Australian Property

Core Logic-RP Data released its auction market report last night, which revealed that the national auction clearance rate rose ever so marginally over the weekend, continuing the record run of strong results.

By Leith van Onselen Another day, another spurious defence of negative gearing and the 50% CGT discount.

By Leith van Onselen Back in April, the Paris-Based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering released its report on Australia, which found that Australian residential property is a haven for international money laundering, particularly from China.

Today at BS, Victoria Theiberger  makes an interesting observation: Over the next year, the onslaught of new supply, especially in Melbourne, will start to hit the market at the same time as the interest rate cycle begins to turn.

By Leith van Onselen Robert Gottliebsen (“Gotti”) has obviously gotten off the phone again with his mate, “Highrise” Harry Triguboff, since he has penned another post warning of a downturn in apartment construction now that the rules around significant investor visa’s (SIVs) investing in Australian real estate have been tightened.

By Leith van Onselen ABC’s 7.30 Report ran an interesting segment last night looking at the issue of first home buyer (FHB) investors, who are a growing breed in Australia as they seek back-door entry into Australia’s unaffordable housing market.

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s dwelling approvals data for May, released by the the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), revealed an ongoing boom in unit & apartment construction, which hit its highest ever level on a rolling annual basis (see next chart).

Now that it is undeniable that Australia has a raging property bubble, we’re moving into a new phase of MSM spruik that that defends the sustainability of said bubble, a permanently high plateau as it were.

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

By Leith van Onselen Following on from my post yesterday on RP Data’s daily dwelling values index results for June, Core Logic-RP Data has released its full results, which also cover the smaller capitals and regional areas (see next table).

By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) yesterday updated its quarterly financial statistics, which revealed that Australian household debt rose to an all-time high in the March quarter of 2015.

From Fitch: Investment Loan Arrears at Record Low Thanks to Current Benign Environment Investment loans are performing better than owner-occupied properties in terms of 90+ day arrears.

By Leith van Onselen RP Data’s price results are in for June, with the South Eastern bubbles returning in a big way as the daily index recorded a 2.19% jump in values over the month at the 5-city level, with all major capitals except Perth recording gains (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia’s (REIWA) call last week that the Perth housing market is set to soar has been given a good old fashioned reality check, with a number of property ‘experts’ claiming that it “feels just like a recession”.

By Leith van Onselen Residex has released its house and unit price results for May, which revealed a 0.11% fall in house values over the month but a 0.16% rise in unit values.

By Leith van Onselen I wrote earlier today how the Property Council and the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) had enlisted ACIL Allen Consulting to write a report arguing the case for retaining negative gearing and the 50% capital gains tax discount.

By Leith van Onselen BIS Shrapnel and AMP chief economist, Shane Oliver, have joined the chorus of commentators (including MB) expecting house prices to fall by 2017.