This week, an announcement.
After the successful Ground Rules: Land and Housing Economics for Professionals workshop in Brisbane in June, I have opened up two more workshop events in Sydney and Melbourne in November 2026.
The workshop is an intensive event with activities, class simulations, and plenty of participation. Held over two days. Catered. Workbook and materials supplied. It is challenging but fun.
It took me over 20 years to learn and deeply appreciate the concepts I try to pass on in two days—so save yourself some time and put that professional development budget to work.
Melbourne: 10-11th November 2026 (book here)
Sydney: 17-19th November 2026 (book here)
Who is the workshop for?
Here are the types of professionals that would get enormous value from the workshop:
Town planners and policymakers who want to understand the market and how policy changes affect market outcomes, whether planning, taxation, or value capture mechanisms.
Economists who study housing and property and want to deepen their knowledge.
Property professionals, such as investors and developers, who want to understand emerging patterns in the broader market.
Social and affordable housing advocates and businesses looking to understand policy settings and how they fit into the housing market.
Researchers in housing and property who want to ensure they have a solid understanding of the economics of land and housing.
The pitch
Have you noticed that home prices usually rise even when supply increases, or that zoning reforms often fail to reduce prices? Are you still uncertain whether land banking is rational or conspiratorial?
Dr Murray is the author of The Great Housing Hijack and publishes extensively in academic and media outlets. He teaches economics to industry leaders in Australia and the Middle East and has designed this workshop to upskill property professionals involved in investment and management, valuation, planning, research and public policy.
Participants will walk away able to answer the above questions and:
Appreciate how property rights can be crafted in a variety of ways to incentivise resource allocation to high-value uses via scarcity and trade.
Identify how five powerful economic forces constrain market outcomes in terms of prices, rents, density, supply, and the spatial patterns of our cities.
Have the ability to incorporate the logic of cycles into their analysis of property markets and policy.
Be equipped to assess how policy settings interact with market forces beyond the simple first-order effects commonly debated in the media.
This is an experiential workshop promoting active discussion and debate. A variety of topical examples and case studies are integrated into the workshop activities to help participants apply these lessons and guide their future decision-making.
Here’s what Paula said about her experience at a previous workshop:
Thank you for a brilliant two days. I love economics but it’s been a while so I was worried I would struggle to keep up. Thanks to you I didn’t struggle and was not bored at any point. The interactive nature of the event was perfect.
Attendees are provided with a workbook (mini textbook) to keep for future reference and a copy of the book The Great Housing Hijack.
If you have any questions about these events, or would like a customised workshop or presentation for your organisation, click the button below.
Finally, below is the topic list and schedule for the events.
For those looking for the weekly FET content, I have a couple of recommendations.
Check out the FET YouTube channel
Occasionally, some videos make it to the Fresh Economic Thinking YouTube channel that don’t make it to the podcast feed.
Here is a recent conversation where I try to explain that the housing market is having a normal cycle. Yes, it is expensive now. No, it won’t always be.
Back in January 2026, I wrote about the likely peak of the housing cycle and examined the different features of this cycle in terms of relative prices between cities, between houses and apartments, and the yield on housing versus other assets.
Below is a fun video with Aziz Sunderji where we explore the housing supply debates and his new housing data mapping tool called ProMap (for US data only).
And for a change of pace, below is a video with Celebrating Masculinity about how hard it is these days in our culture see the positive side of masculine behaviour (I am the father of two teenage boys, so this topic is a personal interest).
Read the recent Housing Supply 4-part series
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
As always, please like, share, comment, and subscribe. Thanks for your support. You can find Fresh Economic Thinking on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.