Australian Property

Via REA today: Pretty ordinary market conditions offset by monopoly gouging.

As Liar Morrison mulls his great hope of unwinding macroprudential, the RBA head has other ideas: ​Dr Lowe said: “W​hen I talk to my overse​as​ peers and say more than 40 per cen​t ​of new loans in the count​ry​ were to borrowers who didn’t have to make a single dollar of principal rep​ayment​, they say, how?

By Leith van Onselen Labor shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, has cleverly used the Productivity Commission’s (PC) Draft Report into Competition in the Australian Financial System to attack the Turnbull Government’s unwavering opposition to Labor’s proposed negative gearing reforms.

By Leith van Onselen The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA) has released its December quarter property statistics, which suggests Perth’s housing market may be seeing some ‘green shoots’.

From Domainfax: From a ballooning housing market that has locked homebuyers out, to the cost of living day to day life, for many Australians, the state of things is untenable.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: Since the early 1990s, Australia’s skilled migration scheme has brought a new category of migrants into the country.

By Leith van Onselen ABC’s 7.30 Report ran an interesting segment last night examining whether APRA’s interest-only mortgage crackdown could potentially trigger a US-style housing bust.

By Leith van Onselen From SQM Research comes stock on market figures for the month of January, which reported a (mostly) seasonal 4.8% decline in total for sale listings over the month but also a 6.2% decline over the year: Listings fell across all jurisdictions in January.

Via the AFR: Scott Morrison dismissed Treasury advice that Labor’s negative gearing policy would have only a modest impact on house prices because he did not believe it.

By Leith van Onselen With the ABS last week releasing its dwelling approvals data for the December quarter, it’s an opportune time to once again examine how dwelling construction is tracking against population growth at the national and state and territory levels.

By Leith van Onselen CoreLogic’s Cameron Kusher has written an interesting blog post examining real dwelling price growth over the past decade, which reveals that only Sydney and Melbourne have experienced any material growth over that time: With the release of CPI data ‘real’ changes in dwelling values can also be analysed.

By Leith van Onselen ME Bank’s latest survey of mortgage holders has noted increased mortgage stress among lower-income households due to greater living costs and little or no increase in wages.

Credit Suisse on Q4 GDP: We believe that the actual number is likely to come in south of 0.5%, taking year-ended growth below 2.4%.

From an editorialising Domainfax hack: For decades, American author and economic forecaster Harry Dent has made a living out of boom-bust financial prophecies.

This is something I’ve mulled only in my darkest nightmares: Financial regulators may dial back home lending restrictions which have helped clamp down on rampant property price growth, if the recent slowdown in property values descends into sharper-than-anticipated falls, the federal Treasurer has signalled.

By Leith van Onselen Domain (formerly Australian Property Monitors) has released its State of the Market Report for the December quarter, which posted a rebound in dwelling prices over the quarter, but a sharp slowing in annual growth.

CoreLogic released its auction report yesterday, which reported a big fall in the preliminary national auction clearance rate to 67.7% from 78.2% last weekend and remained below the 68.8% recorded in the same weekend last year: However, as you can see above, the clearance rate has bounced; albeit of thin volumes.

From NAB’s quarterly property survey (of industry folks).

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday, Victoria’s Planning Minister, Richard Wynne, trumpeted two a new suburbs for Melbourne – Fraser Rise and Deanside – that will supposedly ease Melbourne’s housing affordability crisis.