Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen The Property Council of Australia (PCA) stepped-up its lobbying on tax reform yesterday, calling on the Government to abolish stamp duties in favour of an increase in the GST.

By Leith van Onselen Stephen Koukoulas (“the Kouk”) has posted an extract from his book that fails to debunk the “emotive codswallop being written and spoken about housing affordability”.

By Leith van Onselen After repeating the lie over the weekend that ‘abolishing’ negative gearing would reduce rental supply and force up rents, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann appeared on Lateline last night where his lies were exposed (see above video).

By Leith van Onselen Australian Finance Group (AFG) has released its housing finance data for the month of May, which registered a big rise in monthly mortgage applications, as well as a large increase year-on-year.

By Martin North, cross-posted from the Digital Finance Analytics Blog: DFA has just released the latest analysis of survey results which shows that nationally 35% of all First Time Buyers are going direct to the Investment sector.

By Leith van Onselen First it was Treasurer Joe Hockey.

A picture is worth a thousand words, from Westpac’s Red Book:   Yet, where there is life there is hope: Plenty of room to get more bearish there.

Click to view Core Logic-RP Data’s latest weekly housing market update, which provides a useful snapshot of the housing market as at 14 June 2015.

The national auction clearance rate fell marginally over the weekend, but continued the record run of turbo-charged results.

A weekend guest cross-post from  Rational Radical So bubble mania has finally hit the mainstream.

By Leith van Onselen Sydney’s speculator frenzy has reached truly monsterous proportions, with today’s Lending Finance data for April, released by the ABS, once again obliterating all records, with both the value and proportion of mortgages going to New South Wales investors surging to another all time high.

The Australian thinks so: The political fight over housing policy appears set to trigger a price rise before the next election as Labor considers raising $3 billion a year by toughening the tax rules on negative gearing.

By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 11 June 2015, the Core Logic-RP Data 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, fell by 0.50% – the fifth consecutive weekly decline, which typically happens this time of year (see next chart).

By Ross Elliott, author of The Pulse: A key thrust of higher density development plans for our various inner city areas was that this would lead to a significant increase in population densities.

By Leith van Onselen The latest rental review for May, released by Core Logic-RP Data, revealed record low rental growth at the national capital city level.

Cop this, Bozo Joe: NSW Premier Mike Baird has urged policy makers to heed Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens, who has warned that parts of Sydney’s property market are “crazy”.

By Leith van Onselen While the Abbott Government continues to spout lies about the impact of reforming negative gearing on rents: Mr Abbott said there was a need to increase housing supply, arguing red and green tape was “literally killing people” trying to enter the market.

By Leith van Onselen To say Treasurer Joe Hockey’s stance on housing is disappointing is an understatement.

Yesterday MB won.

Now that we know unequivocally that we are in the grip of a national property bubble let us explore the likely scenario that pops it.