Property prices in Australia have dropped slightly over the past 12 months, although the estimated percentage change depends on who is gathering the data. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, prices across Australia fell by 3.3 per cent in 2008, whilst Australian Property Monitors report an 8 per cent price drop. Either way it’s …
An article in The Age newspaper in Melbourne (“Cheaper areas escape big cuts”) talks about the 10 per cent drop in the median house price in Victoria’s capital, and the relative stability in properties priced under $350,000. But what got my attention was this little statement: “( Eastern suburbs agent Peter Bennison) said the number …
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. …
The Los Angeles Times recently announced that they will no longer be publishing a real estate section in their Sunday edition. Is this the start of more real estate sections being shut down, or a unique case? At the moment real estate advertising is a profitable little business for local newspapers. Brisbane’s Courier-Mail charges a …
I was speaking to a real estate agent yesterday who said that real estate is about to boom again, in part as a result of the dramatic stockmarket crashes. Investors who had been in the stockmarket due to the decline in property prices may shift in large numbers over to property, with the attraction of …
According to a report by Johnston Dixon Real Estate, median property prices in Brisbane will be up over $36 million by 2050. By that time the average annual salary will be $910,000, it will take around 40 years of average annual salary to pay off the family mortgage (up from 10 years of salary today), …
You’ve probably already checked out Google’s Street View utility at Google Maps. You know what your place looks like, and if you’re like my parents you’ll know what day of the week the Google Man drove by – for my folks it was early on a Tuesday morning because the rubbish bins are out on …
Real estate photos are so important these days that some agents are deliberately making homes look better than they are. Think of glamour photography, but apply it to a house that’s up for sale. Usually it’s just a matter of adding a bit of makeup and photographing a home from its good side, but sometimes …
The Real Estate Institute of Victoria has been accused of illegally underquoting one of its own properties, and Ray White Real Estate is thinking about leaving the REIV as a result. Last month the REIV sold one of its own properties in upmarket Camberwell, and it was marketed by GormanKelly as being “in excess of …
According to an analysis by the CSIRO, petrol prices in Australia could reach $8 a litre by 2018, and if fuel prices do start to move upward in such a big way then property prices will be affected. I would imagine we would see a big boom in inner city properties, as well as those …