Prosper Australia

The system gives the thumbs up to such activity, but we must alert you to the latest ‘capital gains’ success story trumpeted in today’s Business Age (check p10*). Solomon Lew bought 151- 165 Franklin St (CBD) in 1982 for $810,000. He sold it recently for $30m. That’s equivalent to paying him and his holding company [...]

photo credit: UGArdener   This morning, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glen Stevens appeared on Seven Network’s Sunrise program to talk up interest rates and talk down the property market. Using tabloid television to broadcast RBA views is unprecedented. It prefers to communicate via densely written statements, opaque economic speak and background briefings to senior [...]

photo credit: chrisjohnbeckett With the housing bubble accelerating each day, sometimes you wonder if it is ever going to pop. Tim Colebatch has written a number of key articles of recent, including this one on negative gearing pointing out that investors now account for 40% of all loans for established homes, rather than just 8% [...]

photo credit: aphasiafilms Letter to the Editor David Collyer Balwyn THANK YOU, Tim Colebatch, for your clear-eyed review of our hopelessly distorted housing market (”Housing at these prices will leave us all a heavy debt to bear”, Comment, 23/3). Your solution – to quarantine negative gearing – invites the property spivs to (again) deafen us [...]

photo credit: CarbonNYC Media Release “We have the means at hand to liberate the citizens of our great country from their current financial difficulties,” Prosper Australia’s Karl Fitzgerald said today. “The answer lies in reforming our tax system. A major petition to the Australian Parliament calling for the reintroduction of a Federal Land Tax is [...]

photo credit: CoolValley A major tax battle is underway in Kansas City, Missouri. A petition to eliminate the city’s earnings tax worth $200 million a year has opened minds to the introduction of Land Tax. Read The Kansas City Star’s excellent analysis

photo credit: mugley Letter to the Editor David Barkly Nunawading Speculators have excelled themselves with their land banking. A realistic flat-rate land tax would discourage speculation. It would be equitable because land values rise due to community action, including the provision of infrastructure such as railways, roads, public buildings and other facilities, not through the [...]

photo credit: Chapmanc123 Huge land bank puts squeeze on buyers ‘We release land in a staged manner to meet demand because it would not benefit anybody to flood the market” said Stockland’s General Manager Andrew Whitson Wouldn’t benefit anybody Andrew? Well perhaps it should be re-written as ‘wouldn’t benefit shareholders‘. It’s easy to get all [...]

photo credit: smokeshowing Consider these three points: Property developers have openly stated they are reducing the supply of property to the market in order to massage land banking profits: While some already owe more than their home is worth, the result of prices initially boosted by first home buyer grants, but which fell when the [...]

You’ve got to love real estate spruikers. They are so consistent and always so wrong. David Morrell purports to be a buyers’ advocate. On 5th March in The Age he was saying how you can’t go wrong with “land banking” in Toorak. Well maybe. Land banking is the quite revolting activity of buying up desirable [...]