Schroders has a paper out on Australian real estate investment trusts (REITs) A wolf in REIT’s clothing that should have every RE executive checking the polish on their shoes. David Wanis is as dour as a parson, predicting a ~1.6% return for each of the next three...
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The FIRB’s new milk teeth
The report of the parliamentary committee inquiry into the Foreign Investment Review Board is out. The inquiry has been conducted with great fanfare to edify the Liberals’ rising star and MHR for Higgins Kelly O’Dwyer. And what are its findings, once the...
ASIC ignores reports of mortgage fraud by lenders
by Paul Egan & Philip Soos- Co-Author’s ‘Bubble Economics: Australian Land Speculation 1830 – 2013’ Exuberant household credit growth over the last twenty years has a sinister dimension: the likelihood of widespread predatory lending and bank fraud. Every...
Negative Equity – Australia’s Wall of Pain
Recent stress-testing of Australian banks by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority showed they would survive, though their capital would be sorely tested. This analysis did not take into account an important feedback loop: the erasure of the equity of heavily...
Nathan’s Story
My partner and I are 28. We went to an open for inspection of a house we liked and thought we could afford. We turned up just before he closed. There was an older couple there in their 50-60's. The price was 'from $600k+' on the sign in sheet we left with him. On it...
Australia’s twin economic diseases
Australia has two infections that compromise our economic health. Their remarkably similar symptoms – fever, delirium, impaired judgement - muddy diagnosis and hamper effective treatment. Most are familiar with ‘Dutch disease’, where a resource bounty – in Holland’s...
Report: Speculative Vacancies 7
Download Catherine Cashmore's investigation into why empty investor homes are ignored in Speculative Vacancies 7. Read past vacancy reports. Related media: Press Release - Empty Investment Homes Hurt Affordability Renegade Economists radio interview with Catherine...
How to get the states on board federal reform
By Leith van Onselen The AFR’s Alan Mitchell has written a solid piece prognosticating about the best tax reform options to reform Australia’s federation. Predictably, Mitchell mentions raising/broadening the GST in exchange for lower income taxes, which according to...
Property saves the Victorian Budget
Republished with kind permission from www.macrobusiness.com.au By Leith van Onselen The Victorian Government has released its 2013-14 Annual Financial Report, which revealed a $2 billion surplus in 2013-14 – the largest Budget surplus recorded for the state in 15...
Australia’s Addiction to Private Debt
by Philip Soos and Paul D. Egan A perennial and divisive issue in politics and economics today is the matter of public debt. It is commonly asserted that rising public debt threatens the economy and needs to be reined in. Governments are often portrayed...