Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen For years, ‘Big Australia’ booster, the Grattan Institute, has called for Australia’s supposedly underutilised middle-ring suburbs to be bulldozed for apartments and townhouses in order to house the many millions of extra migrants projected to inundate our cities over coming decades.

APRA released it quarterly ADI property exposures yesterday and banks continue to defuse the interest-only time bomb.

Via the AFR: Chinese developer Forise is tossing up taking on a joint venture partner for its $1.2 billion high-rise luxury residential tower “Spirit” in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, or sell the site altogether, as it struggles to sell apartments.

The politico-housing swamp has entered a corruption blow-off.

By Leith van Onselen ABC 7.30 Report last night aired the final of a three part special on Australia’s budding housing bust, which is well worth watching.

These guys really are just too much: Quarterly Statement by the Council of Financial Regulators As part of its commitment to transparency, the Council of Financial Regulators (the Council) has decided to publish a statement following each of its regular quarterly meetings.

By Leith van Onselen The Sydney housing bust is on, with dwelling values falling the most in 30-years, according to CoreLogic.

Via Shane Oliver today: 2019 is likely to be an interesting year for the Australian economy.

By Leith van Onselen With the release yesterday of the ABS’ lending finance data for October, it’s an opportune time to once again chart how capital city house prices are tracking against both investor and total housing finance.

By Leith van Onselen On Tuesday, the ABS has released the September quarter property data showing the total number of dwellings in each state.

Via NAB which now sees -15% for Sydney and Melbourne house prices: We have delayed our expectation for the first RBA increase in the cash rate to the second half of 2020.

By Leith van Onselen As auction clearance rates have crashed to 2011 lows: We are now starting to see apologists claim that auction clearances no longer matter and are now an unreliable indicator for dwelling prices.

By Leith van Onselen Australia’s speculator frenzy continues to unwind abruptly, according to today’s Lending Finance data for October, released by the ABS. As shown below, the annual value of investor loans in New South Wales (read Sydney) is falling fast, as is Victoria (read Melbourne).

Jeez John Kehoe, give it a rest, mate: Bill Shorten government would face a revenue shortfall of up to $19 billion over the four-year budget period if a hostile Senate blocked several major tax increases should Labor win next year’s federal election.

More Gotti rent seeking today: Fear is suddenly driving the actions of a large rump of Australians.

By Leith van Onselen Back in 2016, BIS Shrapnel (now BIS Oxford Economics) released possibly the worst ever piece of economic “modelling” for a “confidential client” forecasting impending doom if negative gearing is limited to new dwellings, as proposed by Labor.

By Leith van Onselen ABC 7.30 Report last night aired the second of a three part special on Australia’s budding housing bust, which is well worth watching.

By Leith van Onselen The Master Rent-Seekers Builders Association (MBA) is in full panic mode after a few builder collapses and has demanded governments take immediate policy action to bail-out the industry, including stamp duty exemptions for first home buyers and first home buyers grants.

To understand this question we first need some bank capital 101 from MB’s banking insider, Deep T: There are two ways an Australian Deposit taking Institution (“ADI”) calculates capital to be allocated against a residential mortgage.

By Leith van Onselen The ABS yesterday released its property price data for the September quarter, which valued Australia’s dwelling stock owned by households at $6.58 trillion, whereas the total housing stock was valued at a record $6.85 trillion.

Via Goldman first: The changes make property investing less attractive from a cash flow perspective, but negatively geared rental properties are already an unattractive asset from a cash flow perspective.