By Catherine Cashmore, a market analyst, journalist, and policy thinker, with extensive industry experience in all aspects relating to property. Follow Catherine on Twitter or via her Blog. Five years on since the US recession ‘officially’ ended in June 2009, urban land prices are rising, the pattern of history is repeating, and this time, the
By Leith van Onselen As noted by Houses & Holes earlier this morning, the Bank of England (BoE) has announced that it will implement so-called macro-prudential controls on higher risk mortgage lending by limiting 15% of all new mortgage lending (per bank) to 4.5 times income. It is a positive step, and should help to
By Chris Becker It seems you can’t go wrong speculating on property, as capital gains in London – 19% for the year or £71,000 – are almost double the average post-tax income for Londoners! A shocking chart from FT Alphaville tells the tale: It’s even better in Sydney where house prices are up nearly 15% this year
By Leith van Onselen The International Monetary Fund (IMF) last night published a blog post warning of the reemergence of frothiness in the world’s housing markets, where values are once again rising at an accelerating rate (see next chart). According to the IMF, “33 out of 52 countries in our Global House Price Index showed
By Leith van Onselen In 2005, the UK’s Policy Exchange released a fascinating research paper describing (amongst other things) Ireland’s dysfunctional urban planning system, whereby the Government granted planning permits too late in response to rising demand, resulting in the building of large numbers of standardised, small, poor quality homes in satellite locations far away
By Leith van Onselen While Australia’s Reserve Bank continues to bury its head in the sand, the Bank of England (BoE) has joined the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in issuing stern warnings about risks building in the housing market, and is now looking to implement macro-prudential controls on mortgage lending. In an interview with
By Leith van Onselen Professor Paul Cheshire from the London School of Economics has produced a new report slamming UK planning policy, which has dramatically forced-up urban land prices, especially in the South East, and disproportionately harmed the poor. From The Guardian: …restrictive planning laws have turned houses in the south-east into valuable assets in
Cross-posted from the UK Conversation: In what he described as the most sweeping changes to pensions and savings since 1921, the United Kingdom’s George Osborne radically changed the rules which govern how pensioners get hold of their retirement savings. He may have just lit a fuse underneath an already heated housing market too. His decision
By Leith van Onselen Capital Markets’ Roger Bootle has published an interesting article in the UK Telegraph asking whether housing is “the greatest investment delusion known to man”: The worst aspect of all this [escalating house prices] is that although particular individuals become better off as a result, people overall do not. The housing market
A bunch of stories today show that the capital flight out of China and into Western real estate is not a localised phenomenon, nor are the risks associated with it. In London, it become an issue worthy of street protests: Cheryl Coyne shouted “No more homes for millionaires!” with protesters dressed as pirates outside London
By Leith van Onselen The Guardian has posted an interesting article about a new proposal in the UK aimed at alleviating London’s housing shortage by taxing investors that buy new dwellings and then leave them vacant: “Buy-to-leave” investors could be fined up to £60,000 in an assault on empty housing being considered by a London
By Leith van Onselen The New York Times has published an interesting article on some of the pitfalls of reverse mortgages, which are exhausting inheritances across America: … a growing number of baby boomers [are] confronting a bitter inheritance: The same loans that were supposed to help their elderly parents stay in their houses are
From Saxo Bank’s chief economist Steen Jakobsen via the AFR: One, don’t be surprised if the Reserve Bank of Australia cuts the official cash rate to 1.75 per cent… Two, there’s more chance of him being selected to play football for Denmark than the official cash rate rising. Three, the Australian dollar might have a run up
The case of Herbert Sukenik being paid $17million in 2005 to leave his rent-controlled NYC apartment has been receiving a great deal of attention online recently. At the risk of perpetuating the brilliant viral marketing campaign for Michael Gross’ new book, which is in fact the source of the story, I want to make a
I noted yesterday that Australia needs to take action to prevent an inflow of Chinese money from pricing Australian youth further out of the housing market. Canada recently took such steps by closing its wealthy investor visa program (that is booming here). Some Chinese millionaires are not happy: A group of wealthy mainlanders has criticised
