Global Housing

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

By Leith van Onselen For years I have argued that the UK operates world’s worst practice when it comes to housing policy.

By Leith van Onselen For years I have argued that the UK operates world’s worst practice when it comes to housing policy.

By Leith van Onselen Sweden’s housing market shares a lot of similarities with Australia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

By Leith van Onselen A number of researchers and commentators in the United States are scratching their heads over the decline in labour mobility, which is said to be increasing income inequality and reducing the nation’s potential economic growth, since labour is not shifting to where it is most needed.

By Leith van Onselen Earlier this week, FT Alphaville published an article questioning the notion that London housing is in the midst of another boom/bubble, instead arguing that prices may have crashed: London is in the grip of a terrible and deep housing bust that has only just begun to turn.