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Australian Economy

Sydney housing market issued “sell” rating.

Performance Property Advisory believes Sydney property prices have “reached a classic peak” and have issued a “sell” rating according to the Australian Financial Review (‘Sydney and Melbourne property ‘set for price correction.’) The group provides market research and analysis for medium to high income professionals. According to the Domain, Sydney

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Australian Economy

Turnbull scare campaign: House prices to be ‘smashed’ under Labor’s negative gearing policy

He promised informed economic debate. But today, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s credibility in delivering much needed economic debate evaporated, as he launched a massive scare campaign claiming Labor’s negative gearing policy would result in house prices being “smashed”. After some debate over the past month, Turnbull has backed away from

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Australian Housing

Rental growth slowest in 21 years

Australia’s rental market is starting to resemble a disaster zone as an oversupply of rentals flood the market at a time of anemic wage growth. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released today show rent growth is now the lowest in 21 years, at just 0.82 per cent for the year

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Australian Economy

Perth property correction to continue into 2016

2016 is set to bring more pain for Perth property punters as prices continue to fall on the back of diving commodity and energy prices, rising unemployment, stagnant wage growth, surging vacancy rates and plunging rents. With more mines destined for care and maintenance resulting in more job losses and

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United States Economy

US Fed charts path to normal

After a prolonged 7 years of extremely accommodating, near-zero interest rates in the United States, the Federal Reserve has today tightened interest rates to between 0.25 and 0.5 per cent. Today’s historic move is the first increase in almost a decade, and came as no surprise to anyone with the

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Australian Economy

Tax Office to probe 32 years of property records

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is preparing to embark on an unprecedented data matching program, today asking state authorities for extensive records relating to real property from the period of 20th September 1985 to 30 June 2017. In a notice published today in the Government Gazette, the ATO indicates “The

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Australian Economy

RBA chills out as expected

Melbourne and Sydney has witnessed substantial property price falls in November as auction clearance rates took a tumble. According to CoreLogic RP Data, Melbourne property prices fell a sizeable 3.5 per cent in November, followed by Sydney notching up a 1.4 per cent decline for the month. Australia’s two largest

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Australian Housing

Foreign Chinese priced out of Sydney property boom

Foreign Chinese buyers may now be priced out of the booming Sydney and Melbourne property markets according to Real Estate agency PRD Nationwide. In recent weeks, market players have noticed a gradual pull out of Chinese buyers and are racking their brains to understand why. The worrying pull out for

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Australian Housing

Commonwealth Bank second to hike rates

As expected, the Commonwealth Bank is today the second bank to hike interest rates out of cycle, notching rates up 15 basis points. ANZ and NAB are expected to follow. As did Westpac, the CBA blamed the rates decision on increased capital and regulatory requirements. (‘Banking regulator announces tighter capital

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Australian Housing

Westpac hikes interest rates

Westpac will hike mortgage rates by 20 basis points on the 20th of November, and in a win for savers, increase term deposit rates by 25 basis points come Friday. Australia’s other big banks could be expected to follow suit. Westpac has blamed the rates decision on increased capital and

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Australian Economy

Housing bust bigger threat than China

Fresh data released today from the China Customs Bureau show imports to China declined 17.7 per cent in the year to September. Exports feared better, falling 1.1 per cent for the same period leading to predictions, GDP numbers to be released next week will be the weakest quarterly growth rate

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Australian Housing

Rent growth slowest on record

An oversupply of rental properties and slow population growth has caused September rental growth to slow to an all time record low, according to CoreLogic RP Data. At a national level, September recorded zero rental growth, failing to keep up with inflation. Melbourne and Hobart posted slight gains of 0.3

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Sydney Housing Bubble

NAB restricts lending in 34 Sydney bubble suburbs

NAB has started to restrict lending to portions of the Sydney property bubble that are exhibiting characteristics that may indicate future deterioration in credit risk. It has decided to cap the maximum loan to value ratio (LVR) in these higher risk suburbs (shown below) to 80 per cent. 2000 Sydney