After the flood-induced downdraft in housing prices, loan approvals on existing homes have been rising steadily since March. An interest rate cut is no certainty, says Christopher Joye of Property Observer.
Housing market
Housing shortage or a glut — just who do you believe?
The question of whether Australia is suffering a housing shortage continues to be hotly disputed.
The great mortgage stress myth: we’re paying off our homes faster
By the reaction in the media, yesterday’s rate cut by the Reserve Bank is the greatest thing since, well, the last rate cut 31 months ago. But the narrative of mortgage stress is a myth — we’re paying off our homes faster.
Carbon tax to add $6000 to cost of new house/land
It’s inevitable that because of the carbon tax the cost of building will increase, and as a consequence, be passed onto the purchaser, writes property adviser Catherine Cashmore.
Schwab: Gottliebsen got it wrong on bank executives
Perhaps Business Spectator’s legendary columnist Robert Gottliebsen isn’t reading Steve Keen’s columns (or these ones) particularly closely. If he did, he probably wouldn’t be blaming the bankers’ communication skills for their current public relations foibles.
Why are outer-suburban houses so damn big?
Everyone knows that Australians build the largest new houses in the world. According to the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, real expenditure on each new dwelling is now 60% higher than it was 15 years ago, writes Alan Davies of the Melbourne Urbanist.
A US housing recovery? Get real
Beware anybody who says the housing market in the US is “bottoming.” They are either misinformed or have an agenda, because the decline is continuing and it’s going to be a slow and costly turnaround, writes John Mauldin.
Property bubble: let’s get the facts straight, please
The misreporting of Australia’s residential property market continues unabated, while the body in charge of Australia’s money supply continues to deny the existence of a debt-fuelled housing bubble.
Get set for another surplus: this time in housing
Combined with increasing interest rates (as the cost of money returns to a more reasonable level), it appears that the market will be belatedly doing its job, proving the adage, the solution to high prices is … high prices.
Rentals: what the (land)lord giveth, the (land)lord taketh away
While the real estate industry and its dependents continue to trump residential property as an investment, many Australians are becoming increasingly frustrated with a growing lack of affordability of capital city housing.
While indicators show another malaise, optimistic markets ignore grey clouds
Despite myriad indicators that financial markets will fall into another malaise, it appears that Mr Market remains in a state of blessed optimism, ignorant of the grey clouds appearing on the economic horizon.
Foreigners and housing: a sense of scale
Foreign investors are actually only a very small slice of Australia’s housing market. So why are we blaming the Chinese for our own housing supply problems?
Property bubble continues: but how will the asset boom play out?
While the residential property bubble continues in earnest, the mainstream media is beginning to take divergent views in how the asset boom will play out.
Sinophobia and the property boom
Chinese investment in Australian residential property is starting to generate heat for the Government. But things aren’t as simple as the critics make out.
Joye: Bursting the housing bubble myths
Journos and economists are obsessed with creating a housing bubble, writes Christopher Joye, as he debunks some of the common housing market myths. No, Melbourne house prices are not ‘booming’.
Final word: Keen offers no property market alternative
Steve Keen says it is time for him to withdraw from the media and start doing some technical research on the property market. Business Spectator’s Christopher Joye couldn’t agree more.
Residential lending may hurt us in the long run
While politicians and the media laud Australia’s “world-beating” property market, precious capital is being greedily soaked up by an asset class that confers minimal economic benefits.
Irvine: Buying a house just a dream once more
Australian home prices rose 11 percent in the first 11 months of last year. Interest rates are tipped to rise again. A typical first home buyer needs a deposit worth one year of their income. The housing affordability crisis is back, warns Jessica Irvine.
Big lie theory explains how the bubble inflates
Why are seemingly rational people paying so much more for property than they did even as recently at 10 years ago? They fall for the “property lie”: the myth that property “never falls in value” and will be “more expensive next year”.
The facts on housing? You can’t handle the facts
Christopher Joye takes on Crikey’s Adam Schwab, writing that the frustrating truth is that the hard facts on housing do not support their hyperbole.
Lending figures vindicate RBA’s interest rate strategy
Today’s ABS lending figures contain some good news for the health of financial markets, and a partial vindication of the RBA’s interest rate strategy.
NAB data has RBA humming a rate rise tune
Buried in yesterday’s very upbeat business confidence and conditions survey from the National Australia Bank was a surprisingly negative forecast on house prices for 2010.
It’s the leverage, stupid
Steve Keen may have lost his bet with Rory Robertson on house prices, but he’s still right on the fundamentals, he argues: the crisis would have occurred long ago and been far less severe if governments and central banks hadn’t attempted to rescue the system from its own follies.
Gottliebsen: The Australian dream is over
Yesterday’s rate rise, coupled with recent changed to Australia’s superannuation policy, locks us into a nation-changing situation: we will soon be a nation of renters, says Robert Gottliebsen.
Aussies, it seems, under Mr Market’s intoxicating spell
The ABS, Australian Property Monitors and RP Data are all indicating that Australian residential property prices are nearing or exceeding record levels, spurred by continued use of debt by many buyers to fund the great Australian dream.
