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Foreign Investment Review Board

Passive foreign investment watchdog relieved of enforcement duties

Foreign investors who purchase existing residential dwellings illegally, and third parties who knowingly assist, will face increased penalties under a new bill to be introduced into Parliament this Spring. Coinciding a day after the Foreign Investment Review Board’s (FIRB) annual report showed a 95 per cent increase in applications by

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Australian Housing

Foreign investment propels Sydney, Melbourne property bubbles

Applications by foreigners to purchase Australian real estate has surged in 2013/14. Data contained in the Foreign Investment Review Board’s annual report, released yesterday, show there were 23,430 applications to buy Australian real estate last financial year. This is up 95 per cent from the 12,025 applications received the year

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Australian Economy

Too big to fail banks are too big for regulation

Concerns are mounting that Australia’s big banks are disregarding risk and may not be capitalised enough to withstand a conceivable property correction. Today, the Australian Financial Review reported Sydney home prices are growing five-times faster than wages. Such rapid increases in property prices over one’s ability to service the mortgage

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Australian Economy

Australia’s banks on shaky ground: ABC, The Business

The ABC has tonight delivered its second instalment on Australia’s housing bubble, the brewing banking crisis and tomorrow night – what the regulators are doing to try to limit the catastrophic damage. You can watch tonight’s segment here – Is 1.6 trillion dollars in housing loans too hot too handle?

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Australian Economy

RBA holds off playing with fire

Today’s decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to leave interest rates unchanged is likely to indicate APRA’s crackdown on the banks (‘APRA to keep banking crackdown secret‘) has not been fully executed. Without these crucial measures in place, the central bank can’t take the risk of further fueling

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Australian Housing

Media’s ‘property porn’ fuelled housing bubble

The Oireachtas banking inquiry, underway in Ireland, has heard of expert accounts on the vital role the Irish media played in hyping one of the world’s largest property bubbles. University College Dublin academic Dr Julien Mercille told the inquiry, “A number of journalists simply acted as cheerleaders for the property

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Australian Economy

Risks increase in Australian commercial property

Businesses forced to close, downsize and offshore has caused vacancy rates to surge around the country, and rents to fall, yet commercial property prices continue to rise. This divergence has the central bank concerned the “risk of a large repricing” in commercial property is increasing. The Reserve Bank of Australia

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Australian Economy

APRA to keep banking crackdown secret

According to the ABC, Kevin Nixon, Former Managing Director of Regulatory Affairs at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) says foreigners are puzzled about the entire Australian housing market. Now a partner (risk) with Deloitte in Sydney, Nixon is a respected voice globally on regulation and governance of the financial

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Australian Economy

Housing bubble prevents vital rate cut

“Australia is vastly uncompetitive, I don’t think they want to openly say it, which is why they put a lot of fudge and nonsense in the minutes today” commented Michael Every, head of Asia-Pacific markets research at Rabobank after last month’s cut to the official cash rate. Michael Every is,