The Week that was in Property

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) released taxation statistics for the 2012-13 financial year earlier this week.

From a residential housing market perspective the data is interesting because it provides insight into those who own residential investment properties and of course how many of these property owners are negatively geared.

The key statistics from the data release were:

• 1,967,260 taxpayers claimed a net rental income (15.4% of all tax payers)
• Of those individuals claiming rental income, 64% declared a net loss (ie were negatively geared) and 36% recorded a net profit (ie were positively geared).
• The ATO reports that there was $41,986,149,270 in rental deductions over the year however, the value of these rental deductions fell by -3.9% over the year.
• 706,950 taxpayers claimed a net rental profit of $6,651,603,089 with the number claiming a profit up 8.3% and the value of the total profit rising 8.2%
• The average of these profits was $9,409 per taxpayer, virtually steady from $9,417 the previous year
• 1,260,315 taxpayers claimed a net rental loss amounting to $12,045,667,067 with the number claiming a loss down -4.2% over the year while the value of these losses declined by 16.3%
• The average of these losses was $6,123 per taxpayer, down from $7,316 the previous year and average losses were at their lowest level since 2009-10
• Of the 1,967,260 taxpayers that claimed net rent, they claimed a total of $5,394,063 in losses which was -34.6% lower over the year
• Across the tax brackets, those in the $30,000 to $80,000 tax bracket claimed the greatest proportion of total rental losses (37.6%) followed by: $80,000 to $180,000 (35.6%), Greater than $180,000 (12.8%), less than $18,200 (12.7%) and $18,200 to $30,000 (1.3%)

Clearance rates

CoreLogic RP Data was tracking 604 auctions over the past week, which was a significant reduction on the 2,603 auctions the previous week due to ANZAC Day falling on last Saturday.

The weighted average clearance rate across the capital cities was 82.3%; the seventh consecutive week where the combined capitals clearance rate has been above 75%.

The largest auction market, Melbourne, saw just 183 auctions held last week with a clearance rate of 86.6%, up from 79.5% across 1,266 auctions over the previous week.

In Sydney there were 285 auctions with a clearance rate of 89.7% which was the highest auction clearance rate on our records.

Sydney auction clearance rates have now been above 80% since the Reserve Bank cut official interest rates by 25 basis points at the start of February 2014.

Note that sales listings are based on a rolling 28 day count of unique properties that have been advertised for sale.

The number of new and total number of homes being advertised for sale has fallen slightly over the past week.

Total listings nationally are -0.8% lower than the number from a year ago while capital city listings are -0.6% lower.

Over the past four weeks there have been 42,769 newly advertised properties added to the market which is -5.2% fewer than at the same time one year ago.

A similar trend can be seen across the capital cities where 26,790 new listings hit the market over the past four weeks which is -1.3% lower than at the same time last year.

The number of new listings is lower currently compared to the same time in 2014 in Sydney, Perth, Hobart and Canberra but higher elsewhere.

Meanwhile, although capital city stock is lower than a year ago, it is being fuelled by a significant decline in listings compared to a year ago in Sydney (-14.4%) along with more moderate decreases in Melbourne (-5.5%), Adelaide (-0.3%) and Hobart (-5.3%).

All other capital cities have a greater number of total listings compared to this time in 2014.

Note that the total number of properties listed for sale in Sydney (18,138) remains lower than each of: Melbourne (29,838), Brisbane (19,113) and Perth (20,581).