The weighted net annual rate of return on land investment in Melbourne 1880-92 was a remarkably high 34.6 per cent, peaking at 78.3 per cent in 1887, according to a fascinating paper researcher Philip Soos has unearthed Rates of Return on Melbourne Land...
BLOG: speculation
Australia’s FIRE Sector Propaganda Matrix
by Paul Egan In the cult science fiction Matrix movies, people live within a simulated reality created by artificially intelligent machines who feed from their life energy; a dream world that has enslaved humanity due to a blissful lack of awareness of the invisible...
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...
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...
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...
Incoming! Everyone Duck! Incoming!
Everybody duck! A property spruiker has taken exception to Philip Soos’ panoramic chart pack of Australian property values. Cripes! Pete Wargent is an investment advisor and auto-publicist who operates toward the breathless end of the investment spectrum. His new book...
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...
Englobo II: The Money Sleeps
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...