Find below the December quarter survey by the Master Builders Association. The survey is quite gloomy and, excepting a few hopes, sees the year ahead as very difficult for home builders, denting economic Mandarin’s plan for more houses to substitute for falling mining investment.
I can’t vouch for this survey but it paints an unhappy picture.
C3CD81C0-7176-47AF-89BC-0FBF03F8A81C-December 2012 National Survey (1).pdf
So it’s back to the policy drawing board?
I wouldn’t conclude that based upon this survey alone. But there does seem to be an emerging theme that home building is going struggle to carry the heavy burden our Mandarins have ear-marked it for.
Apartments no worries but homes, no. And that’s where all the employment is I’m afraid.
They really, REALLY need to be looking at the dollar. That’s where you can get growth. Get it down.
Tobin tax and/or macroprudential are the two realistic choices but neither party is within kooee of it.
The RBA will have to lead. Start printing and put pressure on the government to canvass the other other options.
Targeted printing and a Tobin tax may be enough.
That’ll be tomorrow’s post then!
I agree, in fact I don’t think we should be risking a construction boom/bubble.
Too late for sunny Melbourne but I see your point!
When you mention “targeted printing” are you saying it should be directed toward something like an infrastructure build?
No, other central banks.
“They really, REALLY need to be looking at the dollar. That’s where you can get growth. Get it down. ”
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Ever consider lowering the prices to get buyers back into the new home market!
Will be interesting to see what the RBA how much the RBA has placed through the other category.
edit – Will be interesting to see how much the RBA has placed through the other category.
Christiaan, lowering our dollar would enable us to sell more exports and discourage imports, the only effect on house prices would be in imported items such as kitchen appliances, granite bench tops etc.
How about removing grants and stamp duty exemptions on new apartments / units and doubling grants on detached houses?
Another blow to the housing recovery
Manufacturing – gone
Mining – going
Housing – going
Tourism – dont think so
Education???
Which industry will save us now???
Education is as surely dead as the others since the dollar went to the moon. The Chinese,Indian and other Asian kids who are the customers of our schools, unis and vocational providers have been going home in droves over the past 12 months.
What else is left that can provide an effect on GDP that can match previous industry contributions?
Especially something that is not fuelled by Goverment spending?
More a blow to the jobs outlook (and economic multipliers therein) emnanating from the housing construction sector on the dark side of the mining boom
Latest rumour is that we will be saved by a plan to create another boom.
This one will be to mine the dark side of the shining moon…..all that untapped green cheese will be our next big employer.
Problems solved.
News flash for Australian policy makers: it is unrealistic to expect a BUILDING boom, when every subsidy and incentive and reduced cost of credit for the last 15 years has been feeding straight through into higher and higher prices for the pieces of dirt that each house needs to be built on.
When the piece of dirt now costs twice as much as a whole piece of dirt plus house should, it is unrealistic to expect much in the way of building.
I thought from public comments of Glen Stevens and other RBA officials five years ago, that they had their heads around all this stuff. It is one of the great mysteries of life, what turned them into establishment “bubble blind” figures.
Yes, Dirt is the key to the building industries woe’s yet very rarely mentioned. How on earth (no pun intended) can a massive country like Aus have such expensive land prices?. We all know of course that they are propped up via many scams and schemes perpetrated by state governments and land hoarder parasites but mainstream comment seems to go no further than potential buyer sentiment and avaliability of credit. The structure of land pricing is nonsense, the real development costs are far less than stated with all the ‘engineered’ govt and developer costs posted up as some sort of ‘laws of physics’ nonsesne.
We were forced to ‘adjust’ to the mining boom, can’t we ‘adjust’ back now that its peaked? Does our economy really need to lurch from one boom to another? It’s like Homer Simpson logic: “The only antidote to a zany scheme, is an even zanier scheme!”