DFA Live Q&A HD Replay: When Buildings Go Bad: With Edwin Almeida

This is an edited version of a live discussion with our property insider Edwin Almeida as we discuss things that go wrong in buildings and yet issues which are often missed. Using our Building Surveyor skills we will explore some specific cases, and also draw out some important lessons for those engaging with property.

Original version with chat here: https://youtube.com/live/nWWu3atcqoE

http://www.martinnorth.com/

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

https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/ for our One to One Service.

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.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
DFA Live Q&A HD Replay: When Buildings Go Bad: With Edwin Almeida
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Broken City!

Home builders are falling off the perch at an alarming rate with high rates of insolvency among construction firms, many of whom were homebuilders, to 3,000 in the past year. While many of these were small firms, we are still seeing a spate of larger firms going under. We are encountering more people in our 1:1 discussions with people coping with half built projects, no builder to take over the work, rising costs and blown out completion dates. No wonder people prefer to buying existing property.

The latest quarterly data on the value of construction work done also fell by 0.1% over Q2 to be 2.9% lower year-on-year.

More broadly, The Albanese Government is a complete mess on housing with the three bills that comprise its $32bn Housing for Australia plan blocked in the senate. These include The Help to Buy shares equity scheme. The Housing Future Fund equity investment vehicle to build just 13,000 houses per year. And the Build to Rent legislation which is designed to assist corporate to get tax breaks to build and then rent units, probably at higher than market rents. After all they are designed to make profits for those investing corporates and superfunds.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has threatened to use the Senate’s obstruction of Help to Buy as a trigger for a double dissolution election. Welcome to that time of the political cycle where we find ourselves burrowing into the election date speculation rabbit hole.

The real fix of course is to cut immigration significantly, as this would ease the rental shortage and lower rental inflation; which in turn would take pressure off the RBA to hold rates higher for longer enabling builders to clear the huge backlog of approvals and easing pressure on households. And on that front, Moody’s says that Australian mortgage delinquency rates, which increased over the June quarter, will continue to rise moderately over the rest of this year as high interest rates and sticky inflation put financial stress on households.

Standing back, the policy errors made by the current government are literally hitting home, and with the prospect of more political tricks on all sides of politics, the real impact on people will continue. They should be held to account for their mistakes.

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.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Broken City!
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Its Edwin’s Monday Evening Property Rant! – An Albo Special!

In this weeks edition property insider Edwin Almeida looks around Albo’s investment property which is on the market to highlight some important issues around building inspections, plus we discuss the Misinformation Bill while we still can and also look at a horrid case of underquoting.

Truth is, whether you are a vendor looking to sell, or a buyer wanting to buy, it is vital to do due diligence on the way through. Not doing so can cost thousands!

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.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Its Edwin's Monday Evening Property Rant! - An Albo Special!
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Look Who’s Wealthy Now!

One of the factors I see in my household surveys is wealth transfer from one generation to another, stoked by the paper wealth created by the massive upswing in home prices. We see more first-time buyers being assisted by the Bank of Grandparents, alongside the Bank of Mum and Dad. This means there is a historic wealth transfer is under way in Australia, for those fortunate enough to have parents or grandparents with assets, tough on those with none of those onramps to property and wealth. With a large chunk of that wealth stored in residential property assets, the shift is already reshaping property market activity, and will intensify in the years to come.

In my surveys I encounter a theme quite often, households who cannot get into the property market while their friends and colleagues seem able to do so. So how come some can and some cannot?

Well, it could be that others are simply just better at saving. Hustling. Investing. Negotiating salary. The second: they’ve got a loan of cash injection from the Bank of Mum and Dad or Grandparents (though often its not clear whether they will have to pay it back. And third, they are a beneficiary of the great intergenerational wealth transfer.

Demographic research firm McCrindle just published a report and they say Baby Boomers are passing on an estimated $6.2 trillion of capital to their children and grandchildren.

Since 2013, the percentage of 25 to 34-year-olds who think that Australia is a land of economic opportunity, where hard work brings a better life, has fallen from 80 per cent to 51 per cent. The same trend was observed across all age groups.

“Belief in the fair go … appears to be declining. We estimate that overall agreement that Australia is a land of economic opportunity has declined by 16 percentage points since 2013,” the researchers found.

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

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Look Who’s Wealthy Now!
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Listen, You Can Hear Home Prices Falling!

The mythology that home prices always rise has been busted before, because the high-level indices which are the fixation of the media, ignore the real variations, at a granular level.

The latest data from Corelogic shows that at the aggregate level there were small falls in Canberra, Darwin, Hobart, and Melbourne, while there were stronger rises in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth (especially Perth) and a small rise in Sydney.

But now, the people at Corelogic who release one of the main indicators of prices included in their Housing Chart Pack, the September ‘Chart of the Month’ which takes a granular look at value falls over the three months to August from a quarterly study of 3,655 suburbs across the country and found that house prices in almost one-third (29.2 per cent) had fallen. In comparison, in the three months to August last year prices had dropped in 17.2 per cent of suburbs. They say that Melbourne (79.1%) and regional Victorian suburbs (73.8%) made up the majority of falls over the quarter. Values also decreased across more than half of the suburbs in Hobart (54.3%), Darwin (51.2%), and Canberra (51.6%), while all suburbs in Perth saw values rise over the quarter.

The company said declines were becoming more common as high interest rates as well as cost of living and affordability challenges continued.

So, what’s ahead then? Well of course this depends on the trajectory of interest rates, remembering that the current higher rates have depressed the typical borrowing capacity of the first-time buyer by as much as 40% from just a couple of years back. Inflation in Australia remains significantly higher than in many other countries, so the RBA is sticking to its view there will be no rate cuts anytime soon.

