Vaucluse knockdown home sells for $7.4 million By Carmen Forward May 29, 2023 https://www.smh.com.au/property/new...me-sells-for-7-4-million-20230528-p5dbu3.html Key points A deceased estate in Vaucluse drew strong interest from international buyers. A Narraweena house sold for about $2.5 million. Two dozen buyers registered to bid on a Banksia home. A three-bedroom knockdown home in Vaucluse has sold for $7.4 million after more than a dozen buyers turned out to compete for the clifftop address. More than 100 people gathered for the auction of 3 Marne St, a deceased estate with sweeping ocean views, that went under the hammer on Sunday. The original-condition house described as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” received about 3000 enquires over the course of the five-week campaign, and significant international interest from as far away as India, China and France. Thirteen buyers registered to bid on the 567-square-metre block, many of whom had never set foot inside the house, as they all intended to rebuild on the block. Bidding opened at $5 million and climbed in $100,000 jumps up to $6.7 million, then stalled, before a vendor bid of $7 million was made. Biding soon resumed, and the result surpassed the $7.1 million reserve price by $300,000. Eight buyers made offers before the fall of the hammer, including three from China.
The strange thing about Sydney real estate, the city itself is a nightmare to live in, huge traffic. You can buy better properties at half the price in quieter locations.
Build-to-rent paves way for housing crisis solution https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...-housing-crisis-solution-20230526-p5dbkt.html The thin edge of the wedge to force Australians into living in slums created by the rich. Don't underestimate the stupidity of government. Lobbyists bend the ear of gummint to give the rich more cake at expense of battlers. Gummint get conned (bribed) by con artists, no different from what happens everywhere. The Chinese CCP btw are one of the biggest bribers on the planet.
Australian economy Collapse in new home approvals tipped to worsen housing affordability crisis By Shane Wright May 30, 2023 A collapse in new home approvals is set to exacerbate the nation’s rent and housing affordability crisis as Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy warns the Australian economy may have already entered a weak period of growth. As the Reserve Bank mulls another interest rate rise next week, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed dwelling approvals dropped another 8.1 per cent in April to 11,594. They have now fallen by more than 24 per cent over the past 12 months. The battle for an established home is likely to get even tougher, with further signs of a collapse in new dwelling approvals.Credit: Peter Rae Private house approvals have tumbled by 23 per cent in NSW, almost 21 per cent in Victoria and by more than 19 per cent in WA over the past year. Total approvals are now at the same level as in April 2012, when there were 3 million fewer people in the country. Since peaking at more than 23,200 in March 2021, approvals have collapsed by 50 per cent. The property sector is showing the most strain of any part of the economy from high inflation and the increase in official interest rates to 3.85 per cent over the past year. That’s despite the government expecting a record 400,000 net overseas migrants to enter the country this financial year, and another 315,000 in 2023-24. Almost half of those migrants are expected to be international students who had been kept out of the country by COVID-19 restrictions. Commonwealth Bank senior economist Belinda Allen said the sharp drop in approvals for new homes would put even more pressure on the market. “The lack of new supply at a time when vacancy rates are low, household formation rates remain well below pre-pandemic levels and [there is] rapid population growth will mean rents and home prices will continue to face upward pressure,” she said. St George Economics senior economist Pat Bustamante said it could take years to build enough homes to accommodate the surge in migrants. “Excess demand for housing and too little supply means the cost of housing will increase – both rents and sales prices. This implies there’s downside for non-housing consumption and, therefore, the broader economy,” he said. Treasury secretary Kennedy, giving evidence to a Senate committee on Tuesday, said the rental market was very tight, with advertised rents growing 10.1 per cent in the year to April. Those advertised rents will eventually feed into average rental costs as new lease agreements are signed. According to Kennedy, one pressure point on the rental market has been people moving out of home. He said about 130,000 extra households had been created, compared to the pre-COVID period, because of this phenomenon. “This is partly a result of local residents choosing to live in smaller households, for example, adult children moving out of their parents’ home,” he said. Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy says the economy has already entered a period of weak growth.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen In this month’s budget, Treasury forecast economic growth to slow to just 1.5 per cent for the coming financial year after growth of 3.25 per cent this year. Kennedy said economic growth probably peaked in the September quarter last year and was now losing steam under the weight of higher interest rates. He warned that previous rate rises had yet to fully hit the economy. “The economy ... is actually about to enter a very weak period of growth. In fact, it may have already entered that period,” he said. The slowdown in the economy is becoming evident in the retail sector, with the head of the company that runs Bunnings and Kmart noting shoppers were moving to budget brands. Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott said the COVID-19 surge in spending was coming to an end. “I would say that now the honeymoon is very much over,” he said. “We expect value to become even more important for customers, and we are seeing that today … with more customers trading down within categories and increasing their share of spend in more value-orientated products.” The surge in inflation has left most Australians dealing with a fall in the real value of their incomes. Unions are seeking a 7 per cent increase in the minimum wage to help low-income earners deal with high inflation. This has prompted fears by business groups and some economists of an upward spiral in wages that would add to inflation. But Kennedy rejected claims of a wage-price spiral, saying wages growth would soon start to slow. “There are no signs of a wage-price spiral developing,” he said. “Medium-term inflation expectations remain well anchored and it is usual for wages growth to accelerate during an upswing in the economic cycle.”
