This is an edited version of a live discussion as we explore the latest DFA modelling of Household Financial Stress. We will have the post code engine online, and given the higher for longer trends in interest rates, things are getting “interesting”!
You can ask a question live!
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In our first post Trump result Rant, Edwin and I consider the implications for property as rates higher for longer seem to be the order of the day. But some markets will perhaps still be buoyant because demand is so strong. Meantime we also look at how the property portals are being flexible with the truth, and we chat about people making poor property decisions, because they assumed….
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Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.
Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.
Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.
Edwin understands your needs. So why not engage a licensed professional to stand alongside you. With RPC you know you have: experience, knowledge, and master negotiators, looking after your best interest.
Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.
In this week’s market update I am going to focus on the path of interest rates, as over this past week midst the US election we got a swathe of Central Bank rate decisions. The RBA held the cash rate on Tuesday, but the Fed, the Bank of England, Sweden’s Riksbank and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority all cut.
While Donald Trump won’t return to the White House for another 10 weeks, he’s already casting a shadow over central banks and with Trump 2.0 expected to boost growth and risk returning inflation, and actually there was (reasonable) speculation that the Fed might not cut rates after all, or at least hint heavily that it would pause at next month’s meeting. Certainly, some economists now expect fewer rate cuts from the Fed next year as trade tariffs may boost US inflation. That could reshape the easing path for central banks around the world, and add currency pressure on emerging markets.
Australia’s economic output could fall between 0.8% and 1.5%, or $20 billion to $37 billion if Trump imposed a suite of his economic policies including slashing America’s 21 per cent corporate tax rate to 15% KPMG estimated.
So all up, the level of uncertainly ahead has been amplified by the Trump victory, and the consequences will spill over into other markets. But we can expect higher interest rates in the months ahead, which is not good for those holding on by the skin of their teeth. This is going to get messy.
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The early results from the US election indicates a strong Trump win. It is clear that households have reacted to the significant rises in costs of living, and put the economy and migration ahead of other issues such as rowe v wade related issues.
It’s the economy stupid, a phrase coined by James Carville in 1992, when he was advising Bill Clinton in his successful run for the White House.
Forget that, and you get ejected as Rishi Sunak in the UK and Biden in the US can attest. And the focus is not stock market performance, but whether people feel better off or worse off than previously. There are of course always excuses, such COVID and wars, but at the end of the day personal finances lead. This is important given the upcoming Australian election and to that end, its worth underscoring that while the first wave of inflation was global and pandemic-related. But later waves were home grown. Albo made Australian inflation much worse than it needed to be, drove interest rates higher than they needed to be, and gutted households much more than they needed to be!
All up, the real costs of living are still significantly elevated compared with the start of Albo’s Government, so they risk becoming a one term Government, with poles neck and neck at the moment.
This helps to explain the move announced over the weekend to reduce HEC debt and offer more TAFE places, in an attempt to paper over the damage. But Albo, just remember it’s the economy stupid!
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In our surveys we include a question on whether households trust the federal and state governments to do the right thing for them. And the answer is a resounding, no. The question of whether we do trust those elected officials who theoretically at least should be looking after our interests, seems to highlight that in many countries, from Australia, UK, Canada, New Zealand and America, Government is on the nose.
Perhaps this is one reason why there are attempts in train to close down free speech, as illustrated by the misinformation and disinformation bill currently on the books in the Australian parliament. See my earlier post about this MAD bill and why it must be resisted.
In our surveys we find many households struggling with rising costs and flat real incomes, an ability to get ahead, or find a place to live, and ever more pressure on family relationships as a result. In other words, many blame bad government policy for their own predicaments. They are right.
The recently released report on Government action during the COVID period cuts to the heart of the question of trust as the three-person inquiry panel slammed the approaches towards such issues as lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school and border closures, saying they lacked transparency and compassion, and were often not evidence-based. Now let me say straight away the scope of this inquiry was deliberately hobbled to avoid key questions around vaccines, and other issues, which is in itself shameful, but even so, the COVID-19 inquiry found that heavy-handed, inconsistent and insensitive pandemic restrictions meant people were unlikely to accept such measures again.
Economic modelling presented to the inquiry found that inflation could have peaked at about 6 per cent, instead of 8 per cent in December 2022, if the federal government’s more than $300 billion of pandemic spending and Reserve Bank of Australia’s near-zero interest rate policies were less stimulatory.
So all up, we can draw three conclusions.
Too much tax payer money was thrown at the problem in a poorly targeted inflation stoking manner. This is why inflation loomed to the fore in the past few years.
