gap between Melbourne and Sydney has never been this size. So when the gap between Melbourne and the other capital cities looks like that, what do we expect? Well, Melbourne is the second largest city. It's the largest population growth by number, the second largest population growth by percent. It has worldclass infrastructure, population base, long-term fundamentals that have not changed. So what has changed is sentiment and sentiment is temporary.

[00:10:12]So here's the aha moment. The investors who are buying in the right Melbourne suburbs today are making the same bet that Perth investors made in 2020. Perth was unloved, undervalued, and written off by the media. Then it delivered 33% growth. And the pattern of the unloved city becoming the outperformer is one of the most consistent cycles in Australian property history. You don't need to find the perfect market. You need to find the market that's one cycle behind the headlines. And right now, that market is hiding in plain sight. But knowing which city to buy in is only half the equation because if you pick the right market, you could still be falling behind financially in a way that has nothing to do with property prices. And that brings us to the final truth. That's the one that most people never want to hear.

[00:11:05]Truth number five is that a high income does not protect you. It's working against you. Most Aussies work till midappril for the ATO before they start to earn for themselves. I want you to do a quick calculation in your head. Now think about what you earned last financial year. Now think about how much of that actually went to the ATO. Now think about how much went to your mortgage repayments. And now think about living costs, your family, lifestyle.

[00:11:34]What's left over is what is there left over to actually build wealth. Well, for most high income earners, the honest answer is not nearly enough. And the harder you work, the worse it gets because every extra dollar that you earn is taxed at the top tax bracket at 50 cents on the dollar. So, you're working harder and you're actually keeping less.

[00:11:57]This is the trap that most high earners fall into. They assume that a high income will eventually translate into wealth. But income and wealth are not the same thing. Income is what you earn.

[00:12:10]Whereas wealth is what you keep and what grows. And the Australian tax system is specifically designed to extract the maximum amount from high earners. So what do we do? Well, the people that are genuinely building wealth in this country are not doing it through income.

[00:12:28]They're doing it through asset ownership. and the most powerful wealth-b buildinging asset available to Australians. Well, it's the one that combines capital growth, rental income, leverage, tax deductions, property investment.

[00:12:45]So, here's how it works in practice.

[00:12:47]When you buy an investment property, the interest of your loan is taxdeductible.

[00:12:52]The depreciation on the building and the fixtures, it generates a paper loss, and it reduces your taxable income further.

[00:12:58]The rental income offsets some of your holding costs and the capital growth compounds in the background. That creates equity that allows you to leverage and acquire more assets. You're not just buying a property, you're buying a tax vehicle that the government has specifically designed to incentivize investment and creating new homes. So, every year you don't use it, you're voluntarily handing out tens of thousands of dollars to the ATO that could be compounding to build your portfolio. Let me make this real with a story. Two professionals, same income, starting at the same point in the same year. Professional A does what feels responsible. So, he pays tax, throws extra money on the mortgage, and waits till he feels the time's right to invest. Professional B sits down with a strategist, utilizes equity in their home to acquire investment properties, let's say in Perth, and starts using rent and tax to fund the holding costs.

[00:13:54]Well, five years later, Perth Property has seen growth by 30%. Professional B uses the equity to acquire the next property in, say, Adelaide, and now they have a portfolio that's generating some passive income, and it's compounding growth in equity. 10 years later, professional A has a smaller mortgage slightly. They're still working the same hours. They're still paying the same tax, still feeling behind. Now, professional B has choices, works fewer hours, pursues businesses, spends more time with family, and funds something for their children because how are they going to afford their first home? Now, it's the same income, same starting point, but completely different lives and completely different outcomes. So, here's the aha moment. Your high income is not the problem. The problem is that without a strategy to deploy it into assets, the tax system will just consume it faster than you can actually save it.

[00:14:50]Property is just an investment. So for a high earner, it's the most powerful legal tax reduction tool available in Australia. And the longer you wait to use it, the more you're paying to the government to do nothing. So let's bring this all together.

[00:15:07]The crash that everyone is waiting for has never come because the fundamentals are the same. Supply and demand just can't balance in Australia. The government's response to every crisis sends property prices higher. The market is absolutely broken. But it's broken in a way that creates permanent flaw for property owners. the headlines that are using statistical tricks to scare you away from the best buying opportunities that exist. The real opportunity right now is in specific cities that the media has written off and your high income is not protecting you. Without a property and a strategy in place, the tax system is just consuming it. Five truths, one conclusion. The biggest risk right now is not buying, it's waiting. If today has shifted your thinking and you're ready to take the next steps, book in no obligation strategy session with Aspire Property Experts. We're going to look at your specific situation, your goals, map out exactly what's possible. You bring the money and the motivation, and we do the rest. The links in the description.

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