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...
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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...
Directly or indirectly, we all pay income tax
The mascot of the anti-land-tax campaign is the “poor widow” — you know, the one who will allegedly be forced out of her home because she doesn't have the cash flow to pay the tax on the astronomical value of the land under her house, and who...
Australian Cities Severely Unaffordable
The latest annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey ranks all Australian capitals as Severely Unaffordable. They’re right and the statistics back them. Housing has two elements, the building and the land. What fluctuates is the land price;...
A plague on Aussie housing
By Philip Soos Is Australia’s residential property market in a price bubble? This question has been much debated over recent years as housing prices leaped then slowly receded, resulting in entrenched views on both sides. Certainly, mainstream opinion is...
Melbourne Rents Falling
15 January 2013 MELBOURNE – The REIV yesterday forecast stable or declining nominal rents if current trends continue. This means rents are falling in real (after inflation) terms. “Shrinking residential rents are a profound set-back for negatively geared property...
Want a new GST? Sink the old one!
Changing the GST was always intended to be hard and is getting harder by the week. Under the so-called intergovernmental agreement on implementation of the GST, any change in the rate or the base required the unanimous approval of the Federal, State and Territory...
Time To Get Real
13 December 2012 Citizens deserve the truth: property prices are down -8.6 per cent nationally in real terms. Removing inflation from real estate prices reveals falls from peak of -11.2 per cent in Melbourne and -11.6 per cent in Brisbane in real terms, according to...
Taxi Licenses are Economic Rent
11 December 2012 Charging Victorian taxi license holders a stiff annual fee as Prof Allan Fels proposes should be welcomed by every citizen and immediately enacted by government, says Prosper Australia. “TaxiLink director Harry Katsianabis manages 160 taxi licenses...