Martin North – Page 35 – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Stupid Promises Collide With Reality As Housing Targets Won’t Be Met!

The NSW government has already announced plans last month to build more than 200,000 homes and focus on higher density living by building up, not out. But now NSW Premier Chris Minns says the state will not meet its housing target, but is doing its best to boost supply.

The plan includes 138,000 new homes at rezoned sites in 31 suburbs, and 47,800 homes near eight major transport hubs, with the latter to be completed over the next 15 years.

Those suburbs include Bankstown, Bays West, Bella Vista, Crows Nest, Homebush, Hornsby, Kellyville and Macquarie Park.

The government will offer developers in those zones a fast-tracked approvals process, called a state significant development, to ensure apartments are built quickly.

It will be offered to developments over $60 million, and construction must start within two years of approval.

The government also intends to relocate Rosehill Racecourse and replace it with 25,000 homes as part of the plan.

But Housing industry insiders say they are not surprised by the NSW premier’s admission that the state will not meet its housing targets agreed to just last year.

The target, which was set out by the federal government in August, would see an average of 75,000 new dwellings a year over the next five years. It is part of a broader plan to build 1.2 million homes across Australia during that period.

Premier Chris Minns said the government would fall short of the goal but was working on building as many houses and units as possible to alleviate housing shortages and skyrocketing costs.

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Falling Trend Hours Worked May Signal Interest Rate Peak!

Economists got a surprise today as employment fell 65,100 in the month, compared with an average expected rise of 15,000, as hours worked and participation both fell. That said, the prospect of the RBA delivering one final rise in February appears over. Only a big surprise in the December quarter inflation numbers, which will be released on January 31, could force economists to revise their near universal forecast for rates to remain on hold next month. And the monthly inflation data doesn’t point to a shock.

The ABS Labour Force statistics for December was based on surveys run from Sunday 26 November to Saturday 9 December, and collected over the period from Sunday 3 December to Wednesday 20 December. They also rotate the sample, with the new incoming group showing a higher unemployment rate than the outgoing group.

The results from the survey showed that in seasonally adjusted terms with employment dropping by 65,000 people, along with a small fall in the number of unemployed people (1,000), the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.9 per cent in December.

Actually, the falling participation rate stopped the Unemployment rate from climbing as hiring eases, though perhaps most concerning is the trend in hours worked, which has been falling for the better part of a year. How much of this is summer holiday related is an open question, but it seems more structural to me. We also need to note the loss of 106,000 full time jobs, compared to 41,000 part time roles, especially among part-time women. And remember given the current migration settings we need more that 30,000 additional jobs just to stand still.

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Households Spend Less But Borrow More, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

The ABS reported that In November 2023, new loan commitments (seasonally adjusted): rose 1.0% for housing, fell 5.6% for personal fixed term loans, fell 4.8% for business construction (a typically volatile series) and rose 0.6% in trend terms and fell 6.4% for business purchase of property (a typically volatile series) but was flat in trend terms. So housing credit is still relatively strong despite higher interest rates, and potentially signalling that the RBA will need to dampen demand further in its inflation battle.

Also on Friday, the rather meaningless Monthly Household Spending Indicators was published by the ABS. As these are based on current prices, they are not adjusted for the impacts of inflation. The indicator is produced using aggregated and de-identified card and bank transactions from banking and financial institutions. They reported that Household spending increased 3.1% through the year on a current price, calendar adjusted basis.

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Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.

Child Finds Killer Asbestos In Playground!

Once again, another horrifying sage of dumped asbestos turning up in the wrong place, with potentially fatal consequences.

As the Guardian reported, Asbestos has been found in additional samples of garden mulch taken from the Rozelle parklands in Sydney’s inner west, with the state government still unable to say where else in the city the contaminated material may have been used.

After an initial find, an urgent audit was under way to determine what other sites could be affected by what the premier, Chris Minns, described as “a toxic substance”. The government closed the Rozelle parklands to the public and called in contamination experts just three weeks after the park opened above the interchange.

The nearly 10 hectares of green space includes extensive cycleways and green expanses alongside large exhaust stacks for the tunnels below. The parkland was meant to appease inner west residents who had put up with years of tunnelling noises and road closures during the construction of the Rozelle interchange.

The premier said the government needed to know where potentially contaminated mulch had been used “as soon as possible” so it could close the other sites.

“I realise that is massively inconvenient during the school holidays … but we can’t muck around with safety – this is obviously a toxic substance,” Minns said.

John Holland built the interchange and the park. One of its executives, Mark Davies, said he could not immediately disclose a list of the other sites where the mulch had been used.

Over 97% of the asbestos products used in Australia was non-friable material in which the asbestos fibres were bonded by cement, vinyl, resin or other similar material. This form of asbestos product/material is often cited as quite safe unless damaged, sawn, drilled, sanded, crushed or is excessively weathered; But if any of these occur, then non-friable hard bonded asbestos products may release fibres and become friable.

In other words, bonded asbestos is not safe. Corrugated asbestos sheet roofing often shows signs of weathering. When it’s broken into smaller fragments, fibres are released. So Non-friable (bonded) asbestos has the potential to become equally as dangerous as friable asbestos, a distinction should never be made because of the type, colour or form of asbestos – all types, colours and forms of asbestos have the potential to kill people!

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Operation “Uncertainty Protect” As Bets Rises…

This is our regular weekly market update.

Things got interesting this week on the markets, as U.S. stocks closed barely changed on Friday, after wavering between modest gains and losses driven by mixed bank earnings offset cooler-than-expected inflation news that buoyed hopes for interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

After briefly topping 4800 points in early trading, the S&P 500 fluctuated, slipping modestly negative in the final hour before edging higher at the close. And note that US markets will be closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day.

Expectations for a rate cut of at least 25 basis points by the Fed in March moved up to 79.5%, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool, from 73.2% in the prior session. Friday’s data also sent Treasury yields lower, although recent comments by some central bank officials have pushed back on any potential rate cuts.

On Friday, data showed U.S. producer prices unexpectedly fell in December as the cost of goods such as food and diesel fuel declined, while prices for services were unchanged for a third consecutive month, in contrast to Thursday’s hotter-than-expected consumer inflation reading. The headline inflation rose more than expected to 3.4% from 3.1% printed a month earlier.

But all in all, yesterday’s inflation report was less than ideal, and the market reaction was mixed. The US 2-year and 10-year first rose then fell, whereas you would expect a swift shift in dovish Fed expectations following a bigger-than-expected jump in US headline inflation. The 2-year was last at 4.146 and the 10-year 3.944.

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US Inflation Still Hanging Around

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics just released their December 2023 inflation read which showed the consumer price index increased 3.4% in the year through December, the most in three months and on a monthly basis, it also rose by more than forecast.

The shift up was driven by Americans paying more for housing and driving, challenging investor bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon. Used-car prices increased for a second month, defying expectations for a decline.

The CPI excluding food and energy rose 0.3% in December from a month earlier. On an annual basis, the so-called core measure increased 3.9%. Economists favor the core metric as a better gauge of the trend in inflation than the overall CPI.

Shelter prices, which make up about a third of the overall CPI index and contributed to more than half of its advance, rose 0.5% in December. The gain included a rise in hotel prices that were down in the prior month. Economists see a sustained moderation in this category as key to bringing core inflation down to the Fed’s target.

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