Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen The bolshy Tim Gurner is sitting on a Brisbane bomb: More than 100 apartments in a high-profile inner-city Brisbane development are yet to settle amid warnings it is “crunch time” for ­developers in the Queensland capital.

From the latest NAB Residential Property Survey comes some welcome news: The influence of foreign buyers in Australian property markets continued to lessen according to surveyed property professionals, suggesting that tighter conditions imposed on foreign buyers is still having an impact.

Via S&P: The number of delinquent housing loans underlying Australian prime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) fell to 1.10% in August from 1.17% in July, according to a recent report by S&P Global Ratings.

By Leith van Onselen We’ve got the Real Estate Treasurer swanning around New York telling anyone who will listen that there is no Australian housing bubble.

Welcome to a little credit crunching, via Banking Day today: Suncorp is tightening its lending standards for apartment buyers in the Brisbane property market following recent falls in real estate prices across the city.

By Leith van Onselen “Highrise” Harry Triguboff has reportedly turned to vendor financing to maintain apartment sales to Chinese buyers.

By Leith van Onselen With the ABS yesterday releasing its total housing finance statistics for August at the jurisdictional level, it’s an opportune time to once again see how these are tracking against dwelling values, as measured by the CoreLogic index (current to end-September 2017).

By Leith van Onselen The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has released a new working paper, entitled “Interest rates and house prices in the United States and around the world”, which attempts to determine how interest rates affect house prices across 47 countries.

From Roy Morgan Research: It’s Official: Overall some 8% (345,000) of mortgage holders in Australia in the year to August 2017 have been identified as having little or no real equity in their home, an increase from 7.1% twelve months ago.

By Leith van Onselen Australia’s speculator frenzy has begun to moderate, according to today’s Lending Finance data for August, released by the ABS. As shown below, the annual value of investor loans in New South Wales (read Sydney) has flattened out, whereas Victoria (read Melbourne) – the second hottest market – continues to rise slowly.

It’s not much a Spring for mortgages, nor listings: The Sydney mortgage belt continues to lead auction clearances lower: Not much of a Chinese bid in Ryde, either.

By Leith van Onselen The 2016 Census painted a nasty picture for Australia’s renters.

Goodness, even permabull Peter Wargent is worried: Interest-only (IO) loans in Australia typically, though not always, have a term of five years. At that point, the loan must either be rolled over, or it flips over to become a principal and interest (P&I) loan.

From the just released biannual Financial Stability Review (FSR): The strong growth of investor borrowing for property in recent years has potential implications for financial and macroeconomic stability.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: I’m not normally a fan of parliament hauling private sector executives before them and asking thorny questions.

From Jessica Irvine: One in five recipients of a now abolished $5000 “new home grant” double-dipped on the scheme to receive multiple grants, including 1500 people and 1869 companies who pocketed more than five grants each.

By Leith van Onselen Australian Finance Group (AFG) has released its housing finance data for the September quarter, which registered a seasonal rise in mortgage applications, but a decline year-on-year.

Most economic leaders tour the world to discuss their competitive advantages for investment, whether its innovation, high tech, natural endowment, skilled populace, whatever.

By Leith van Onselen With the ABS on Wednesday releasing its dwelling commencements and completions data for the June quarter, it’s time to once again examine how dwelling construction is tracking against population growth at the national and state and territory levels.