Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
Journalist Tarric Brooker and I deep dive on the Australian Housing Crisis, as conclude that there is no easy fix, thanks to generations of bad policy and active intervention. So who are the winners and losers?
Tarric slides are here if you want to follow along: https://avidcom.substack.com/p/dfa-chart-pack-22nd-march-2024
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The ABS says the total value of residential dwellings in Australia rose by $196.8 billion to $10,397.1 billion in the past quarter.
But these gross values are misleading because they are not equally distributed across all households. To illustrate this, I extracted current value data from my household surveys and created a distribution chart across all households, including both investment and owner-occupied holdings, based on a mark to market at end February 2024.
So we can see, standing back, that while some households will be feeling wealthy and celebrating the massive rise in home prices in recent years, many others are excluded, will be paying more for a rental, and will have very little or no financial assets at all.
So, it seems that Australia’s egalitarian roots have been sacrificed on the property population Ponzi. No wonder, those is charge do not want to rock the boat – the truth is there is a majority of potential voters benefiting from the property game. Its all a bit of a mess.
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Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
PEXA just released their second edition of their Cash Purchases Report which highlights residential property transactions that were funded entirely with cash. That is, residential properties purchased without a home loan. The share of mortgage-free transactions rose by 2.9 percentage points to 28.5 per cent of all home sales.
And this is important, because it helps to explain the apparent contradiction between the rise in property prices at a time when mortgage interest rates have also risen, a weird combination to say the least.
Some migrants, from the near 1 million arriving, come with sufficient cash to buy, as well as many downsizing Australians who have enjoyed the capital growth in recent years. So there is an ever larger portion of buyers that will be relatively unaffected by rising interest rates. This is another example of unequal access to housing, at the expense of mortgaged borrowers, especially in a higher interest rate environment.
Mortgage borrowers are being punished for the exuberance in demand for cash buyers. And more broadly, interest rates will remain higher for longer, because the interest rate lever is less powerful which gives the RBA and every Australian an inflation headache.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
This is an edited version of my live discussion about the latest from our surveys, as we look at mortgage, rental, investor and financial stress across the country, down to a post code level.
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Interesting to see the momentum now turning to discussion of whether the Government intends to tackle negative gearing having U-turned on the tax cuts.
As The Conversation put it, there are two things the prime minister needs to get into his head about tax. One is that saying he won’t make any further changes no longer works. The other is that negative gearing doesn’t do much to get people into homes.
Australia’s Treasury has begun publishing estimates of the cost of the present unfocused system of negative gearing. Its latest, released last week, puts the cost at $2.7 billion per year, to which should probably be added a chunk of the $19 billion per year lost as a result of the capital gains concession.
Albanese is normally cautious. But as he is showing us right now with his rejigged Stage 3 tax cuts, there are times when he is not. If he really wants to throw everything he has got at building more homes, he knows what to do.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
More from our Property Insider, Edwin Almeida as we look at the low listings, and rentals, and the reasons why markets are not behaving as some (who should know better) said they would.
Edwin referred to this post: https://www.tiktok.com/@shallowchal/video/7326805682114645255
We also look at trends in Western Australia, as well as our normal East Coast analysis.
Things, as they say are getting interesting…
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
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.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
I get very tired of the high-level reporting of home prices, because as you know I believe we have many discrete markets, which are behaving very differently across locations, states and types of property. Averages mask.
But in some areas, prices are indeed continuing to drop. And drop fast.
For example, in my old stomping ground, Thirroul, median house values rose significantly from 2019, peaked in 2021 at over 2 million dollars, that’s double their 2019 levels, then fell away to a new trough of $1.68 million in March 2023, before rising a little, but then moved down to around $1.78 million. And Units in the same area are still descending and on average are just now over $1m.
Similar patterns are showing up elsewhere.
Last year I did a number of “antispruik” shows where we did deep dives at a post code level and looked at how vendors were cutting their asking prices to get a sale.
And actually, as the AFR reported home values in 27 coastal towns have plummeted by more than $200,000 from their pandemic highs two years ago, while 56 towns lost more than $100,000, analysis by CoreLogic shows.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
Wishing all our followers and supporters a happy 2024. We will be back with daily shows on finance and property, and we briefly touch on some of the items on our new year agenda.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
In this show, we examine the main reasons why it is likely property prices will fall next year – this is a counterpoint to my earlier show which went through the Five reasons why they will rise – as trotted out by the property spruikers.
In summary, the risks from higher unemployment or a recession, the exit of property investors, higher delinquency and defaults, higher mortgage rates for longer, and dire housing affordability are all reasons why prices could fall in 2024.
And let’s be clear, the great Australian dream of owning a home is now totally out of reach, and many who were pulled into the market in recent years are in strife, to the point where rental costs have gone though the roof, and tent cities are becoming a thing. The very soul of Australia is decaying, unfortunately, that is unless you are fortunate enough to have family wealth or an existing property portfolio, which could now potentially fall in value.
Of course, the actual trajectory of home prices will vary across states, locations and types of property, and averages mask important differences. Which is why in our modelling we go granular – to a post code level, and also consider various scenarios based of the relative weightings of the positive drivers to prices we discussed yesterday, and the downward drivers we looked at today. So the answer is: it depends.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
