A rising star of the South Australian construction sector has been named as the nation’s best.

Luke Callery of the Stepney-based Callery Building was crowned the Australian Young Builder of the Year at the Master Builders Association 2025 National Excellence in Building and Construction Awards.

Master Builders SA CEO Will Frogley said he was thrilled to see the qualified carpenter he described as “the very definition of a master builder” recognised on the national stage.

“His attention to detail, professionalism, customer service and of course high-quality building work are earning rave reviews from clients,” he said.

“Luke is a passionate advocate for the Master Builders SA ‘Born to Build’ program, which is all about inspiring young South Australians to chase their building industry dreams.

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“He is a prime example of the career you can build for yourself in construction in this State.”

It is the third year in a row that a South Australian has taken home the coveted top gong, cementing South Australia’s reputation for producing great young talent.

It’s something the state’s regulatory body takes very seriously, Mr Frogley said.

“We are punching above our weight in the building and construction industry, and we have an amazing stable of current and upcoming builders to continue this performance,” he said.

“Given the growth in the industry, and the current skills shortage, we are constantly working to encourage and support newcomers to the industry via apprenticeships.

“Completing an apprenticeship is an accomplishment and sets you up for a wonderful, high-paying and rewarding career.

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“There’s a lot of talk about AI-driven job losses, but a trade offers you protection from that.

“With a record number of construction businesses in South Australia right now, the opportunities in our industry are vast.”

Two other South Australian builders took home awards at the national awards on Friday night.

Bellevue Building Concepts were best in show in the National Renovations/Extensions Award $1m to $2m category, and Crew Built in the $750k to $1m category of the same award.

The post Callery Building’s Luke Callery wins Australian Young Builder award appeared first on realestate.com.au.

One in four homeowners is contemplating selling within two years,as Australia’s housing costs surge to the nation’s top financial worry.

The findings in Canstar’s latest Consumer Pulse Report point to a potential uplift in listings and a market increasingly shaped by cost‑of‑living pressures heading into 2026.

Overall, 26 per cent of property owners are considering selling in the next 24 months.

The primary motivations are downsizing (39 per cent) and upgrading (27 per cent), but a concerning 19 per cent say they’re contemplating a sale because they can’t afford higher loan repayments.

Housing costs now outrank other essential expenses, and are more than double the concern they were five years ago, eclipsing groceries, energy bills, insurance premiums and movements in house prices.

Canstar head of research Sally Tindall said intent didn’t always translate into action but the signal was significant.

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“I would say from the outset that there’s a difference between considering it and actually going through with it, but the fact that it’s on people’s minds is very telling,” she said.

“Of those considering selling, 19 per cent said they’re considering selling because they can’t afford the higher loan repayments… and it’s up 16 per cent from the year before, which is really interesting because, at least for now, we’re done with rate hikes.

“We have seen three rate cuts this year and even then, some families, some households are thinking it’s time to sell because they can’t keep on achieving. You can’t keep on scaling Everest.”

The pressure is most acute in Queensland, where 32 per cent of owners are mulling a sale, followed by Victoria (27 per cent), Western Australia (26 per cent), New South Wales (25 per cent) and South Australia (12 per cent).

Ms Tindall said generational stresses were particularly stark.

For Millennials, monthly repayments on a $600,000, 30‑year home loan taken out before the RBA’s rate cycle began in May 2022 have climbed to about $3,734 – a 50 per cent increase.

Gen Z renters report unrelenting strain, with half experiencing a rent rise in 2025 and the average increase now $62 a week, up from $53 last year.

“One of the most essential things in life is to have a roof over your head, so for a lot of people, that’s the biggest concern these days,” Ms Tindall said.
“Mortgage rates are significantly higher than they were three years ago….and for people who haven’t refinanced or renegotiated their loans, that’s (added) 50 per cent more on your biggest monthly expenses.”

While some are pinning hopes on further RBA cuts, Ms Tindall warned this could backfire without more supply as a majority of existing owners surveyed (55 per cent) said they had no plans – or don’t expect to be in a position – to invest over the next two years.

For those open to buying, the key triggers are macroeconomic: lower living costs (24 per cent) and lower property prices (24 per cent), followed by lower interest rates (20 per cent).

“I think it could well be a hindrance in the long term because if we see further rate cuts, people will be able to borrow more… that pushes up demand. And the biggest problem we’re currently having with soaring prices is the imbalance between supply and demand,” Ms Tindall said.

“There are so many people looking for houses in key property hotspots but there are not enough houses for sale. So interest rates can really feed that demand and then keep pushing property prices higher, which then makes it even harder for first‑home buyers to actually get a foothold on the property ladder.”

Evy Kassiotes, 26, took to social media recently to claim home ownership hadn’t quite lived up to her financial expectations.

“Owning a home is actually such a scam,” she said.

“I got a letter in the mail to tell us about the progression of our loan and how much we’ve paid off.”

