Australian Property

Click to view RP Data’s latest weekly housing market update, which provides a useful snapshot of the housing market as at 28 September 2014.

By Leith van Onselen Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) officials appeared before the Senate Committee on affordable housing yesterday and signaled that APRA would likely introduce macro-prudential measures to curb high risk mortgage lending by the end of this year.

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

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

By Leith van Onselen The chief of one of China’s largest developers, Country Garden’s Johnson Zhang, has played down concerns that Chinese investment into Australian housing is driving-up home prices and shutting-out locals, instead arguing that there is plenty of second hand stock available for locals.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: Is there a national housing supply problem?

By Leith van Onselen Former RBA board member, Professor Warwick McKibbin, has delivered the RBA a serve, blaming the central bank’s ultra low interest rate settings for fuelling unprecedented investor housing speculation, and blowing a potential housing bubble.

By Catherine Cashmore, a market analyst, journalist, and policy thinker, with extensive industry experience in all aspects relating to property.

By David Collyer, cross-posted from Prosper Australia: Angus Raine of RE agents Raine & Horne burst into song about property taxes in a letter on page 55 of the Australian Financial Review today- and what a nice cartoon, Clement!

By Leith van Onselen Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann, has ruled-out allowing first-time home buyers to access their superannuation to pay a house deposit, arguing that such a move would merely inflate house prices further.

By Leith van Onselen RP Data’s price results are in for September, with the daily index recording a 0.10% rise over the month at the 5-city level, with values rising in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, but falling in Melbourne and Perth (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen Watching Business Spectator’s Alan Kohler take contradictory positions on Australian housing over the past two weeks has been a sight to behold.

By Leith van Onselen The RBA released its quarterly household balance sheet statistics on Friday, which revealed that Australian mortgage debt hit the highest level on record in the June quarter when measured against household disposable income.

By Leith van Onselen The Age has a series of feature articles today on the budding oversupply of apartments in and around Melbourne’s CBD, which is dampening both prices and rents.

The national auction clearance rate rebounded over the weekend on the back of rises in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. However, volumes were down materially owing to the AFL Grand Final (go Hawks!).

Click to view RP Data’s latest weekly housing market update, which provides a useful snapshot of the housing market as at 28 September 2014.

By Martin North, cross-posted from the Digital Finance Analytics Blog: I did an interview for the ABC, on the RBA Financial Stability Review.

Chris Joye has delivered another reality check to the RBA, citing a former senior economist at the central bank, Jeremy Lawson, who believes the RBA mis-calculated the surge in investor-driven speculation.