The benefits – and costs – of working from home
As the hybrid working model embeds itself in Australia, new research reveals the ups and downs of working from home
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The number of Australians working from home is falling, as employers encourage staff back to the office. New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows 37 percent of employed people regularly work from home, a 3 percent fall since August 2021. In 2021, NSW and Victoria were subject to a series of lockdowns to contain the spread of COVID-19. Victorians went through six lockdowns during 2020 and 2021 with Sydneysiders restricted to a 5km radius of home from August to October 2021. All but essential workers were directed to work from home.
As restrictions have lifted, however, many workers have been interested in retaining the option to work from home. The trend has resulted in office vacancy rates of 16.2 percent in Melbourne, 14.4 percent in Sydney, 12.6 percent in Brisbane and 18.5 percent in Perth, according to data service Statista.
In its 2023 Year in review, McCrindle research says cost of living pressures have influenced the desire to work from home, which it estimates to save the average Australian worker $6,359, or 9 percent of after tax savings.
“Three years on after the COVID-19 pandemic, hybrid work formats have become embedded into work culture,” the report noted.
However, not all aspects of working from home were considered positives, the research found.
“While positioned on flexibility, hybrid workers are feeling the impact of remote work compared to the workplace,” it said. “More than half of Australian workers (59%) suspect that those working in the workplace get better opportunities than those working from home.
“Seven in ten (70%) workers believe that working in the workplace leads to a greater sense of recognition and appreciation of their efforts to commute to the workplace.”
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The federal budget has rattled property investors. But the biggest mistake isn’t the tax changes, it’s the conclusion many are drawing from them.
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The recent budget has forced a reckoning for property investors.
Negative gearing now restricted to new residential builds, the CGT discount gone and on paper, the numbers look different.
And many investors are responding by pivoting toward yield, prioritising cash flow over capital growth in a way that property strategists say misses the point entirely.
“The debate has shifted to yield versus growth as if they are opposing forces,” says Abdullah Nouh, founder of Melbourne-based buyers’ agency Mecca Property Group. “But that framing is itself the mistake.”
Nouh, who works with high-net-worth families and investors on long-term acquisition strategy, argues that capital growth remains the primary driver of genuine wealth creation and that the post-budget environment has made quality assets more important, not less.
The numbers make his case plainly. An additional $500 per week in rental income is welcome. A prestige asset appreciating by $1 million over a market cycle is transformative.
These are not equivalent outcomes, and portfolios built around yield at the expense of location and land value tend to generate income while wealth stands largely still.
The more nuanced shift Nouh is seeing among sophisticated investors is a move toward assets where both outcomes can be engineered simultaneously – established homes on substantial land in quality locations, where the existing dwelling can be repositioned, rental returns improved, and the underlying land value compounds independent of what sits on it.
For investors with existing equity, commercial property is also entering the conversation in a more serious way.
Prestige industrial assets, medical centres and long-leased essential retail offer income profiles that residential property in most capital city markets cannot currently match: longer lease terms, tenants covering outgoings, and greater predictability than the residential tenancy cycle.
“The investors who build lasting wealth are rarely the ones who chased yield or growth exclusively,” says Nouh.
“They are the ones who built a strategy they could sustain – one that generated enough income to hold quality assets through multiple cycles while those assets compounded in value.”
The budget has changed the settings. It has not changed the fundamentals.
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