Australian Property

By Leith van Onselen The epic investor-driven Sydney property bubble has been well documented on this blog, with home prices there rising by around 26% over the past 18 months, according to RP Data (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen The speculator frenzy that has engulfed Sydney’s housing market has taken on gigantic proportions, with today’s Lending Finance data for December, released by the ABS, once again smashing all records, with both the value and proportion of mortgages going to New South Wales investors surging to another all time high.

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

By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 12 February 2015, the Core Logic-RP Data 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, was essentially flat (+0.01%): Home prices rose in rose in Sydney and Melbourne, but fell in the other major capitals (see next chart).

By Martin North, cross-posted from the Digital Finance Analytics Blog First Time Investor Buyers Focused In NSW – DFA Blog After the ABS data came out yesterday, DFA updated its industry models, and included the status of First Time Buyer Investors, at a state level.

By Leith van Onselen The South Australian Government has today floated the idea of abolishing or reducing stamp duties (aka conveyance duties) on property in exchange for a broad-based land tax.

SQM Research sent its free weekly newsletter last night, which contained an interesting primer on the property crash underway across Australia’s mining towns.

By Leith van Onselen The ABS has today released its property price index – incorporating both detached houses and units – which registered a 1.9% rise in values nationally over the December quarter and a 6.8% gain over the year, down from the 9.0% annual growth recorded in the year to September 2014.

Ah the irony!

There’s lot’s of concern around comments in the blog at the moment that Australia property bubble is set to launch another leg up on accelerating rate cuts.

By Leith van Onselen John Findley, the general manager of Shanghai Resources, which is a prominent migration expert working with wealthy Chinese investors, has shed light of the extent of “questionable” foreign residential real estate investment in Australian, all the while supporting the Abbott Government’s planned reforms to strengthen Australia’s surveillance/enforcement regime.

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 February 2015.

The national auction clearance rate has started the year on a softer note, with clearances trending down and lower than the same time last year (see next chart).

All I want to do is go home but this can’t wait.

From the SMH: All banks and lenders will be visited by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) in the first three months of 2015, and if risky practices are identified, they face increased scrutiny.

By Leith van Onselen Residex has released its house and unit price data for December, which once again revealed exceptionally strong growth in Sydney, but patchy growth elsewhere.

By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 5 February 2015, the RP Data-Rismark 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, rose by 0.26% (see next chart). Home prices rose in all major capitals (see next chart).

HIA new homes sales for January are out and are clearly past the peak: Total seasonally adjusted new home sales declined by 1.9 per cent in December 2014, following a string of increases that began in August last year.

Via FTAlphville comes this from Alessandro Rebucci of Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, based on a BoE working paper that he recently co-authored: In some parts of the emerging world, housing markets have grown well ahead of income in recent years.