Latest News & Commentary
Canberra Land Lease reform
Canberra Times March 17, 2013 Christopher Erskine (Time for a new lease on life, March 9, p7) is correct that it was the writings of American political economist Henry George that inspired Canberra's founders to put in place a leasehold system of land tenure. It was...
Stamp Duty: Inefficient, Unreliable, Inequitable
Victoria’s new Treasurer Michael O’Brien has called for a discussion on ending Stamp Duty on property conveyances. Prosper welcomes this opportunity to consider the quality of Victoria’s tax bases and the costs they impose on citizens. Stamp Duty is a very bad...
Englobo II: The Money Sleeps
A fact-free defence of urban planners in The Conversation yesterday has left me fuming about how this group is immersed in process and blind to The Game being played around them. The Game boosts land prices, creates serviced land shortages and impoverishes all...
Listed Developer Englobo Holdings
7 March 2013 Prosper Australia today issues its update of ‘Englobo’ holdings of listed property developers (attached), as revealed in their audited half year accounts recently released to the Australian Stock Exchange. Based on last year’s sales - the current...
Hot Speculative Money & Asia
Governments in China, Hong Kong and Singapore are acting to curb property speculation. Zero Hedge comments: The reason for this "hot money" phenomenon is the easy money policy adopted by all the world's central banks (except for the PBOC of course, which is forced to...
A long, ugly list of house price precedents
by Philip Soos For those interested in the Australian residential property market, below are a collection of figures illustrating long-term trends. Housing prices and land values are compared to a basket of fundamental metrics. Australians are fortunate because much...
SMSF – Speculatively Manipulated Skiing Fiesta
That's what the locked out generations may well name Self Manged Super Funds in time. With all the talk about superannuation reform coming out of Canberra, we thought it timely to ask why the latest in speculative subsidies isn't under review? The ability to buy...
The Land market’s big sigh
The ABS House Price Indexes 8 Capital Cities Dec 2012 6416.0 was released this morning and shows prices rising 2.1 per cent for the year and 1.6 per cent for the quarter. This result will encourage those who see expensive land as a badge of honor. It provides...
If you run a business on rented premises and aren’t a full-on Georgist, you need your head read!
“When you've paid your rent, you've paid your tax.” “So what's a Georgist?” you ask. A Georgist (or at least a “full-on” Georgist) is someone who says there should be no taxes except those on land values, payable by the owners — and is keen to explain that “land”...
The irregular ratio spooking property
by Philip Soos Escalating housing costs have, of course, received much attention as both prices and rents increased faster than incomes and inflation over the last decade. In this vein, property research firm RP Data launched a monthly report called Buy vs....
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