Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen A new report commissioned by Urban Taskforce Australia projects that detached houses with backyards will vanish in Sydney over the next 40 years, meaning future children will be forced to grow up in apartments, many in insecure rented accommodation.

By Leith van Onselen Amid fears of a looming oversupply, developers are now abandoning proposed apartment projects in Parramatta in Sydney’s west.

CoreLogic’s weekly property vitals are out.

By Leith van Onselen After last month announcing that it would raise its stamp duty surcharge on foreign property buyers from 4% to 7%, the property lobby continues to swarm against the measure.

By Leith van Onselen Back in May, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) noted that property investors were rorting the tax system by claiming excessive depreciation expenses on plant and equipment: “The ATO has actively monitored this area over many years.

Via AFR: McGrath has retrenched 15 employees in non-sales divisions including property management and IT.

Yesterday the Chinese Embassy gave us a good old fashioned dummy spit: “Some Australian politicians and government officials also made irresponsible remarks to the detriment of political mutual trust between China and Australia.

Via the AFR: Real estate agents and developers are offering rental guarantees, even advertising on personal ad website Gumtree, in a bid to push sales in a slowing housing market.

By Leith van Onselen From SQM Research comes stock on market figures for the month of November, which reported a seasonal 3.2% lift in total for sale listings over the month but a 3.7% decline over the year: Listings rose across all jurisdictions in November.

APRA released its Sep QTR banking property exposures yesterday and we can update progress of the MP2.0.

By Leith van Onselen Domainfax has published a boosterish report on the so-called ‘build-to-rent’ revolution coming to Australia: The number of homes built explicitly to rent out is set to take off in Australia over the next five years, housing industry experts have predicted.

Via the AFR: “The catch-22 for housing bubbles is that the flow of new mortgages is the main determinant of house prices, and for them to continue rising, the rate of growth of new mortgages has to keep rising,” academic economist Steve Keen said.