Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen While the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) continues to skirt around implementing macro-prudential controls on risky mortgage lending, there is a bonafide investor bubble ripping through Australia’s housing market.

By Leith van Onselen Despite overwhelming opposition, Treasurer Joe Hockey has maintained his stance on allowing home buyers to raid their superannuation to purchase their first homes, claiming that he is very concerned about housing affordability.

By Leith van Onselen Today’s housing finance data for January registered the fourth consecutive monthly decline in buyer demand for newly constructed dwellings, with the number of commitments for construction and new dwellings down a combined 5.3% in January and by 5.6% over the year (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen Liberal figures have come out of the woodwork opposing Treasurer Joe Hockey’s brain fart suggesting home buyers should be able to raid their superannuation nest eggs to purchase their first home – a proposal also described by Prime Minister Tony Abbott as a “perfectly good and respectable idea”.

By Leith van Onselen SQM Research released its free weekly newsletter last night, which slammed the idea of allowing first home buyers to access their superannuation to purchase a home, whilst imploring the government to do something genuine to fix housing affordability: abolish negative gearing.

By Leith van Onselen Victoria’s Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure (DTPLI) has released February’s data on the number of housing transfers and mortgage lodgements/discharges, which confirmed that Victoria’s (read Melbourne’s) housing market has gotten a second wind after appearing to have peaked in November.

By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released a new paper examining the household sector’s financial resilience to macroeconomic shocks, which draws upon data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey.

The way to dodge FIRB used to be to walk down the main street yelling “I’m going to buy an Australian property illegally”.

Cross-posted from Martin North’s DFA blog. Housing is, no surprise, an issue in the NSW election, with Baird promising to facilitate a small number of extra homes (20,000 over 4 years) and Labor talking about deferring stamp duty for first time buyers.

From “Smart” Property Investment: Ryan Crawford, founder of the Crawford property Group – the largest real estate group in the Pilbara – said recent national media attention on the Pilbara and its property market had given investors an inaccurate picture of what’s happening in the region.

By David Collyer from Prosper Australia In the second leaders debate of the NSW election campaign televised last night, ALP opposition leader Luke Foley proposed buyers be allowed to defer Stamp Duty, allegedly to ‘help improve housing affordability’.

By Leith van Onselen It seems you cannot keep a dumb idea down, with Treasurer Joe Hockey reviving Independent senator, Nick Xenophon’s, dumb plan to allow first home buyers (FHBs) to access their superannuation savings to pay a house deposit.

By Leith van Onselen Fairfax columnist, Malcolm Maiden, produced a tortured analysis over the weekend, telling generations X & Y to stop complaining about housing affordability: You have probably seen reports recently that house prices have returned to record highs as a percentage of household income.

The national auction clearance rate delivered yet another strong 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 8 March 2015.

By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 5 March 2015, the Core Logic-RP Data 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, rose by 0.23% – the second consecutive weekly rise (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen The final report of the Murray Financial System Inquiry, released in December, was critical of Australia’s tax incentives that enable investors to claim losses from their investments against unrelated wage/salary income.

By Leith van Onselen Following the shock announcement on Tuesday that the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) has ordered the sale of the $39 million Point Piper home Villa de Mare, purchased illegally by Chinese national Xi Jiayin, Treasurer Joe Hockey has announced more illegally purchased homes are being pursued by FIRB.

By Leith van Onselen Australian Finance Group (AFG) has released its housing finance data for the month of February, which registered a massive increase in monthly mortgage applications, with both the number and value of applications also up strongly on the same time last year.