Articles by Tim Lawless

What has Coronavirus affected our finance markets? Prior to the onset of COVID-19, housing finance conditions were becoming more accommodative for potential buyers. This was enabled through: The repeal of temporary macro-prudential measures; The halving of the cash rate between June and October 2019; and, Declines in the typical mortgage serviceability assessment rate from 7.3%…

What’s going on in our property market in these uncertain times? How has COVID 19 affected us? That’s clearly important to know because the performance of the property market directly and indirectly impacts the livelihood and success of hundreds of thousands of Australian individuals and businesses. Property remains the largest asset class in Australia by…

The proportion of homes sold at a profit was rising late last year as the housing market rebounded from its slump, according to the latest Corelogic Pain and Gain report. But this was based on sales from before the coronavirus outbreak and things are very different now. Clearly real estate transaction volumes will continue fall…

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports on housing prices quarterly using a stratified median methodology. This method is different to CoreLogic’s hedonic regression series; in simple terms, the stratification methodology measures price changes across a number of ‘strata’ or sub-regions before aggregating the data back to the capital city level. Generally the ABS and CoreLogic…

Spurred on by a rise in national dwelling values after a long period of decline, property values around Australia are now up 4.7% since finding a floor in June through to the end of November. The rebound in housing values has been largely driven by Sydney and Melbourne where values have recovered by more than…

The number of residential properties advertised for sale this spring has been lower than last year across every capital city due to both less fresh stock being added to the market together with a rise in buyer activity. The number of new listings added to the national housing market through November was up 56% from…

Nationally, dwelling values have risen at roughly the same pace as household incomes over the past decade providing a relatively steady ratio of dwelling values relative to household incomes. At the same time, mortgage rates have fallen to generational lows, leading to an improvement in loan serviceability. The decade ending in June 2019 has seen…

Since moving through a trough in May, the value of new owner occupier home loan commitments has increased by 17.3% through to the end of September and the value of investor loan commitments is up 8.4%. The latest ABS data on new housing credit showed a sharp rise in the value of home loan commitments,…

With many of Australia’s capital city housing markets posting a gain in values over the past three months, a recovery trend is looking increasingly entrenched. But how long will it take for residential property values to reach a new record high if the current rate of growth continues? If housing values continue to rise at…

Have you ever wondered what it takes to own a property in the top two percent of the market? While the median, or 50th percentile, provides a reasonable indication of the ‘typical’ value of a property in an area, the 98th percentile provides a guide about the top two percent of the market based on…