Australian Property

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

The IMF has released a huge study of the Australian housing bubble.

From the AFR: Sydney house prices are in for a bigger slowdown than Melbourne as both settle into a year of 5 per cent growth, property valuer Propell says.

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

APRA has released its August banking statistics and at last macroprudential tightening is in evidence.

By Leith van Onselen Core Logic-RP Data’s dwelling price results are in for September, with a 0.84% rise in values recorded over the month at the 5-city level, driven by a 2.42% gain in Melbourne (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen New Zealand Finance Minister, Bill English, has given an insightful speech to Victoria University on New Zealand housing affordability and policy.

I’m sorry to say it but it’s true.

By Leith van Onselen Victoria’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) has released August’s data on the number of housing transfers and mortgage lodgements/discharges, which suggests that Victoria’s (read Melbourne’s) housing market has entered the blow-off phase of the bubble.

By Leith van Onselen Last week, new Treasurer, Scott Morrison, made some important comments on the housing market, arguing that planning restrictions and supply-side bottlenecks are one of the biggest “competition inhibitors” for the Australian economy.

From BS: HSBC has quietly turned off the tap to new customers seeking loans to buy an investment property as lenders step up efforts to comply with the financial regulator’s growth cap.

By Leith van Onselen On Friday, the ABS released the national finance and wealth accounts for the June 2015 quarter, which revealed that Australian housing values surged to a record high when measured against household incomes and GDP.

By Leith van Onselen With the ABS releasing population growth figures for June, it’s an opportune time to examine how dwelling construction is tracking against population growth at the state level.

From the AFR: National Australia Bank has identified 34 Sydney postcodes where it believes there may be rising risk in the mortgage market, and it will require home buyers to stump up a deposit of at least 20 per cent.

By Martin North, cross-posted from the Digital Finance Analytics Blog: Continuing our series on the latest findings from The Property Imperative, we look at property investors today. We find that they are seriously optimistic about the future of property (and recent capital gains have fueled their future expectations).

The RP Data leading mortgage index remains stalled this week: A robust market see a firm a Spring bounce in mortgage. Not this year (so far).

Core Logic-RP Data released its auction market report yesterday, which posted a small rebound in the national auction clearance rate amid an ongoing downward trend.

From the AFR: A senior Treasury official has confirmed the Turnbull government is looking at the tax breaks on capital gains and superannuation.

From Mr Joye: Much-maligned auction markets also remain in rude health.

From national treasure Tim Toohey: Compared to government projections of 1.80%pa (ABS Series B), population growth has slowed to 1.35%yoy in 1Q15, and is well on track to meet our forecast of 1.2%yoy by the end of 2015.

From Peter Hartcher: “There’s a really big regulation modernisation agenda for the housing sector and that can really improve competitiveness and efficiency,” he said in an interview with Fairfax Media.