Ms Kassiotes then expressed her shock at learning how little of a dent she had made in her mortgage in almost two years.

“What do you mean we’ve only paid off $3000 since October 2023? It is now May 2025,” she said.

“Like are you joking? Is this a joke? Am I getting pranked?”

Finder home loans expert Richard Whitten said new data showed the costs of owning a home over the life of its loan were close to double the sticker price – more than double in some cases – and anything people could do to reduce the term of that loan would see savings for the homeowner.

“New buyers will almost certainly underestimate the long-term costs of home ownership – it’s basically impossible to fully map them out,” he said.

“Interest charges on the home loan are massive. Home insurance premiums have risen sharply in recent years (and) then there’s strata, maintenance and repairs, upgrades, the list is endless.

“But the upsides are really positive.

“Paying off the loan principal builds up your wealth, and the property value will most likely grow over time.

“And if you can pay the loan off faster those interest costs drop.”

The post Thousands of homeowners forced to weigh selling homes they can no longer afford appeared first on realestate.com.au.

Homebuyers will pay as much in interest and duty as the sticker price of their home, mortgage cost analysis reveals.

In Hobart, research from comparison site Finder shows that buyers of a typical $715,000 house with a $143,000 (20 per cent) deposit, will pay over $1.337m in real costs over the 30-year life of a home loan.

For some first-time buyers, the costs could be pricier still.

The analysis shows that Hobart buyers using the federal government’s expanded First Home Guarantee — 5 per cent deposit instead of 20 per cent — would be slugged an additional $114,152 over the life of the same $715,000 loan.

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For house buyers with a 20 per cent deposit, just nine out of 66 Hobart suburbs would have a total cost that was less than $1m if paid in full for three decades.

Once considered more affordable areas, Goodwood, Brighton, Mornington and Austins Ferry were all above the $1m-plus mark.

In Hobart’s cheapest suburb, Gagebrook, a $380,250 median priced house with a 20 per cent deposit, will cost $710,964 over a 30-year loan. With a 10 per cent deposit, the real cost climbs to $752,304.

At the top of the table, Battery Point’s total cost exceeded $3m, while a median-priced Sandy Bay house worth $1.35m would cost over $2.58m in total.

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Across the Hobart suburbs, duty costs ranged from $29,666 to $66,060, with half of the analysed suburbs coming in under Tasmania’s $750,000 duty relief price cap.

Finder home loans expert Richard Whitten said the massive long-term costs highlighted the value of using an offset account or making extra loan repayments to get the debt down.

“Interest is a killer,” Mr Whitten said. “Property prices are so high that the interest most of us pay over 30 years now is astronomical.

“If Australians are borrowing $1m to buy a house, then a 7 or 8 per cent interest rate could ruin them.

“If inflation heats up again, rate hikes will be very tricky to pull off politically.”

Exceed Property director Mandy Welling said while Hobart’s first home buyers are making educated decisions, she’s confident that few are entertaining the full term of their loan when they consider buying a home.

“There would be some analytical purchasers who take that into consideration, but I’d be very confident they are the exception and not the rule,” Mrs Welling said.

“From our conversations with first-time buyers, they are more focused on breaking free of the rental cycle and hopefully securing something that will earn them capital.”

Mrs Welling said many young buyers have thought about what may go wrong if they struggle with repayments and they chat about ‘backup plans’.

“This might mean taking on a housemate to assist with repayments or possibly moving back in with mum and dad and renting the home out until they can manage the repayments again,” she said.

“They are aware that their marketplace is moving rapidly at the moment and competition is heating up with an influx of interstate investors creeping into the space,” she said.

Mortgage Choice broker David Thurmond said a $50 a week extra payment on a mortgage adds up to $13,000 over five years, which could have meaningful impacts on long-term interest costs.

“Over the life of the loan, that will save you thousands in interest,” he said.

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While new buyers will “almost certainly” underestimate the long-term costs of homeownership, Mr Witten said the upsides are positive.

He said paying off a loan’s principal builds wealth, and a property’s value will likely grow over time.

“If you can pay the loan off faster, those interest costs drop,” he said.

“Once the loan is paid off you’re in a substantially better position than a renter.

“A debt-free 60-year-old homeowner may have 20 to 40 years of living without rent, whereas a renter of the same age could have decades more rent to pay.”

The post ‘Interest is a killer’: The real cost of Hobart homes appeared first on realestate.com.au.

The month of December typically has the lowest weekly seasonal demand for housing, but it’s a big key to how the spring of 2026 will perform — if you know what housing data lines to focus on.

Traditionally, I wouldn’t care so much about December housing data; however, post-COVID, the forward-looking seasonal demand data has started earlier than normal. For example, in the last decade, I would only really value purchase apps during the second week of January to the first week of May, but post-COVID, the November and December data have a strong seasonal push, even when mortgage rates are elevated.

Given that, here’s what you should be looking at in the last month of the year.

