Prosper Australia

Citizens retreat confused when talk turns to Economic Rents. The taxi industry is an excellent example of how assets granted by government create economic rents – at the expense of the wider community. There are 5181 taxi licences in Victoria, of which the Department of Transport’s Victorian Taxi Directorate leases about 1100 licences to operators [...]

ABS Inflation data out today shows a big fat zero: we have nil inflation, at least for this quarter. The consequences for interest rates are profound. Mortgage rates may seem reasonable at 6 to 7 per cent.  In practice they are agony. A real interest rate of 6 per cent is a significant transfer of [...]

12 January 2012 Prosper calls for timely, rigorous and transparent statistics on property sales to be collected by the ABS. “Property is the single largest asset market in Australia – worth around $5 Trillion,” Prosper Australia Campaign Manager David Collyer said today. “It is of profound importance to individual and national prosperity. The lack of [...]

The Australian property market ended 2011 on the ground in a foetal position after a serious assault by Harsh Reality. Symptoms include: • A year’s supply of unsold houses on the market • Low and falling building applications • Low and falling finance approvals • Failing auctions nationwide • First home buyer indifference • Universal [...]

16 December 2011 MELBOURNE:- The number of properties offered for sale and unsold in Melbourne continues to grow. In the last 30 days ‘Stale Stock’ has risen 4.2 % to 94,467, after 6.2% growth last month. This follows a 20.4 per cent rise in September and an 18 per cent rise in August. “Supply and [...]

Australian land prices are falling. They will continue to fall until their fundamental economic link to incomes and rents are fully restored. Many with large mortgages will be crushed by these towering liabilities when their equity is erased. This claim is bitterly resisted by the politico-housing complex and most homeowners, who see the exponential land [...]

    The City of Boroondara craves more parkland. Council wants open space within 500 metres of all residents without crossing a major road. This is a worthy objective that will improve the health and wellbeing of all, and every local government should embrace the idea. There are a few problems. Boroondara will have to [...]

photo credit: Elsie esq. Australian property prices are so over-valued their return to the long term trend will make the painful bubble burst in the USA look like a child’s picnic. Government, major banks and property speculators used every tool in reach to keep alive this Ponzi scheme – Hyman Minsky’s term for borrowers reliant [...]

photo credit: Ennor 17 November 2011 MELBOURNE:- The number of unsold properties in Melbourne has risen another 6.2 per cent in the last month, following a 20.4 per cent rise earlier, and an 18 per cent rise the month before that. “’Stale Stock’ on the market is up a net 51 per cent in three [...]