Too much was through directly and indirectly at the housing market, stoking home prices and rents, and exacerbated the distortions which were already in the market. No wonder prices have accelerated relative to incomes. No wonder too the construction sector is all but wrecked, with many firms subsequently failing while construction costs rise.
And there is still a resistance to admit errors both from Government and the RBA. Those in positions of responsibility may have done their best, but it was simply not good enough.
We expect, and rightly demand more from our elected leaders. They collectively failed us and the fallout continues to this day.
The right critical observation is that trust will be hard to recover. Given recent behaviour, it may never be healed, which spells risks to democracy itself. Queue the MAD bill.
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Well now we know. While the annual Australian headline inflation rate slipped to 2.8%, which is just within the RBA’s target 2-3% band, from 3.8% in the June quarter and is the lowest since March 2021, underlying inflation remains well above the RBA’s 2 per cent to 3 per cent target band at 3.5 per cent in line with forecasts. Annual Goods inflation was 1.4 per cent, down from 3.2 per cent in the June quarter.
The trimmed mean measure of consumer prices, which smooths out volatile items, rose 0.8% in the three months through September, matching estimates, but services inflation rose to 4.6% from 4.5% last time around. This is the prices of all those things you can’t drop on your foot. The biggest culprits were rent, insurance, education, and medical, dental and hospital services costs. Education prices were up 6.4 per cent. The cost of taking pets to the vet rose by 5.8 per cent in the year to September, while the price of a haircut went up by 6.3 per cent and the cost of a visit to the mechanic jumped by 4.3 per cent. The common theme. Wages growth.
While a first rate cut in February remains possible, with the consumer starting to feel more upbeat, wealth booming, strong population growth keeping housing costs sticky and governments still spending up a storm, the RBA doesn’t appear to have a lot of room to move.
Next year’s RBA board meetings are not until mid-February, the end of March and late May – a mile away for anyone struggling with debt.
Higher for longer remains my call as financial pressures on many households continue to build. Something will break. No Christmas rate cut present coming from Santa this year.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Back to our normal Monday schedule now, with Edwin in full flight on Albo watch, as we kick over the latest property data and trends.
We look at recent announcements from NSW on rental protections, which are following those in VIC, (where the tribunal is very busy) and also examine the VIC policy of easier subdivision.
Markets though are easing in some areas as listings rise.
And join us tomorrow as we discuss whether you need a Real Estate agent at all these days in our live 8pm Sydney show.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Find more at https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/ where you can subscribe to our research alerts
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.
Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.
Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.
Edwin understands your needs. So why not engage a licensed professional to stand alongside you. With RPC you know you have: experience, knowledge, and master negotiators, looking after your best interest.
Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.
This is a show about housing affordability and specifically lobbying from certain banks to reduce mortgage lending buffers in which we look at evidence provided to the Senate Economics Reference Committee inquiry into the Financial Regulatory Framework And Home Ownership which was chaired by NSW Senator Andrew Bragg, with Jess Walsh the ALP Senator for Victoria and Greens Senator for South Australia.Barbara Pocock.
We look at key evidence from Chris Taylor of the Australian Banking Association, Martin Green and Paul Deall from Westpac, Andy Kerr and Ben Nicholls from National Australia Bank and from the Commonwealth Bank Angus Sullivan and Kylie Rickson.
We also look at compelling evidence from Consumer Advocates including Nadia Harrison from Mortgage Stress Victoria, Erin Turner from The Consumer Policy Research Centre, Dr Domenique Meyrick from Financial Counselling Australia and Julia Davis from the Financial Rights Legal Centre.
David Locke, June Smith and Natilee Cameron from AFCA, the Ombudsman, and APRA (Therese McCarthy Hocky, Dr Sean Carmody, Chris Gower and Marian Kohler) made the case that credit is flowing and available.
The inquiry also heard from Kylie Davis Proptech Association of Australia and Lynda Coker, Frank Austin and Liz Rochaix Co-operty.
Alexander Hordern Insurance Council Australia and Pauline Blight -Johnston Helia discussed LMI
And finally, Professor John Quiglan, Saul Eslake and Ben Spics-Butcher each in their individual private capacity argued that decades of evidence in supply constrained environments shows people spend more on housing driving prices higher rather than expanding ownership rates (which is why using super for housing is a bad idea.
The Greens focused in on investor demand, while Ben argued the Government was really concerned about property price falls, as shown through the GFC. Tenure security, and a rise in public housing are most important, shared equity and housing future fund does not help.
All up, it revealed how complex the can of works is, and that simply increasing leaning of offering other incentives is counter productive!
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