Seller Strike, Buyer Strike
The solid new trend of falling house prices is confirmed by the ABS today with real prices now in retreat for seven quarters and the downward path accelerating.
David Collyer
Repeal Stamp Duty!
Buying a home is a major life-event. Most people need a mortgage to bridge the gap between their savings and house prices. But the Victorian government imposes Stamp Duty at this critical point, increasing the capital needed and lengthening mortgage repayments by an average seven years. Many citizens are either excluded or deterred from home ownership by this extra cost, which traps them in the rental market. We are all diminished.
There is a better way. Remove this burden and fund the change by ending the principal residence exemption from State Land Tax an efficient and just way to fund government.
Nine Quarters of Weak Land Sales
Australia has experienced nine quarters of falling land sales volumes with the last five quarters flatlining forty per cent below long term averages. The big falls in prices we have been predicting are now a certainty.
The Sunshine State at Sunset
If BoQ writes big losses and needs capital due to land price falls so far, what shape will the bank be in when the big corrections start?
Land price too high
From the Canberra Times 5 April 2012. Your article “Capital’s housing prices highest in the country” (April 3, p1) was missing one very important word – land. As we move toward Canberra’s centenary celebrations it is time to reflect on…
Now Everyone Hates Stamp Duty
On Monday the Real Estate Institute of Victoria made public its submission to the Victorian Government on the framing of the state budget. They are big-hearted enough to call for an end to the First Home Bonus – a ‘gift’…
What a party; what a hangover!
Asset prices falls come straight off our personal equity, our savings, while liabilities – mainly the home mortgage – are payable in full with interest from after-tax incomes. Returning to – overshooting – the long-term land price average is going to be quite an experience for anyone with big borrowings.
Don’t Buy Now! campaign saves buyers $58,000 in one year
28 March 2012 Young homebuyers who took Prosper Australia’s advice – Don’t Buy Now! – exactly a year ago have typically saved themselves $58,000. “I congratulate everyone who stood aside from this dreadful Ponzi scheme known as the Australian property…
Was Lloyds Bank the ONLY silly lender in Australia?
Lloyds Bank is selling a $2.1 billion book of bad Australian commercial property loans and expects to take a fifty per cent haircut. There is more. Morgan Stanley is alleged to have bought a Lloyds’ Gold Coast loan book with…
House prices are falling – somewhere else
The land market is totally ‘gamed’ by spruikers spouting charming but misleading anecdotes and snippets of information, merely to foster ‘confidence’ and keep the mammoth Ponzi scheme going – even in a falling market.