Cameron Murray from Fresh Economic Thinking provides insight on why today's housing modeling is not up to the task of providing accurate insights into urban development. The workhorse model of urban economics is the Alonso-Muth-Mills (AMM) model of the mono-centric...
BLOG: Commentary
Whether limiting negative gearing to new homes would raise rents
by Dr Gavin Putland Land Values Research Group For the first time that this writer can remember, a major political party is going into a federal election with a policy which, on its face, is designed to reduce the rate of increase of residential rents, allowing...
Foreign investor tax slug spreads
Catherine Cashmore appeared on Channel 9 news last night to discuss the fact we are building the wrong type of stock to meet our growing community. The report compared the 80,000 apartments due to come onto the market over the next few years with the 80,000 vacant...
Perth rents free-fall liberates the tenantry
, Perth house rents have fallen 8.4 per cent in the last year and units by 9.3 per cent according to SQM Research. High pay in the mining investment boom drew many skilled engineering professionals and trades to Perth. They are now going home, seen in the steep...
Bad taxes are destroying our jobs and enterprises – here’s proof
World-class fertiliser producer Incitec Pivot Ltd has painfully written $105m off its Gibson Island plant in Brisbane – squeezed by high gas costs, low Urea prices and bad taxes – just as it enters a major 'shut' to refurbish this key national industrial asset....
4 Corners hard-boils ‘Home Truths’ from our land bubble
Australia’s premier TV current affairs program 4 Corners has a reputation for game-changing. Thoughtful analysis and a giant audience will do that. When it thunders, the time has arrived for a full reset. Last night’s episode ‘Home Truths’ lanced The Great Australian...
4 Corners: Home Truths
President Catherine Cashmore has been busy with the 4 Corners team filming a number of scenes around Melbourne. Tonight we find out which scenes make national TV in a much overdue investigation into the pressure housing affordability places on society. Thanks to all...
Who Owns the Earth?
As published on Aeon, this gives a solid grounding in the overall philosophy of our equal right to the value of the earth. The best article I have read this year. by Antonia Malchik My mother likes to say she was born out of the back of a ’39 Ford. She wasn’t,...
Speculation defeating productivity
Forthcoming elections have divided the USA, the UK and Australia over much the same issue: the big end of town versus people expressing concern at their isolation from the political process. The sins of Wall Street in capturing unearned incomes via inflated mortgages...
Does your SMSF have a goat?
Those with a Self Managed Superannuation Fund who hold englobo land in Victoria will need a fresh accessory after the state budget: a goat to eat weeds. Treasurer Tim Pallas has kindly extended the englobo wheeze that deems unimproved land within urban growth...