Australians are bigger property geeks than fitness freaks
HSBC study finds Aussies spend 2.5 hours a week researching property and 1.08 hours at the gym. But we're far from the most obsessed nation.
Australians are obsessed with property and we know it. But a global study by HSBC has the numbers to back it up.
We spend 2.5 hours on average a week researching and reading about property. This is more time than we spend at the gym (1.08 hours) or talking to our parents (0.88 hours).
But globally, Australians are somewhat average in their property obsession. HSBC found multiple countries where people spend three hours or more per week looking at property.
The UAE is the leader by far, where property obsessives spend on average 6.6 hours a week on the subject.
| Country | Hours spent on property research (per week) |
|---|---|
| UAE | 6.60 |
| USA | 4.95 |
| Taiwan | 4.54 |
| Mexico | 3.56 |
| Singapore | 3.29 |
| UK | 2.65 |
| Australia | 2.51 |
| Canada | 2.08 |
| France | 1.74 |
The survey also found 23% of Australians check their property's value every three months.
Difficult neighbours is our biggest deal breaker (46%) when it comes to a property purchase, something Aussies have in common with French and British buyers.
Rumours of a property being haunted are enough to put off 21% of Australian purchasers.
Australia's obsession with property isn't really surprising. Prices in many cities have surged since 2012, and in some cities, once cheap suburbs more than doubled their value in five years.
Recent, significant price falls in Sydney and Melbourne only made the topic of the "bursting property bubble" more relevant than ever.
And wages simply haven't grown in line with the cost of living or the price of property. Rental affordability in the big cities remains dire. All of this combines to make property research a necessary exercise for many Australians, whether they're building property wealth or struggling to get by.
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