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...
BLOG: affordability
Our Interrelated Property Cycles – easy ‘windfall’ gains – but, what’s the Consequence?
There’s only one reason we have devastating house price booms and busts – the pre marker to any recession and economic disaster, and that is speculation induced in this case, through the privatisation of unearned gains.
Australian property through foreign eyes
By Catherine Cashmore, a market analyst, journalist, and policy thinker, with extensive industry experience in all aspects relating to property. Follow Catherine on Twitter or via her Blog. I had the good fortune to meet two investors from Dallas Texas last week –...
AHURI is ‘Home Alone’
In an extraordinary outburst, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has today embraced planning constraints on urban subdivision, elevating ‘developer certainty’ over the risk – heaven forbid! – of oversupply. I kid you not. “While it is almost...
Melbourne is planning to fail
The Victorian government today released its metropolitan planning strategy Plan Melbourne at an industry seminar in the Melbourne convention centre. It puts in place the preconditions for a city that is: • Economically divided • Highly livable for those with the price...
HIA should advocate inexpensive land
MELBOURNE:- Very poor residential land sales have prompted fresh pleading for the construction industry by the Housing Industry Association today in ‘Land Sales Signal Slow Home Building Recovery’ as new home buyers remain unwilling to commit at current high land...
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....
Melbourne needs Choo Choos!
The Victorian Government wants to, needs to, spend billions on Melbourne transport to catch up with the city’s explosive growth. As John Legge kindly points out in a must-read at The Age: “The affluent have crossed the Yarra and now colonise almost all of the zone-one...
Institutionalised exploitation – class warfare – infuriates me
‘We help property sellers sell’ is realestate.com.au’s proud claim. It is shocking to discover how far this News Corporation subsidiary is prepared to go to fullfil this promise. An un-named writer penned a delightful upbeat article on their website based on research...