Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
From The Conversation. As is well known, the shortage of affordable separate housing in Sydney and Melbourne means that most first home buyers and renters cannot currently find housing suited to their needs in locations of their choice. The dominant response from the housing industry and commentators is that governments must unlock the potential for … Continue reading “The root of Sydney and Melbourne’s housing crisis”
From The Conversation. Allowing first homebuyers to cash out their super to buy a home is a seductive idea with a long history. Like the nine-headed Hydra, which replaced each severed head with two more, each time the idea is cut down it seems to return even stronger. Both sides of federal politics took proposals … Continue reading “Five reasons the Turnbull government shouldn’t let us spend super on a home”
Continuing our series on the latest findings from The Property Imperative, we look at property investors today. We find that they are seriously optimistic about the future of property (and recent capital gains have fueled their future expectations). Looking first at what we call solo investors, about 987,000 households only hold investment property, 2.2% of … Continue reading “Property Investors Are Still Optimists”
As we continue to look over the results of the latest household surveys, as captured in the recently released Property Imperative report to September 2015, we look at households who are wanted to trade up and trade down. These are important segments of the market because they have reason to transact, and access to funding … Continue reading “Does Trading Down Trump Trading Up?”
Continuing with data from the latest edition of the Property Imperative, today we look at first time buyers. Our latest survey identified about 319,000 households who are first time buyers. The majority are seeking to purchase, or have recently purchased an owner occupied property (80%), the remainder preferring an investment property. Only 9% of these … Continue reading “First Time Buyers Still Want Property”
We have just completed the latest DFA household survey, and in today’s DFA Video we summarise some of the main themes which we will cover in more detail in later posts. In the video blog we discuss the key demand and supply issues and make some observations about the future direction of house prices. In … Continue reading “So Where Does The Mortgage Industry Go From Here?”
From The Conversation Fact Check: According to the 2015-16 Federal Budget, Australians paid around A$176 billion in personal income taxation in the 2014-15 financial year (Table 5 of Budget Paper 1). The Treasurer, Joe Hockey, claims that around 50% of this taxation is paid by the top 10% of the working age population as ranked … Continue reading “Is 50% of all income tax in Australia paid by 10% of the working population?”
From The Conversation. Even before the government’s options paper on tax reform is released later this year, many reforms have been taken off the table, at least before the next election. Here’s the expert view on six. Broadening or increasing the GST Some experts say expanding the GST, which is a regressive tax, would unfairly … Continue reading “Six simple tax reforms plagued by politics”
From The Conversation. The widening cracks in Australia’s housing system can no longer be concealed. The extraordinary recent debate has laid bare both the depth of public concern and the vacuum of coherent policy to promote housing affordability. The community is clamouring for leadership and change. Especially as it affects our major cities, housing unaffordability … Continue reading “Tackling housing unaffordability: a 10-point national plan”
Last week amongst all the noise on housing there were some important segments from the ABC which made some significant contributions to the debate. These are worth viewing. First Lateline interviewed the Grattan Institute CEO on the social and political impacts of housing policy, and also covered negative gearing. Second The Business covered foreign investors, … Continue reading “Perspectives on the Housing Debate”