Noel Whittaker's September newsletter opens with the household squeeze — and a developer collapse that says a lot about where housing is heading.
Most of us can feel the last five years in our own bank statements without needing a chart to prove it. In the September issue of his newsletter, Noel Whittaker sets out how far prices have moved between mid-2021 and mid-2026, and why the pressure on household budgets has not really eased just because the headline inflation number has.
He then turns to something that has had far less attention: the collapse of Sydney developer Bathla Group, with debts of more than $3.2 billion. Around 2,000 homes were under construction and more than 13,000 were in the pipeline, with administrators seeking emergency funding to keep projects moving. When a builder of that size fails, supply stops arriving at exactly the moment it is most needed.
What makes this worth reading if you are somewhere between 45 and 60 is his picture of the market itself: owners who don't want to sell into weakness, buyers who are nervous about committing, and investors quietly stepping away.
"That combination — reluctant sellers, nervous buyers and disappearing investors — is hardly a recipe for a healthy market."
He also makes a point worth holding onto before anyone panics at a national headline: Australia does not have one property market. It has hundreds, from Cairns to Perth, houses to apartments, each moving through its own cycle. So the practical response is not to guess at the market, but to check that your own plan still works if prices go sideways for a few years — whether you are thinking about downsizing, helping an adult child, or counting on the family home to do some heavy lifting later.
Read the full article: Feeling the Squeeze — Noel Whittaker, Noel News, September 2026.
If the cost-of-living squeeze is the thing keeping you up, Making Money Made Simple (26th Edition) is the place to start. It is the book that taught a generation of Australians how to get on top of spending, debt and saving without needing a finance degree — buy direct from the author for $16.99, delivered instantly in PDF and EPUB.