11 July 2012 ABS Housing Finance data out today shows a 7.3 per cent fall in commitments to buy new-built houses in a singe month. This follows a 9.3 per cent fall the month before. "Established house price are now at such a discount to newly-built that buyers are...
BLOG: boom-bust
Housing flips into oversupply: it’s official
3 July 2012 ABS Census data just released shows 1.1 million fewer households and 595,000 fewer houses in Australia than previous estimates; Morgan Stanley researchers calculate Australia now has a 341,000 OVERSUPPLY of houses. The Census revision obliged National...
Giant Savings in Don’t Buy Now!
26 June 2012 Homebuyers who took Prosper Australia’s advice – Don’t Buy Now! – exactly five quarters ago have typically saved themselves $64,000 from the fall in property prices compared to someone who bought. Major land price falls mean a smaller mortgage, saving a...
Broadacre Land Prices To Fall Hard
13 June 2012 Victoria Planning Minister Matthew Guy has made big land price falls on Melbourne's outskirts a certainty with his extension of the metropolitan boundary by around 7000 hectares. "The gaping chasm between developer supply and buyer demand has never been...
Weak Construction gets Weaker
Dwelling construction continues to fall, according to the AIG-HIA Performance of Construction Index for May. Commercial construction and house building activity weakened to 34.7, where anything below 50.0 represents contraction. In parallel, the ABS Building Approvals...
Tidal Race
Tidal Race. Definition: a stream of exceptionally fast tidal flow created when the tide is forced through a constriction. Australians are saving like mad and quickly paying down debt. But we stand in a Tidal Race, where the water rises faster than a person can run....
Understanding Cause and Effect
Reposted from Bryan Kavanagh's thedepression.org.au, an excellent source of dissident economic analysis. It helps that he is correct. If you jump off the top of a tall building, you’ll go splat at the bottom: that’s simple physics. We are told economic laws are not as...
Land Rent = Job Creation
A nifty clip from our South African colleagues Karen Cooper and Peter Meakin. Of note is their useful method comparing 300Rd p/m in land rent to the 60,000Rd we currently pay to banksters.
Muck in Marrickville
Today's Sydney Morning Herald has a breathless article about a flipper couple who bought, renovated and have for sale a Marrickville terrace. The underlying message: there’s profit in the renovation game. My back-of-envelope calculations based on the article’s figures...
Seller Strike, Buyer Strike
The solid new trend of falling house prices is confirmed by the ABS today with real prices now in retreat for seven quarters and the downward path accelerating.