The issue of housing affordability always strikes a nerve here in Australia, and there is no doubt that homes across Australia’s largest capital cities are expensive by international standards. There are plenty of studies around that aim to investigate how affordable or unaffordable Australian housing is, however I found the recent Reserve Bank of Australia [...]
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Record gap between median house and unit prices…but it doesn’t necessarily mean demand for units is increasing
With the release of the RP Data-Rismark Home Value Index results earlier this month, we also received the updated information on median selling prices of homes over the three months to January 2013. This data revealed that the gap between selling prices of houses and units reached a record high over the first month of [...]
Negative gearing and its impact on the housing market
In its most simplistic form, negative gearing for investment housing allows investors to deduct their losses against their personal taxable income. These losses may occur when the investor incurs costs such as interest on a home loan as well as maintenance and other small expenses on an investment property. However, it is important to note [...]
Brisbanites and Canberrarians become active
If you want an example of how stimulus sensitive the Australian housing market is, look no further than Brisbane or Canberra. Transaction volumes absolutely spiked in July. In Brisbane, our estimate of transaction numbers surged by 52% compared with the June reading, and in Canberra the number of home sales was 41% higher than sales [...]
Four reasons why Australia’s housing sector hasn’t responded to demand
The Reserve Bank released their September quarter Bulletin this week (here) which included a superb article outlining their research around supply side constraints across the capital cities of Australia. The report identifies four factors that are impediments to a responsive housing supply across the country: Complexity of the planning process which can create uncertainty, lengthy [...]
Which city has the most expensive land?
In real estate there is no truer commodity than vacant land. Houses and units inherently show a qualitative bias; the value of a house or unit is influenced by various factors such as the size of the home, the state of repair, the architecture, the attributes of the home such as number of bedrooms and [...]
What makes for the more popular investment: units or houses?
Nationally, 58% of flats, units and apartments are owned by investors. That is quite an amazing statistic, especially when you compare that with detached houses where only 21% are investor owned. Across the capital cities the proportions are even higher. Darwin tops the list with 70.6% of all units being rented followed by Brisbane where [...]
Is the housing market set to make a comeback?
My short answer to that question would be maybe/sort of but the long answer is much more insightful. Consumer sentiment data for June released by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute this week showed that overall confidence remained quite weak however, the time to buy a dwelling index increased by 8.2% (This sub-index of the broader [...]
Welcome back below average mortgage rates
With the low CPI reading earlier this week, a drop in the cash rate next Tuesday is pretty much a done deal. The question is now will the RBA cut the cash rate by 25 or 50 basis points? According to financial market expectations (based on the ASX cash rate futures yield curve), the cash rate [...]
Vacant land market weakest in more than a decade
The Housing Industry Association (HIA) in association with RP Data released the December 2011 quarter Residential Land Report this week and it made for pretty sobering reading. As the report states, over the past five quarters land sales have bounced around the bottom rather than showing any sign of improvement. Over the quarter, residential land [...]
- Dispelling the myths about our new Index methodology
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Negative gearing and its impact on the housing market
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There were 1,213,595 individuals with a negatively geared property over the 2010/11 financial year
