March 22nd, 2026Kyle’s Rant

Here we go again with talk of a recession looming and interest rates predicted to go up again by August. And all this speculation leads to uncertainty in the market and you can’t trust speculation because that’s just what it is, a best guess.
In fact for those who aren’t asleep at the wheel, you might remember the last time the Reserve Bank and the federal government speculated was when they told us that house prices were going to crash by 30 per cent in the midst of the pandemic and in fact it was the opposite and most home owners are now millionaires.
They told us to rush out and borrow as much as you could as the interest rates were freefalling and were never going up again. And now Australian house foreclosures and mortgage distress have shown an upward trend between late 2024 and early 2025 as the faithful borrowers came off their fixed interest rates into a world of pain.
The question i do we believe what we are being told and the resounding answer is no, take all the information and throw it in the rubbish when it comes to home buying. If you buy and sell in the same market you can’t lose – the best time to buy is when you find the right home, the best time to sell is when you want to move on.
External pressures outside of our control will always be there. When I was growing up Dad always told me to get my shit together and if I didn’t by the time I am 30 I would never make it. Dad is a great bloke but he isn’t an oracle and I can point to plenty of examples of folks getting their shit together later in life. Or not getting their shit together at all, who are perfectly happy with no mortgage stress. Or even folks that have waited for their parents perfectly managed excrement to be handed down to them as they pop off this mortal coil.
The whole thing about external pressures is that it just shows we have very little control of life. In fact, speaking of Dad, he went on to losing his shirt in the crash of 1987 and only recovered to own a home and a few toys around 15 years ago and he is about to celebrate his 83rd birthday – that’s a late bloomer right there.
I choose to believe that every day is a blessing and it doesn’t matter how much shit you have accumulated and surrounded yourself with, we are all just one slip-up from homelessness.
All it takes is a slight miscalculation at a long lunch with your alcohol intake and you bowl some poor unsuspecting soul over and wham you’re in the clink. Or a relationship breakdown leading to substance abuse and bang, your car becomes your home.
I also choose to believe in the silver lining, for instance I was running the four visitor centres around the Hepburn Shire back in 2007 when the American housing bubble took down the world economy. We noticed an uptick in visitation to the area, folks still needed to get away, and we are a one-tank destination.
In all our towns we have festivals and new visitor experiences on offer like the bike tracks in Creswick, Clunes Booktown, the Blackwood Woodchop and Easter Festival, the newly revamped Daylesford Rex, the Palais Hepburn opening and even the third-largest recorded tree in Trentham. A manna gum I think.
So, buck up, turn off the TV and enjoy our wonderful autumn.
False speculative news rant over…