Prosper Australia

Reprinted from academic e-zine The Conversation In a previous article, I analysed four of the common arguments used by those who deny there is a bubble in Australia’s residential property market. The bubble deniers have employed other explanations for the largest run-up in prices in Australia’s 131 years of land sales records. Restrictive government regulations [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

photo credit: DrWurm A term employed in Vagrancy statutes to test whether an individual has any apparent ability to provide for himself or herself financially. The Law frowns upon people who make their living outside formal employment. Yet it bows deep before land and property. Irrational confidence has inflated property prices so far they bear [...]

photo credit: lynac The bullhawks are out in force, talking up last quarter’s smaller than expected price falls. Somehow here is evidence of the end of the downturn. Risk on! Throw caution to the winds! Really? It is easy to see why the bullhawks focus on that and claim it is simply noise, not a [...]