Is everything really alright in property land?

www.whocrashedtheeconomy.com

Sunday 15 Jan, 2012

While the real estate lobby groups put on a brave face and shower us with news of a recovery (0.1% increase in property prices in November), surging rents, housing shortages, tight rental vacancy rates and that it is never a better time to buy – you will get in at the bottom of the market, there are signs something is not quite right in property land here in the lucky country.

The Herald Sun reported yesterday on a rental glut in Western Melbourne. This rental glut has left almost 1,000 new homes sitting empty (housing shortage) and has seen the rental vacancy rate surge to 22 percent (extremely tight rental market). New four bedroom, two bathroom homes are now renting for $275/week (surging rents) as landlords fight with each other to secure tenants and an income. If they can’t find tenants, holding costs are likely to send these investors to the wall very shortly.

The Weekend Australian Financial Review reported yesterday “The housing market on the edges of Australia’s major cities is showing signs of significant distress as banks increasingly refuse to lend against sale price valuations in a falling market.” Valuations in many new suburbs have fallen 15 percent last year. According to the article, the problem is most severe in Melbourne with Dennis Family Homes CEO Peter Levinge saying “Banks have tightened up on their finance requirements, part of which is valuation, and we are noticing a higher level or cancellations than 12 months ago due to finance issues.” Dennis Family Homes is one of the biggest developers in Melbourne’s west and says about 25 percent of buyers are walking away from contracts, up from about 10 percent a year ago.

http://www.whocrashedtheeconomy.com/blog/2012/01/is-everything-alright-in-property-land/#comments

Australian Constitution for Dummies Part 1of 4

 

The Human Race Film – NAB vs Norman

Let’s get behind Norman and his stand against the greedy banks in Australia.

Norman says “The National Australia Bank was given permission to steal my home. This is the first of many video journals to stop them and to educate the world on the Fraud that The National Australia bank is using to kill it’s customer”

National Australia Bank Prove Why They Are Criminals

If we think that the foreclosures in the US won’t ever happen in Australia.  Well think again..

Real Estate Investment by Foreign Residents: Top Secret

January 4, 2012

www.whocrashedtheeconomy.com

It was December 2008. Three months earlier Lehman Brothers had collapsed – credit markets have frozen over. Two months earlier, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announces the First Home Owners’ Boost, designed to save the housing market, or at least temporary, by encouraging first home buyers to bring forward their purchases and help prop up ailing demand.

By now Australian houses prices had come off 4.7 percent. During all the panic, the Rudd Government announces legislation to ‘streamline’ some of the administrative requirements for the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). According to the Government, the changes would enable the FIRB to concentrate on larger issues in the ‘National Interest’.

But as the Australian public would later learn, this streamlining of administrative requirements really translated into the opening up the floodgates to allow temporary foreign residents such as students to buy property of any value in Australia, effective from the 18th December 2008. Previously they could only spend up to $300,000 on their primary place of residence in Australia.

With the housing market oversupplied, and demand dwindling, many questioned the timing of the announcement. Was it just another measure to save our already highly inflated housing market? If it was, you have to admit it was a genius scheme. Domestically, mortgage approvals had fallen off a cliff. Why not enlist the help of foreigners? It was cheaper, a lot cheaper, than giving first home buyers free money.

By March 2010, the Australian media started asking for data on just how many foreign residents were buying houses in Australia. There were endless reports each weekend of Australian’s being outbid by an army of Chinese residents, effectively pricing Australian’s out of their own housing market. But the ‘streamlining of administrative requirements’ actually meant no records were kept, or more specifically it would seem that these foreign residents no longer needed to lodge applications with the FIRB. There was public outcry and no real data to support just how big or small this issue actually was.

Find the rest of the article at this link: http://www.whocrashedtheeconomy.com/