Key data lines to track

Despite being a slow month for the housing market, December can give us a good idea of what to expect in the 2026. Let me explain with an example. Back in November of 2022, we were experiencing the most significant and fastest home sales crash ever — so much so that I even said it looked like existing home sales were heading toward 4 million, when they had had only recently dropped a tad under 5 million. As you can see in the chart below, the crash was epic and happened in just one year.

Then, starting from Nov. 9, 2022, mortgage rates began to fall toward 6%, fueling 12 weeks of positive forward-looking data. Those 12 weeks gave us one of the largest monthly sales prints in American history; almost 500,000 more homes were bought in February of 2023. So for the next four weeks, regardless of what the holidays do to the data, we have metrics we can track to give us a sense of how the start of 2026 will look, since mortgage rates are near 6% today. Below are the data lines you should focus on in the month of December.

Mortgage rates and the 10-year yield

In my 2025 forecast, I anticipated the following ranges:

• Mortgage rates between 5.75% and 7.25%
• The 10-year yield fluctuating between 3.80% and 4.70%

Mortgage rates are near the lowest levels of the year because the labor data has gotten softer and the Fed was forced to cut rates. As you can see in the chart below, the 10-year yield is close to the year-to-date lows; this wasn’t the case last year at this time. So, as long as the 10-year yield stays near 4% in December, we will have lower rates going into 2026 than we had in 2024 and 2025.

One thing that can change mortgage rates is the upcoming December Fed meeting. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the other Fed hawks tend to get very hawkish when mortgage rates are near 6%, fearing that more Americans will buy homes. In the last meeting, when the Fed cut rates, Powell sounded very hawkish, hoping bond traders would push yields higher, and they did a bit.

The market is pricing in another rate cut at the December meeting, so the important thing is to listen to what Powell says, because mortgage rates could go higher in December if he is very hawkish. This will be his last meeting before Trump announces the next Fed Chairman near Christmas. However, as long as the 10-year yield is near 4%, mortgage rates will stay near 6%. Also, in 2026, some ARM loans will drop under 6%, something that wasn’t available for Americans in the past few years.

Mortgage spreads

Mortgage spreads were the unsung superheroes of the housing sector this year, because we wouldn’t have had mortgage rates near 6% without them improving. Now, the big difference from the past few years is that the spreads are noticeably better and almost back to normal. As long as this stays true, it will be a plus for 2026, which is why we track this data line each weekend. 

Historically, mortgage spreads have ranged between 1.60% and 1.80%. If today’s spreads were as bad as they were at the peak of 2023, mortgage rates would currently be 0.91% higher. Conversely, if the spreads returned to their normal range, mortgage rates would be 0.59% to 0.39% lower than today’s level, meaning mortgage rates would be 5.63%-5.83%. 

Mortgage purchase application data

Since late 2022, whenever mortgage rates fall below 6.64% and approach 6%, housing data tends to improve, especially in positive weekly purchase application data.

If we can achieve 12 to 14 weeks of positive weekly data, we will establish a solid trend. So far in 2025, we have recorded 10 positive weekly purchase application data prints since mortgage rates dropped below 6.64% at the end of July. Here’s what the data looks like since rates fell below that key threshold:

• 10 positive week-to-week prints
• 7 negative week-to-week prints
• 17 weeks of double-digit year-over-year growth

Here is the data for the entire year. While we have had solid year-over-year growth in purchase apps, the weekly data improved in terms of consistency when mortgage rates fell below 6.64%. For the month of December, we want to continue the positive purchase application trend since last week we hit a year-to-date high in purchase apps.

• 22 positive readings
• 18 negative readings
• 6 flat prints
• 43 straight weeks of positive year-over-year data
• 30 consecutive weeks of double-digit growth year over year

Our total pending sales data below is more positive now than in prior years. As long as mortgage rates stay near 6% and purchase application data grows week to week and year over year, we should see growth in 2026.

Housing inventory

We are no longer experiencing inventory shortages like we did from 2020-2024 and we’re close to normal inventory levels. Home-price growth is slowing and homebuyers in 2026 will have more options. Sellers do not have the same control they once had during the savagely unhealthy housing market following COVID. 

Although we can expect the normal seasonal declines in inventory, new listings and price cuts, the positive story of higher inventory will persist throughout December, so this portion of the story is already written, as the chart below shows.

Conclusion

As we prepare for the last month of the year and the holiday season, it’s essential to monitor forward-looking housing data. You don’t want to be caught unaware, as many were in late 2022, when forward-looking housing data was improving but few were paying attention. It took about six months for people to realize that the market had shifted, as Sarah and I discussed in this 2023 podcast.

For the rest of the year, the key is the 10-year yield and purchase apps. If mortgage rates stay near 6% and purchase apps grow week to week as well as year over year, it’s a good start for 2026 as purchase apps look out 30-90 days and housing acts much better with rates near 6%.