BLOG: speculation

Why housing supply starts when speculation ends

Why housing supply starts when speculation ends

Prosper’s Director of Research and Policy, Tim Helm, was interviewed by Cameron Murray for the Fresh Economic Thinking podcast on 9 November 2023.  Their conversation covered the relationship between the prices of land and housing, how to define and measure...

Speculation, housing supply and prices

Speculation, housing supply and prices

A summary of recent research Speculation: it’s a Georgist obsession shared by few others. Landbanking, flipping, vacancy, delayed development, staged releases – how does any of this matter?  Speculative behaviour tells of the market at work, allocating capital and...

Australia: you’re being ripped off MERCILESSLY!

by Bryan Kavanagh “The more tuned out the general population, the more James can get away with his Game before voters notice.” A full house for the Melbourne book launch by co-author Dr Cameron Murray of the “Game of Mates: How Favours Bleed the Nation” at RMIT’s...

The fragrant vagrant is not a rose by another name

The fragrant vagrant is not a rose by another name

Melbourne City Council is wringing its hands again over developer land vagrancy – prime sites deliberately held vacant or with disused, dangerous buildings to assist developer lobbying of government for rezoning or advantageous building permits. The issue last hit the...

The Metricon Judgement

In March last year, the NSW Supreme Court set aside the NSW Office of State Revenue’s assessment for land tax in 2009-13 on certain lands at Terranora in the Tweed Valley held by Metricon. The developer bought the $60m aggregation to subdivide for residential use. It...

Missing the point on corruption

Missing the point on corruption

by Dr Cameron Murray reposted from macrobusiness On Friday 28th April I am appearing and Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission’s Operation Belcarra as an expert witness on relationships between councillors and property developers, and how that leads to...

Should children play with interest-only fireworks?

Investor interest-only loans are a key risk factor threatening to destabilize Australia’s mountain of private debt, according to investment firm Standard Life Investments, a keen observer of interest rates. IO loans are often associated with thin equity buffers, risky...