Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen SQM Research has released its rental vacancy data, which registered an small decline in the number of rental vacancies across the nation in September (but no change in the vacancy rate), with the vacancy rate up by 0.1% over the year (see below table).

Cross-posted from Which Investment Property: Aileen Wills was on a roll in the property investment industry, picking up three properties in the same number of years.

From the AFR: The government’s response to the financial system inquiry endorses its recommendation that the major banks must have “unquestionably strong” capital in the top quartile of internationally active peers and implicitly paves the way for rate increases.

From S&P: Increasing Property Prices — A Key Risk Factor For Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand Similar to Hong Kong, we consider a risk that ultimately could have a bigger adverse impact on bank ratings is the one associated with a continuing surge of residential property prices rather than short-term property price deflation.

By Leith van Onselen Following recent talk of an impending correction in the Australian residential property market, senior real estate executives have joined forces on the Gold Coast to talk up the market, claiming that the boom could last another two years.

By Leith van Onselen The New South Wales Government continues to cash in on the Sydney property bubble.

From The Australian comes the fattened McGrath turkey: McGrath Estate Agents has appointed Daniel Petre to its board as the company ramps up plans to float as a public company by Christmas.

Still no Spring bounce for mortgages in the RP Data leading index: Comparable periods in the previous two years were trending up strongly.

By Leith van Onselen SQM Research’s managing director, Louis Christopher, has told property investors to avoid Perth and instead look to Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Hobart.

Core Logic-RP Data released its auction market report yesterday, which posted a further deceleration in the national auction clearance rate driven by a sharp fall in Sydney.

Domainfax asks the question today: First-time home buyers finally have time on their side.

By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released its bi-annual Financial Stability Review (FSR), which displays growing angst within the Bank about Australia’s property bubble.

By Leith van Onselen If you get a spare five minutes today, make sure that you watch the above video, which was aired on ABC’s 7.30 Report last night and examines Australia’s gigantic housing bubble and the risks associated with a housing bust.

By Leith van Onselen The housing bubble-induced rebound in the nation’s labour market has done wonders for Australia’s youth unemployed, with the trend unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 years old falling for the eleventh consecutive month to 13.3%, versus 4.8% unemployment for the rest of the labour market (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 15 October 2015, the Core Logic-RP Data 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, rose by 0.21% (see next chart). Home values rose everywhere except Melbourne (see next chart).

Cross-posted from The Conversation: ABC’s Four Corners program this week highlighted concerns that Chinese criminal funds may be propping up Australia’s real estate market.

By Leith van Onselen The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has released its land sales report for the June quarter of 2015, which revealed that vacant land prices continued to rise – hitting a record high $217,000 over the quarter, despite a much needed rebound in lot sales (see next chart).

From Fairfax: AB chief Andrew Thorburn said that while the weaker global economy and local regulatory caps on lending to property investors would see the rate of price growth slow, prices in Sydney and Melbourne would rise at high single digit rates due to strong demand and limited supply of housing close to the city centres.

By Leith van Onselen Melbourne’s long-running boom in apartment construction is set to catapult it up the skyscraper index.

From Morgan Stanley: We believe the 20bp rate hike across WBC’s entire mortgage portfolio will put a meaningful dent in fragile housing sentiment.

From the contrarian indicator The Pascometer today: The de facto tightening is a negative, but this week’s NAB business confidence survey again told a story of business conditions actually remaining fairly good with employment intensions turning positive and capacity utilisation on the up.