The number of dwellings commenced during 2010 was recorded at 169,428. This represented an increase of 22.4% over the calendar year, the largest since they rose by 27.2% during 2002. With almost 170,000 dwelling commencements last year, it was a substantial improvement from around 138,000 commencements in 2009. On an annual basis, there has been [...]
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Soft housing finance data reflects the overall consumer conservatism across the country
The housing finance data released by the ABS for the December quarter this week highlight some interesting trends in the Australian housing market. The ‘broad brush’ overview is that owner occupier loans are showing a small improvement due to increasing non-first home buyer activity, first home buyers are remaining on the sidelines and the value [...]
First home buyers most attracted to jobs rather than affordability
The housing finance data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Oct 11 shows that first home buyer demand has remained weak. During August the number of home loans taken by first time buyers was just 7,460. Volumes hadn’t been that low since Feb 2005. As a proportion of the overall owner occupier market, [...]
Renovation activity likely to increase
With the rate of property value growth slowing, sales volumes falling and construction of new housing continuing to soften we wouldn’t be surprised to see an increase in the number of homes undergoing renovation over the coming months. Renovation activity comes in many shapes and sizes and includes; ‘major’ renovations where owners add additional rooms [...]
Are interest rates too high?
A whole raft of data has been released this week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and most of it has not been particularly positive. These figures pose the question, are interest rates too high? Unemployment data released this week showed that whilst unemployment remains at low levels it increased from 5.1% in June [...]
Development finance may be starting to flow more freely
Business lending has moved back into the black during May, with business credit growing by 0.4 per cent based on the latest stats issued by the Reserve Bank (see here for details of their release). Lending to businesses started to show some tentative growth in February this year after consistent month on month declines that [...]
ABS Housing finance data shows a further slowdown in March 2010
Housing finance data released this week showed a further slowdown across the sector. On a seasonally adjusted basis, owner occupier finance commitments for: construction of new dwellings (-7.3%), purchase of new dwellings (-3.2%), purchase of established dwellings (-2.9%) and total owner occupier loans (-3.4%) all recorded falls during March 2010. Over the year to March [...]
Falling housing finance commitments hint that capital gains are likely to moderate over the coming months
The value of housing loan commitments taken out in February fell by 3.4 percent over the month in seasonally adjusted terms; the fifth consecutive monthly decline in home lending and the largest monthly fall since May 2008. Investor finance has remained much more resilient. The value of investor loan commitments fell by just 1.1 percent; [...]
Housing finance data catches everyone off guard.
Whilst there was an expectation that housing finance may ease in January due to the wind back of the first home buyers grant boost and three successive interest rate increases, no one expected to witness such a dramatic fall. Housing finance data showed that on a seasonally adjusted basis total finance commitments fell by -7.9% [...]
- 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
