BLOG: boom-bust

On the edge of realty (sic)

AHURI published Friday an important new research paper ‘The edges of home ownership’ about churn in the property market that deserves our close scrutiny and debate. Wood, Ong et al compare the UK and Australian experience of those leaving and reentering home ownership...

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...

AFR deafens its readers

The Australian Financial Review today 19 September has no less than four articles disputing the existence of The Great Australian Land Bubble. Your civic duty to buy, buy buy by Jennifer Hewett Page 2 RBA hoses down property bubble talk by George Liondis and Jonathan...

Property bubble? That’s the theory, anyway

By Philip Soos Reprinted from The Conversation As Australian housing prices have boomed over the last decade and a half, there has been much discussion over whether a bubble exists in the residential property market. More recently, the concern is the record-low...

Rentals Brittle, Under Pressure

Last week the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) held a seminar in Melbourne on the serious stresses on renter households that have emerged over the last twenty years. Dr Wendy Stone from Swinburne found: • A decline in overall private rental...

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...

Victorian Values

‘A Guide to Property Values 2012’ by Victoria’s Valuer General was released July 5. It has been comprehensively ignored. The report dissects property transfers and prices lodged with the titles office. This dataset is the actuals, the definitive historical record, and...

A sore lesson from housing history

It is often said those who fail to understand the mistakes of the past are bound to repeat it. In one area, this holds spectacularly true: the residential real estate market. History has shown time and again the fortunes of Australians are closely linked to the...

Bad taxes blight our land

  Last week I offered a solution to the blight caused by vacant or disused sites in central Melbourne. Everyone is diminished by landowners leaving valuable land unused while they agitate for rezoning profits. The Age’s Bruce Guthrie hopped into the discussion...

Land Bubble, Tax Bubble

  by Bryan Kavanagh reposted from On-line Opinion I'm constantly told Australia's land prices are astronomically high because of our high rate of immigration and the shortage of supply of residential allotments So, it seems the price of a block of land has simply...