To try and highlight the potential sensitivities of interest rates, we run three scenarios, and look three years out, to illustrate the sensitivities across units and houses by state.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

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

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Listen, You Can Hear Home Prices Falling!
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Solve The Housing Crisis By Building Smaller, Darker, Higher Homes?

Housing affordability is one of the biggest pressures facing the Australian community and the Government has committed to building 1.2 million new, quote well-located homes across Australia by mid-2029. This is all but impossible, on current trends, and of course housing pressures have been exacerbated by super-high migration.

The NSW Productivity and Equality Commission just released a report: Review of housing supply challenges and policy options for New South Wales.

In summary, New South Wales needs to build 377,000 homes by mid-2029 under its housing targets. The Productivity and Equality Commission recommends Higher-density zones around train stations would double in size and extend further into Sydney’s eastern suburbs and north shore. They are recommending design standards be relaxed to allow the construction of smaller apartments without access to parking, storage or direct sunlight. They say government spending priorities would shift from infrastructure projects like new metros and motorways, to projects that support rapid housing supply. And there would be more migration opportunities for construction workers, to address a critical skills shortage.

Even then I suspect targets wont be met. But to me, by not talking about the demand side of the equation – driven by too high migration they are missing the elephant in the room. As a result, they are proposing we build higher, smaller darker homes – as high-rise living is forced more widely on the population. This risks further degrading the standards of living for many. True while some may be willing to pay less to get anything to live in, the trade-off and compromises are enormous.

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.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Solve The Housing Crisis By Building Smaller, Darker, Higher Homes?
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Its Edwin’s Monday Property Rant!

In this weeks show with our Property Insider Edwin Almeida, we look at the latest data and reports on the property market. How far is the lag and what can we tell about what is happening on the ground?

The vibes are showing higher listings, but not necessarily good quality ones and the rest, while politics seems to be warping things even more.

The pressure on households is real, but some polys are still building their investment property portfolios. Conflict? What conflict?

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.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Its Edwin's Monday Property Rant!
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Is Property Springing Into Life, Or Catching A Cold?

Whilst data should be immutable, interpretation of said data can be tweaked and turned, to spin a particular story. As we have seen in the press this past week. Take, for example auction clearance results.

The preliminary auction clearance rates for this past weekend in the biggest markets of Sydney and Melbourne came out tracking nationally at 71.4 per cent of homes listed for auction based on CoreLogic data. Sydney’s clearance rate was 74.9 per cent and Melbourne’s 68.7 per cent, more or less in line with the previous week. Among the smaller capitals, Adelaide led the way with a clearance rate at 79.5 per cent, followed by Brisbane at 67.3 per cent and Canberra at 56.5 per cent, according to CoreLogic data. But these are on very low counts, so again not that meaningful.

Domain on the other hand reported a Sydney clearance of 67.8% up from 64.2% last week, and below the 68.7% from a year ago. Melbourne was at 62.4% compared with 59.6% last week, and 61.9% a year back. The national number was 63.5%, a significant divergence from CoreLogic’s higher 71.4%.

There are a few points worth making here. The final numbers tend to settle lower, because agents are always keen to promote successful sales, while those passed in are either never reported, or reported later. Some properties are withdrawn before auction, either because they are sold prior, or because the vendor changes tack. As such auction clearance rates do not tell us much at all.

Of course, the spring selling season is now ramping up, and about 2300 auctions are scheduled in the coming week, compared with around 2,000 this past couple of weeks. And listings are rising as vendors decide to sell or are forced to sell. We will chat about this again on Mondays Rant with Edwin. But we do continue to see a spate of ex-investment properties listing, especially in Melbourne, as I reported recently, and the trend is widening.

The bottom line of course is potential buyers should be careful what they purchase, especially as price growth ahead is not assured, especially if the weaker demand for iron ore puts the economy into recession. And prospective sellers would do well to select their agents carefully, as some are still pushing the auction route, one which does not necessarily guarantee a better net sale price, but which does guarantee more income for agents via their additional marketing and auction fees. Just saying!

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.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Is Property Springing Into Life, Or Catching A Cold?
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Is Melbourne The Property Problem Child?

You may recall that I often say, there is not one property market but many micro markets that behave in quite different ways. But at the capital city level, Melbourne appears to be in some strife in terms of price falls at the moment.

Overall, it certainly looks like the combined impact of state policy, higher interest rates, and also bad planning decisions, combined with significant interstate migration away from Melbourne, which is offsetting still too high net overseas migration, is translating into property weakness. That said, of course property still remains over expensive relative to income to a stupid amount, while the restriction of international studies this year will weaken demand for rental property, so while the currently rental growth is still 7.8% over the part year according to CoreLogic, it may well begin to weaken ahead, putting more pressure on property investors in the area.

It does indeed look like for now Melbourne is a property problem child, but it also to me highlights the exposure that Perth has given the risks to mining demand from a weaker China. And as the RBA minutes reinforced yesterday, its not likely we will see rate cuts anytime soon.

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.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Is Melbourne The Property Problem Child?
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DFA Live Q&A Replay: Deep Insights Into The Property Market With Spachus

This is an edited version of a live discussion with the founder of Spachus, the property data portal, a true independent in the Australian real estate market, which provides unbiased and transparent data across the country. Their data is updated every 24 hours so you can get the latest trends and insights first! Lets see what is really going on!

https://www.spachus.com.au

http://www.martinnorth.com/

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

https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/ for our One to One Service.

Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
DFA Live Q&A Replay: Deep Insights Into The Property Market With Spachus
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