By Leith van Onselen For years I have argued that markets where land/housing supply is unresponsive (inelastic) – via planning constraints or geographical barriers – are far more prone to suffer from more expensive housing, higher house price volatility, and bigger boom and bust cycles than markets where land/housing supply is relatively responsive (elastic) to
By Leith van Onselen Earlier this week I published an article explaining how Australia’s housing obsession is killing productivity. The article seems to have resonated with the Keiser Report’s Stacey Herbert, who yesterday ran a segment discussing housing’s link to productivity, citing key quotes and charts from my post (video above). For those that are interested
By Leith van Onselen January’s house price results, released yesterday by Teranet, revealed that Canadian house values continued their upward march, posting a new all-time high after registering 0.4% growth in January, with prices also up 4.5% over the year and 31% above their April 2009 trough: In real terms, Canadian house prices also hit
By Leith van Onselen For years I have argued that the UK operates world’s worst practice when it comes to housing policy. A key tenet of the UK’s housing malaise is the highly restrictive UK planning system, which has severely limited land supply and forced-up the cost of housing – benefiting those that already own
By Leith van Onselen December’s house price results, released yesterday by Teranet, revealed that Canadian house values rose marginally over the month (+0.1%) to a new record high, with prices also up 3.8% over the year and 30% above their April 2009 trough: In real terms, Canadian house prices also hit a new peak, with
By Leith van Onselen For years I have argued that the UK operates world’s worst practice when it comes to housing policy. A key tenet of the UK’s housing malaise is the highly restrictive UK planning system, which has severely limited land supply and forced-up the cost of housing – benefiting those that already own
By Leith van Onselen Sweden’s housing market shares a lot of similarities with Australia. As was the case in Australia, Sweden’s financial system was deregulated in the mid-1980s, which led to a house price boom and then correction as the Swedish economy entered recession in the early-1990s. However, whereas Australia’s banking system was almost brought
Cross-posted from Martin North’s DFA blog. Overnight the Bank of England announced the termination of their Funding for Lending (FLS) scheme, moving to direct assistance to the small and medium business sector. The FLS was a mechanism to give funding direct to the banks to enable them to lend to borrowers in an attempt to
By Leith van Onselen October’s house price results released recently by Teranet revealed that Canadian house values rose marginally over the month (+0.1%) to a new record high, with prices also 30% above their April 2009 trough: In real terms, Canadian house prices also hit a new peak, with prices also 20% above their April
By Leith van Onselen I have written recently how Ireland’s dysfunctional planning system exacerbated its housing bust by granting planning permits too late in response to rising demand, resulting in the hastened building of large numbers of standardised, small, poor quality homes in satellite locations far away from the major cities. According to Quartz, Ireland
If you have a spare 15 minutes today, check-out the above video from Aljazeera exploring housing bubbles across the world, and the social and economic factors affecting home ownership. It also shows the widespread politics of failure in housing policy across a number of markets.
By Leith van Onselen This blog has dedicated significant effort questioning the axioms underpinning Australia’s urban planning system. This system has grown increasingly restrictive as urban growth boundaries (UGBs), minimum targets for ‘brownfield’ development, up-front infrastructure charges, amongst other measures, have been implemented across jurisdictions since the late 1990s/early 2000s. These urban consolidation planning tools
By Catherine Cashmore, a market analyst and journalist with extensive experience in all aspects relating to property acquisition. Follow Catherine on Twitter or via here Blog. Land. Since history began, it has remained an integral part of the most valuable asset man desired, fought over, possessed and in many cases died for. Indeed, property rights are
By Leith van Onselen In 2005, the UK’s Policy Exchange released a fascinating research paper describing (amongst other things) Ireland’s dysfunctional urban planning system, whereby the Government granted planning permits too late in response to rising demand, resulting in the building of large numbers of standardised, small, poor quality homes in satellite locations far away
By Leith van Onselen This week, I was asked by New Zealand’s leading finance and business commentary site, Interest.co.nz, to publish a guest post for their Friday Top 10. Given the vigorous debate in New Zealand around housing affordability and freeing up the planning system, I decided to use the post as an opportunity to
