Housing Affordability bu Paul Lam

Why are houses so unaffordable? When I bought my first house, the ratio of the cost of the property to my income was 1.8 times. I was working for 5 years after graduating from uni and on an average salary. These days that ratio is 5.5 - 6 times. Last year, Melbourne property prices rose average of 10%? So why hasn't anything been done about the spiralling house price? How are the young going to afford to buy their own property? Seem like this is not a fashionable topic. It did not even rate highly in the last Federal elections.

Preparing your income tax, BAS and FBT returns - Paul Lam

Just forwarding reminder from ATO that they are cross referencing data from various authorities and matching their information to your returns eg motor vehicle purchases and disposals, transfer of properties etc to ensure that income tax, GST and FBT are correctly accounted for.

My observations of the financial markets - Paul Lam

These are just my personal comments and should not be contrued as financial advice.

Lately since the GFC I have noticed that there has been a shift in thinking about stock markets.  Comments like "Time in the Market" is generally since as more appropriate than "Timing the Market", but lately financial analysts and commentators are affirming the latter. In today's newspaper, there is an article comparing the market capitalisation of the several world markets eg S&P 500, FTSE index and our S&P/ASX200 and apart from the Australian market, the capitalisation of the US and UK has not changed in the past decade and 10 years is not a short investment time frame.