Australian Property

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released dwelling approvals data for the month of October. At the national level, the number of dwelling approvals tanked by a seasonally adjusted 8.1% to 13,049. The overall fall in approvals was broad-based, with both units & apartments (-11.3%) and houses (-7.0%) diving.

The federal government’s legislation to remove the capital gains tax (CGT) exemption for expatriates who sell their main residence while living overseas has been passed by the House of Representatives after Labor agreed to back the bill.

Via FtAlphaville: There’s a popular joke in finance that venture capital is just one giant ploy to subsidise millennial lifestyles.

During the peak of the last housing cycle in 2017, MB coined the phrase “shrinkflation” to describe the peculiar situation whereby housing prices rise strongly alongside crashing sales volumes.

Never trust a real estate agent.

Victoria’s building industry has called for an amnesty from prosecution for building dodgy high-rises with flammable cladding: The Master Builders Association says the Andrews government’s get-tough approach, including “litigious posturing” and rhetoric on dodgy builders, is damaging the effort to tackle the [flammable cladding] crisis.

A research project led by the University of New South Wales in 2018 concluded that a lack of reliable information about building defects has been a key factor in the crisis that has affected the apartment market.

The 2019 National Shelter Rental Affordability Index has been released, which shows that rental affordability across Hobart has crashed and is now the worst in the nation: Greater Hobart continues to be the least affordable capital city in Australia.

Shadow housing minister Jason Clare has warned that the housing affordability crisis has not eased since Labor lost the 18 May election, adding that it may get worse.

Last month, property lobbies met with the Western Australian Government to demand a housing stimulus package: Major property industry players met senior McGowan Government ministers yesterday to plead their case for a sweeping stimulus package aimed at breathing life into the WA’s stagnant housing market.

In one city-by-city document.

By Ross Elliott, cross-posted from The Pulse: A recent decision by Brisbane City Council to restrict townhouse and similar ‘missing middle’ housing product to areas actually zoned for it has been met with hostility from some parts of the urban planning community.

The low volume, low supply, low mortgage growth house price boom set up continues this week, from CoreLogic listings are terrible: And mortgages are weak: But the balance still means price rises.

So says the AFR: Property experts say Melbourne property prices could be stalling after four multimillion-dollar properties failed to attract a bid in the past week.

The mortgage broking industry successfully fought off the Hayne Royal Commission’s recommendation that trailing commissions be abolished and that banks stop paying upfront commissions to brokers.

CoreLogic has released an interesting report showing that despite cratering mortgage rates and the recent steep housing correction, Sydney and Melbourne housing affordability is still worse than a decade ago: The decade ending in June 2019 has seen the national median dwelling value rise from $382,650 to $516,710, an annual increase of 3.0%.