Here in Brisbane the stamp duty paid on a median priced home is $5688, but down in NSW you’ll be paying $19,385. The equates to 24 per cent of the average Sydney home owner’s annual income of $72,644. The various governments might sympathise with home buyers about the high price of real estate in this …
Sensis, owners of the 1 2 3 4 premium directory, the Yellow Pages, and a bunch of other stuff, have compared requests for real estate agents during 2007 and 2008, and found that enquiries are down 10 per cent. Associated industries are struggling as well, with calls for property valuation experts down 57 per cent …
Say goodbye to “No deposit home loans”, and say hello to requiring a deposit of between 10 and 20 per cent of the purchase price of a home. From December 1 the Commonwealth Bank will only lend up to 80 per cent of the value of a home if you’re not prepared to pay mortgage …
According to the big boss at the RBA, property prices in Australia may decline, but they won’t crash like they have in the USA and elsewhere: “Indeed, prices probably are falling – gently. But I think there are enough differences in the US versus Australia dynamic between the US. We certainly shouldn’t assume there is …
Australian property prices fell slightly during the September quarter, with an Australia-wide fall of around 1.8%. Some of the hardest hit suburbs are also the wealthiest, with inner Melbourne suburbs tumbling by up to 13.2%. This is unexpected, with a lot of people thinking that inner-city suburbs were the safest bet. Anyway, some experts are …
Leveraged beyond our means. That is the cause of the global financial crisis, according to The Age’s Ross Gittins. “In the past decade, the housing boom — including the welter of negative gearing — has seen their total debt double relative to their disposable income from 80% to almost 160%. That is our great vulnerability. …
Despite the shaky, crazy things going on in finance markets around the world, now is the time to buy real estate. There are a lot of properties on the market right now, at least in Brisbane where things have gone ballistic in the past few weeks. So if you’re shopping for a home, you’ll have …
First home buyers are checking out the market, learning what’s available, but they aren’t yet buying real estate. And that’s to be expected. Many of them had, until recently, pretty much given up on purchasing their own home. Prices were skyrocketing, and the old $7,000 First Home Owners Grant had long since been off-set by …
Yale economist Robert J. Shiller has released a graph showing the change in American property values from 1890, and projected forward to 2011. This data is based on using an 1890 property selling for the modern inflation-adjusted equivalent of $100,000 US. Property values experienced mini-booms in the 1970s and 1980s, but it is the enormous …
“Eighty per cent of the Australian population lives in the coastal zone, and approximately 711,000 addresses are within three kilometres of the coast and less than six metres above sea level.” – Department of Climate Change I’ve spoken before about the problem of rising sea levels and the potential for it to inundate Australian homes …