This is the commentary archive of Mark Kilroy — a Chartered Quantity Surveyor (MRICS) and Registered Tax Agent writing on Australian property, construction costs, tax depreciation policy and the holding strategy that determines whether investments survive changing market conditions.
Selected pieces, informed by more than two decades working across Australia, the UK, and the US.
Australia's housing debate is consumed by interest rates, negative gearing, CGT and migration. Beneath all of it sits a much larger question almost nobody is willing to discuss: what happens to the housing market if white-collar work itself fundamentally changes over the next decade?
The most important part of Australia's negative gearing debate may have nothing to do with tax policy itself. It may be the banks. Formal policy changes are still years away, but lenders are already adjusting investor serviceability now — and housing markets ultimately run on credit, not political messaging.
For thirty years Australia ran a housing market on a single assumption — that investors could survive weak cash flow long enough to harvest long-term capital growth. Negative gearing and the CGT discount were the bridge. That bridge is now being dismantled from both ends, and the consequences run deeper than the fairness debate.
The May budget is days away and commentary on CGT, negative gearing and depreciation is running hot. But almost nobody is engaging with the mechanism that connects what you claim while you hold a property to what you pay when you sell it. Here's what the policy debate is missing.
Australia has 2.9 million temporary residents driving demand for over a million additional dwellings. Meanwhile the student visa pipeline is funnelling people into white-collar fields AI is already contracting, while construction trades sit at a 54% vacancy fill rate with Brisbane 2032 six years away.
The data tells a very different story to the headlines. 72% of property investors own just one property. 64% earn less than $80,000. The proposed negative gearing and CGT changes target 9.5% of investors, but the consequences flow through the entire rental market.
The headline figures suggest construction costs are moderating. The final accounts of completed projects tell a different story. Fuel, freight, and supply chain repricing are building forward, and most feasibility models have not caught up.
Under the current CGT system, inflation is taxable. If reform strips away the remaining protections without replacing them with anything better, everyday Australians will pay the price.
Most property commentary focuses on purchase. In practice, outcomes are decided later, during the hold, when cash flow pressure shapes behaviour and housing supply.
The real drivers behind cost blowouts are not materials or supply chains. It is labour, productivity, structural inefficiency, and holding pressure.
When depreciation is understood properly, it plays a quiet but critical role in whether investors can afford to hold assets through the most pressured years of ownership.