Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog – Page 35

Wanted: More High-Rise Purchases Willing To Play Russian Roulette!

Well, finally, the problems in Australian high-rise construction are getting airtime, but many households are caught up with these rolling disasters, as estimates suggest well more than half of recently built apartments are defective.

It frankly remains a game of “Russian roulette” when buying off-the-plan apartments and consumers could be forgiven for asking themselves if it is safe to buy an apartment off the plan with issues frequently emerging in Sydney’s building developments. The current legislation is not effective, and of course the question is who would foot the bill for repairs.? Yet the industry keeps making empty promises, and is claiming things are now fixed. No surprise there.

Lets look back at some of the issues so far in NSW. In recent years building developments such as Opal Towers and two buildings owned by Toplace have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, leaving some owners and occupiers out of pocket and traumatised. Last year NSW regulators issued work rectification orders across building sites, including The Laneways Rosebery, which has serious structural defects, and Toplace’s Vicinity complex in Canterbury over “potential serious defects”.

At Mascot Towers in Sydney’s inner-south, residents were offered a settlement at the start of January after being forced to evacuate their defect-ridden apartment building years prior.

Less than a fortnight later, NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler has moved to reassure residents there was no immediate threat to an apartment and retail development in Macquarie Park after concerns about concrete were identified in the building’s basement and ground floor.

“What we have done so far is we’ve told the developer, ‘You are responsible and you are going to fix this under the powers of the NSW [Residential Apartment Buildings] Act’,” Mr Chandler said last Thursday.

But Lachlan’s Line is just one of many, with building work rectification orders “issued all the time” by Building Commission NSW. “We’re probably issuing four or five orders a week at the moment,” Mr Chandler said.

The ABC writes, In December, the NSW Building Commission was given extra powers to order fixes during construction, aimed at boosting public confidence in buying homes off the plan.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

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Kiwi Home Prices Wobble!

We got the latest on New Zealand Property for December 2023 from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand.

I love how they spin the release, saying that the December 2023 figures show a notable increase in sales activity, median prices lifting, lower days to sell, and a clear sense of more confidence overall (year-on-year).

This is despite the fact that actually New Zealand house prices edged lower in December, down around 0.3% mom on a seasonally adjusted basis,
though trends diverged across the country, ranging from a 1.9% mom fall in Northland to a 4.2% lift in Tasman.

The national average was weighed down by a 0.9% mom price fall in Auckland. Among other big regions, Wellington prices lifted 0.6%, while prices in Canterbury eased 0.1%.

ASB’s commentary on the REINZ figures are helpful here. They say the NZ housing market has struggled to establish a clear direction since the last housing market correction came to an end in around March/April last year. Monthly price movements have usually been modest in either direction, with the market oscillating between small lifts and even slighter falls over most of the year (see our chart above for the contrast between 2021’s large price rises and 2022’s decent falls with 2023’s more meagre movements).

All-up, prices managed a bounce of only about 1.2% over H2 of last year.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Record Broken After A 25% Round Trip!

This is our latest weekly market update.

Well, in another volatile week, the S&P 500 posted a record high close on Friday of 4839.81 for the first time in two years erasing the last of a nearly 25 per cent between its record high close of 4,796.56 on Jan. 3, 2022 and its low in October 2022.

The S&P 500 has been in a bull market since it closed at its low on Oct. 12, 2022, fueled by a rally in chipmakers and other heavyweight technology stocks on optimism around artificial intelligence.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which also hit a record closing high on Friday, had already confirmed on Dec 13, 2023 that it had been in a bull market since Sept. 30, 2022.

Meanwhile, while the Nasdaq composite recovered 43% in 2023, it would need to rise another 4.8% to return to its record high close of 16,057.4437, reached on Nov. 19, 2021.

On Friday, the S&P 500 jumped 1.23% The Nasdaq jumped 1.70%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.05%.

But the questions of Central Bank rate cuts, QT, and whether stocks are still over valued hangs over the market like a bad smell. Volatility will remain the main game for some time to come.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

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.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

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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.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/