A fact-free defence of urban planners in The Conversation yesterday has left me fuming about how this group is immersed in process and blind to The Game being played around them. The Game boosts land prices, creates serviced land shortages and impoverishes all...
BLOG: boom-bust
Listed Developer Englobo Holdings
7 March 2013 Prosper Australia today issues its update of ‘Englobo’ holdings of listed property developers (attached), as revealed in their audited half year accounts recently released to the Australian Stock Exchange. Based on last year’s sales - the current...
A long, ugly list of house price precedents
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
Englobo
Land in Australia should be dirt cheap. Outstanding access to land ought be a national advantage, generously conferred by a loving government upon its people.