The latest ABS figures show housing finance approvals rose in March by 1.6% month on month, after being -3.5% in February. However, this was almost certainly the peak of the lending cycle and it’s likely that loan approvals will fall moving forward. Clearly, investors are back in the market, but new loans to owner-occupiers and…
The RBA has acted to curb high inflation by lifting the cash rate target today, moving from the emergency lows of 0.1% to 0.35%, an increase of 25 basis points. An upwards move was anticipated, given soaring inflation, but the timing and magnitude of the lift are likely to be regarded as controversial, given the…
Australian consumer prices jumped an extraordinary 2.1% in the first three months of the year, the biggest quarterly jump since the introduction of the 10% goods and services tax at the start of the century. The outsized increase, together with a larger than normal increase in the months to December, pushed Australia’s annual inflation rate…
Inflation expectations are simply the rate at which people—consumers, businesses, investors—expect prices to rise in the future. They matter because actual inflation depends, in part, on what we expect it to be. If everyone expects prices to rise, say, 5 percent over the next year, businesses will want to raise prices by (at least) 5…
Over the month of March, growth in houses was 0.5% across the combined capital cities, outperforming the growth in the value of apartments. This continues the annual trend where houses grew 22.9% over the last 12 months while apartments only grew in value by 13.2%. At the national level, units recorded a 0.3% rise in…
The RBA has dramatically changed its recent guidelines for a rise in official interest rates, indicating that higher rates will now likely come sooner rather than later. The RBA has consistently stated that a rate rise was dependent on inflation being “sustainably within the 2 to 3 per cent target range”. The minutes of the…
Australia’s sky-high property prices, low supply, high demand and an impending cash rate increase are putting pressure on an already tight real estate market. Australia’s property prices increased at a record pace in 2021 with Domain’s most recent quarterly house price report showing that the national median house price surged 25.7% and units by 7.7%…
As the war in Ukraine unfolds, not surprisingly global uncertainty has surged according to the latest World Uncertainty Index from the IMF. Of course, this increased uncertainty is a bad sign for global economic growth. IMF research finds that such increases foreshadow significant economic output declines, and based on its estimates, the rise in uncertainty…
Three of the big four banks have hiked fixed rates again, as the cost of fixed-rate funding continues to surge north. Australia’s largest bank, CBA, recently increased fixed rates by up to 0.50 percentage points for owner-occupiers paying principal and interest, but all the way up to 0.90 percentage points for some investors. This is…
Addressing the critical undersupply of rental properties must be a key policy of whoever wins the upcoming Federal Election according to the Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA). Residential rental vacancy rates have hit 16-year record lows due to investor activity being well below average over the past five years in particular, according to new…
