Predictions of a deflated housing market in 2016 continue as property search group Domain predicts a 2 to 5 per cent price growth across all capital cities in the new year.
Double digit growth in major housing markets such as Sydney and Melbourne in the last two years will not be repeated, according to the group’s latest State of the Market Report.
Sydney prices are expected to grow 4 per cent in 2016 after a near 20 per cent growth in 2015. Melbourne will pick up 5 per cent, after a 12 per cent increase during the year.
But at least the weakest market in 2015, Perth, which experienced price falls, will grow at 2 per cent.
So, the Australian Financial Review headline for the day is to quote itself that house prices are going to rise so that it’s own business can prosper. I mean, what is this “newspaper” now? It’s not news to report your own view on house prices. It’s certainly not journalism to report your own view on house prices as news. And to disguise it as news as well is even worse.
Is the Australian Financial Review now a blog, a bird, a plane, an elaborate press release service for real estate agents?
Advertisement
What? What is it? You better ask yourself Fairfax, because readers certainly are.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
