by Cameron Murray Property development can be a dirty business, particularly when it comes to land-banking, which is the speciality of Australia’s largest developers. Land-banking involves the speculative buying of large parcels of land that are currently unsuitable for development…
PRESS RELEASE 19 May 2015 MELBOURNE:- Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has endorsed moves by South Australia to abolish Stamp Duty and replace it with a nil exemption, broad-based land tax. He said the cost of an annual land tax would…
by Bryan Kavanagh reposted from On-Line Opinion Whilst in Newgate Prison (1827-1830) for the abduction of heiress Ellen Turner, Edward Gibbon Wakefield had a great idea. If you kept land prices high in the new British colonies, people could be…
West Australia’s Barnett government has just handed down its budget. It is the ugliest baby I have ever seen. The AFR reports: All key financial measures have been blown apart in the state budget, with net debt (above $30 billion)…
The Abbott government has agreed to spend $250 million on the 2016 census and to replace the Australian Bureau of Statistics computer systems, parts of which are 30 years old. The census is a critically important national statistical tool. It…
The South Australian government is undertaking a tax review to boost state competitiveness and economic efficiency. Their main focus is considering abolishing conveyencing Stamp Duty and funding this by removing exemptions from the existing State Land Tax. Prosper Australia has…
by Lindsay David If I were an Australian central banker, politician, bank economist, or even a negatively geared property investor, I’d be telling you Australia has a chronic housing shortage, which is responsible for our sky-high housing prices. But as…
By Leith van Onselen Core Logic-RP Data has released its Capital Markets Report for 2015, which contains some disturbing data on Australia’s land costs, which have gone vertical despite shrinking in size: The price of vacant residential land across the…
By Leith van Onselen Hot on the heels of Prime Minister, Tony Abbott’s gutless announcement that he won’t reform negative gearing, prime spokesman for the property industry, the Property Council of Australia (PCA), has released the following statement: Executive Director,…
New Sydney flats will have to be bigger, the NSW Land and Environment Court ruled last week, overturning long accepted common practice allowing minimum one-bedroom unit sizes at 50m2. Dual-aspect flats must be a minimum 58m2 and more common single-aspect…