Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen John Mulcahy, chairman of Mirvac Group, claims that Australian housing is not a bubble and is unlikely to experience a crash because home owners here cannot simply hand the keys back.

By Leith van Onselen Spruiker in chief for Domain (formerly Australian Property Monitors), Dr Andrew Wilson, is salivating at the prospect that the median Sydney house price could soon surpass $1 million.

“Mad” Adam Carr takes housing bears to the woodshed today at Dad’s Army: On the read of one, the current house price spike will come to an abrupt halt over the next 12 to 18 months, as the construction boom picks up and an oversupply takes hold.

By Leith van Onselen From The AFR’s Chris Joye comes his latest missive on the epic housing bubble developing in Australia: According to UBS, in March the ratio of Australian dwelling prices-to-disposable household incomes equalled – and is presently surpassing – the previous record of 5.3 times set back in September 2003.

By Leith van Onselen SQM Research has released its listings data for the month of March, which revealed a 1.8% rise in the number of for sale listings in March, with listings also up 1.6% from the same time last year (see below table).

By Leith van Onselen The Property Council of Australia (PCA) has called on the Government to dump stamp duties in exchange for raising the GST or broadening land taxes.

By Leith van Onselen Australian Finance Group (AFG) has released its housing finance data for the month of March, which registered a massive increase in monthly mortgage applications, with both the number and value of applications also at record highs.

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

By Leith van Onselen Following the release Monday of the Australian Treasury’s discussion paper on tax, there has been lots of calls for the Abbott Government remove the 50% discount on capital gains tax (CGT), which has overwhelmingly benefited the rich by creating a tax shelter via, among other things, negative gearing.

By Leith van Onselen SQM Research’s managing director, Louis Christopher, released his weekly email newsletter last night, which once attempted to dispel the notion that Australia has a housing bubble: I’ve noticed increasing media chatter about a national housing bubble that we apparently have, here and now!

By Leith van Onselen The Labor Party has released a housing affordability discussion paper, which is aimed at informing Labor’s Housing Affordability Strategy that it will take to the next election.

From the HIA comes February new home sales In February 2015 total seasonally adjusted new home sales increased by 1.1 per cent, following the previous month’s rise of 1.8 per cent.

By Leith van Onselen RP Data’s price results are in for March, with the daily index recording a 1.33% rise over the month at the 5-city level, driven almost entirely by a massive price surge in Sydney (see next chart).

From Mac Bank: For year’s Australia’s net migration data shows that people have come, but building approvals – and housing affordability – demonstrate that we’ve underbuilt.

By Leith van Onselen Last night, Labor Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen, appeared on ABC’s 7.30 Report where he said the following about negative gearing: Well I’ve said a couple of things about negative gearing and housing affordability policies more generally.

From the AFR, home of realty rentier whining: Offshore investors have baulked at Australian property following the Foreign Investment Review Board’s inquiry into non-resident investment, according to national law firm Maddocks.

By Leith van Onselen Treasurer Joe Hockey has once again all but repeated the tired myth that the temporary abolition of negative gearing between 1985 and 1987 drove-up rents.

From Dad’s Army’s Gotti today: …it is almost impossible for dwellings to go down significantly while the existing [policy] chain remains in place.

By Leith van Onselen In his maiden Parliamentary speech, Family First senator, Bob Day (a former home builder), made the following comments in relation to Australia’s constipated land supply system [my emphasis]: The single most important factor affecting housing affordability has been land.

Yes, the bubble has gone global via Ellen: In case you’re wondering, De-Preston is an outer northern Melbourne suburb.

The national auction clearance rate delivered yet another mental result over the weekend, driven again by strong demand in Sydney and Melbourne.

Click to view Core Logic-RP Data’s latest weekly housing market update, which provides a useful snapshot of the housing market as at 29 March 2015.