The top 7 trends for 2024 borrowers

After a turbulent 12 months, 2024 is shaping up to be another challenging year for Aussies looking to obtain a mortgage and those already servicing one. Despite 12 rate rises, inflation remains stubborn and isn’t expected to fall to the RBA’s intended range of 2-3% until 2025. Parts of the housing market remain as robust as ever, with prices for standalone homes steadily increasing due to fierce competition and low stock levels.

This scarcity of housing combined with a construction industry in distress are major factors that are pushing more first home buyers into making the jump. However, tightened lending means these buyers are more restricted in their options than they were a few years ago.

With that in mind, here are some of the key trends to watch for in the mortgage industry in 2024:

First home buyers head for the fringes

Sydney’s property market continues to soar to new heights, with house and unit prices growing further out of reach for most first home buyers. Even with a healthy budget of $800,000 – the price cap for buyers taking advantage of the government’s first home loan deposit scheme – buyers are priced out of most of Sydney’s suburbs. Currently figures show the median price of a unit in Sydney is $817,059 while median house prices sit at an eye-watering $1,333,985. To stay within budget, first home buyers would need to search for properties on the city’s fringes on the west, south-west and as far as the Blue Mountains.

First homebuyers may have to consider properties on the city fringes. Image: Getty

Singles are being hit hard

Singles in Sydney are facing formidable challenges when it comes to entering the property market. For the most part, property prices in Sydney show no sign of falling which presents a major barrier for those on a single income. Limited housing affordability coupled with stringent lending criteria and the high cost of living further compounds the issue.

Many singles find themselves struggling to save for a substantial deposit, and even with the Federal government’s first home loan deposit scheme and the NSW government’s waiving of stamp duty among other concessions, buying property as a single is still difficult thanks to most properties exceeding the price cap for government assistance.

Female homeowners on the rise

The rise of female homeownership reflects the country’s rapidly changing economic and social dynamics. According to census data, 35% of all households in NSW are single households. Single parent households have reached unprecedented highs. Empowered by increased financial independence and the growing emphasis on gender equality, women are no longer solely reliant on men when it comes to property ownership. CoreLogic reports that women currently own 26.8% of Australian property, with 35.7% of apartments in the hands of female owners.

Divorce trends also play a role in this change as women increasingly have the means and motivation to buy out their male partner’s share in marital property settlements. Additionally, more women are pursuing homeownership independently, heralding a broader transformation of the property market as greater numbers of women aspire to invest in real estate.

Second marriages’ effect on home ownership

Second marriages often bring complex issues regarding home ownership, especially when safeguarding assets is a priority. For individuals entering into second marriages, protecting investments or previous family homes for their existing children is a major consideration. In these cases, it’s common for couples to keep ownership of such properties separate to ensure they are inherited by their respective children rather than being factored into the new marital union.

When it comes to purchasing new marital homes, couples often enter the property market with clear financial agreements in place. These agreements ensure that the financial contributions of both partners are explicitly recognised, adequately reflect the financial realities and priorities of their second union and ensure that the new home is equitably shared. In the context of mortgages and property ownership, the importance of effective financial planning and communication when blending households in second marriages can’t be understated.

Appetite for new builds remains dampened

The appetite for new builds in Australia continues to be subdued primarily due to a variety of factors that have left many prospective homeowners cautious about embarking on new construction projects. With construction companies folding left, right, and centre, potential homeowners are understandably apprehensive about building their new home.

With uncertain timelines, cost overruns due to the rising price of building materials, and labour shortages to contend with, many Aussies are instead opting for existing properties or considering alternative measures like renovating as a more secure and predictable pathway to homeownership.

Residential construction rates will remain low in 2024.

Cash is king

Whether they accumulated cash through savings during the pandemic or are sitting on extra dough through the sales of investment properties, an increasing number of Australians are poised to buy into the market in cash. Data shows that 1 in 4 property purchases in Australia’s three most populous states are cash purchases.

Undeterred by high interest rates, these buyers are a formidable force in the property market. Consisting of downsizing Boomers and international buyers, this cohort could potentially price out buyers who rely on mortgage financing, intensifying competition for the most desirable properties and possibly driving property prices even higher.

Mortgage sideliners

A growing group of individuals often referred to as “mortgage sideliners” are sitting in the wings for longer and longer as they await more favourable market conditions. For these potential homebuyers the increasing unaffordability of homes coupled with tighter lending requirements is a major barrier to entry. Mortgage sideliners hope for a market correction and for interest rates to fall before making their move. While they continue to monitor the market for the right opportunity, mortgage sideliners risk the current market spiralling even further out of reach as a low interest rate period is sure to spark more competition for desirable properties.

