Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen Today’s housing finance data for June posted 2.3% rebound in the number of new home finance commitments (both construction and new), with commitments also down by 6.3% over the year (see below charts).

By Leith van Onselen Housing policy has become the hot political issue in New Zealand.

By Leith van Onselen ABC’s The Business ran an interesting segment last night looking at the bank clampdown on Chinese apartment buyers, which has raised default risks as thousands of off-the-plan apartments are completed over coming months.

Core Logic released its auction market report yesterday, which posted another rise in the national auction clearance rate but on thin volumes.

On Friday, the RBA released its August Statement on Monetary Policy (SoMP), which contained some interesting analysis on the Perth rental bust: In Perth, the combination of slower-than-expected population growth, weaker household income growth and a high level of dwelling completions in recent years has placed downward pressure on housing prices.

By Leith van Onselen As suggested earlier in the week, the RBA has abandoned the Core Logic dwelling price index, which it believes is way overstated.

By Leith van Onselen Hot on the heels of data yesterday showing that roughly one in 20 Melbourne off-the-plan (OTP) apartment buyers abandoned their purchases in June, Robert Gottliebsen (“Gotti”) claims that Chinese are walking away from OTP contracts in Sydney: The unthinkable has started to happen.

By Leith van Onselen Tuesday’s dwelling approvals data from the ABS reported a trend decrease in unit & apartment approvals, although they still rose by 1.2% over the June quarter in trend terms and exceed detached house approvals (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen The unprecedented boom in units & apartments construction, especially along the East Coast (see next chart), has been accompanied by a commensurate boom in for sale listings, according to new research from Core Logic.

Though I’m not sure he knows it!

Recall Peter Martin from a few days ago: Apparent strong house price growth in Sydney and Melbourne is unlikely to dissuade the Reserve Bank from cutting interest rates on Tuesday, in part because it’s not what it seems.

By Leith van Onselen With the ABS yesterday releasing its dwelling approvals data for the June 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 From SQM Research comes stock on market figures for the month of July, which registered a seasonal 0.9% monthly rise in the number of homes for sale, although listings were down by 0.4% year-on-year (see below table).

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released dwelling approvals data for the month of June.

By Leith van Onselen In the wake of the uptick in new home sales yesterday, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) has called a bottom for Perth’s housing construction.