Two Red Shoes founder Rebecca Jarrett-Dalton

Rebecca Jarrett-Dalton is founder of mortgage broker, Two Red Shoes

What’s more important than being a good employee right now? Looking like a good employee in the eyes of AI productivity trackers that more managers are using to evaluate their teams.

Employee-monitoring systems are especially popular at tech companies and are also used by other white-collar firms that want to probe how people spend company time. The scary thing: You might not even know you’re being watched because many states don’t require disclosure.

Metrics can include performance data that is undoubtedly relevant, such as sales results. But it also can employ dubious proxies like keyboard strokes and how often your computer screen goes into sleep mode.

We generally accepted, or at least understood, heightened surveillance during the work-from-home era. Back then it seemed reasonable for bosses to keep tabs on employees they couldn’t see.

Yet the oversight has only escalated, and tensions are rising, too.

A group of former Meta Platforms employees alleges in a lawsuit that the company used a “constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems” when it began laying off about 10% of its workforce in May. Meta says humans make termination calls.

However that case shakes out, a couple of things are clear. Companies eager to gauge which employees are locked in now have sophisticated AI monitoring systems at their disposal. And they believe they have leverage in a tepid labor market.

So while we may chafe at having our worth reduced to numbers on the boss’s productivity dashboard, we have to play the game as it’s being played. Here are some tips, based on conversations with people who make employee monitoring systems—and others who game the systems.

Be meticulous about your calendar

Calendar integration is one way that productivity trackers have gotten more advanced and, ostensibly, fairer.

Let’s say you make an old-fashioned phone call or attend an in-person meeting. Your Outlook or Slack status may switch to “away,” making you appear as inactive as if you were taking an extended coffee break.

Employee monitors like one made by a company called Insightful cross-check your online status with your calendar to see whether there is a valid reason for your apparent inactivity. If that call or meeting is on your schedule, then the system will recognize that you are busy offline. If nothing is on the books, it could look like you’re slacking off.

Hit the activity sweet spot, around 80%

Let’s not go any further without addressing the underlying question: How much downtime is permissible during the workday? After all, people have been scared to let managers see anything non-work-related on their screens since personal computers first arrived in offices.

No one knows this better than Roger Wagner, who is widely credited with creating the first “boss button” in the early 1980s. He designed a keyboard shortcut to instantly display a spreadsheet if the boss walked by your cubicle while you were playing a computer game. Boss buttons have been features of countless diversions since. (I confess to using one built into a March Madness streaming app.)

Wagner, the founder of computer-education company 1010 Technologies, says his original design was a joke—more of a commentary on overbearing managers than a cover for lazy employees. Good bosses understand workers need mental breaks throughout the day, he says.

This matches what I heard from Insightful Chief Executive Ivan Petrovic. He says customers that use his company’s workforce-management platform don’t expect employees to stay on task 100% of the time.

“On average companies are aiming for 60% to 80% of your time being utilized for work during the day,” he says.

Go ahead and exhale. It’s probably OK to watch an occasional YouTube video at your desk.

And if you’re going to artificially inflate your activity level, be careful. Hitting 90% could look suspicious.

Get physical

So don’t leave your mouse jiggler on all day. Choose the right one if you must resort to shenanigans.

There are lots of software applications that mimic the movements of a computer mouse, so you can appear to be working while away from your desk. There are also devices that plug into computer ports and do the same thing.

Corporate cybersecurity systems increasingly block these apps and devices, and productivity trackers claim to be able to detect them. But some workers swear by mouse docks, like one made by Tech8 USA, that keep cursors moving. The company originally made mouse-moving software but now focuses on physical jigglers.

“People are drawn to mechanical solutions because they’re so simple and don’t require software,” says Tech8 Marketing Director Sam Matthews. “As monitoring technology becomes more sophisticated, that distinction has become even more relevant.”

Use AI, but not too much

Another popular metric for employee-monitoring systems is AI usage. Companies want to know who is embracing new tools, and it can be tempting to think more is better.

“There’s a performative aspect where employees overblow their usage of AI so that they appear relevant in the organization,” says Andrea Derler, principal researcher at Visier, which helps companies track and analyze employee work habits.

In a recent Visier survey of 1,000 U.S. workers, 48% admitted to exaggerating their AI usage.

This is already an outdated strategy. Using AI for everything used to score points for experimentation. Now it can seem wasteful because many companies are watching AI token spending more carefully.

Look, productivity theater has always been part of work. Most of us aren’t trying to cheat the system, but expectations are changing so quickly that we need to be savvy about what the latest employee trackers are looking for.

Sometimes it takes a little gamesmanship to get full credit for our contributions.