Inflation remains "sticky". Thus Interest Rates to rise again next Tuesday, so those Building Approvals to sink even further.
Rich people who make the decisions don't worry about the consequences as it doesn't affect them. Bellevue Hill mansions sell in $130 million double deal By Lucy Macken May 31, 2023 https://www.smh.com.au/property/new...-130-million-double-deal-20230531-p5dcqf.html Key points Leo Lynch, of flower wholesaler Lynch Group, has purchased a Bellevue Hill estate for about $70 million. He has sold his own recently rebuilt home a few blocks away for $61.5 million. Sydney’s trophy home market has had a bull run of $20 million-plus sales this year. Sydney’s trophy home market clocked up two of the year’s biggest deals on Tuesday night when Leo Lynch, of flower wholesaler Lynch Group, bought and sold $130 million worth of home real estate. Central to the double deal is the historic Federation estate Leura in Bellevue Hill, which was sold to Lynch for about $70 million by Chinese-Australian businessman Wilson Lee and his wife, Baoyu Wu – trading for more than double what they paid for it in 2015. Bellevue Hill’s Federation mansion Leura sold for about $70 million on Tuesday night.Credit: Domain The purchase coincided with Lynch’s sale of his own recently rebuilt home a few blocks away for $61.5 million. Prestige agents were left stunned by the result for Lynch’s home on Wednesday, given it is set on about 1300 square metres. It topped the suburb high, previously held by the 5700-square-metre Rona estate that sold for $58 million in 2018 to Richard Scheinberg, of the wealthy cattle and property investment family.
‘It’s bleak’: Why you might be struggling to keep pace with rent rises By Melissa Heagney-Bayliss June 1, 2023 Key points The biggest rent rises for tenants were for units, which rose nationally by 22.2 per cent over the year to March - six times more than wage growth of 3.7 per cent. Tenants are now being forced to change their budget and hunt for something cheaper to rent. The outlook is bleak for people who are on low incomes now struggling to pay the rent, experts say. Apartment rents across Australia have increased six times faster than wages and house rents have climbed at triple the rate, leaving many tenants struggling to make ends meet. Median weekly asking rents for apartments in the capital cities rose 22.2 per cent over the year to March, Domain data shows, while wages rose just 3.7 per cent over the year, the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show. Unit rents increased more than six times faster in Sydney and Melbourne, where the medians jumped by 24 per cent and 23.1 per cent respectively, to $620 and $480 per week. Median house rents rose 13 per cent across the combined capital cities. Perth had the largest increase at 14.6 per cent, while asking rents rose 10 per cent in Sydney, 11.1 per cent in Melbourne and 12 per cent in Brisbane. Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan said Australian tenants were facing strong competition for homes. Returning migration was adding to already strong demand, amid a time of lower supply – due to a drop in homes being built and some investors cashing out of the market during the boom. Rents had climbed rapidly as a result, particularly in inner Melbourne and Sydney where they skyrocketed 40 per cent and 29.3 per cent respectively over the year, rebounding from sharp declines earlier in the pandemic. Tenants in a beachside Sydney suburb are taking action after their rent went up almost 70 per cent. “I think the initial jump in rents was a catch-up from COVID, but it’s now gone beyond that,” Hassan said. A decrease in household sizes earlier in the pandemic, as tenants sought more space, was likely to be reversed as a result, Hassan said. “Now we’re going back to the pre-existing trend [of people moving back home, or share-housing to afford rent],” he said, adding more households could look to take on boarders, as was common in the 1950s and 1960s as a solution to the rising costs of mortgages. Median income households now need to spend almost a third of their pay (30.8 per cent) on rent for a new lease, the highest level since 2014, the recent ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report showed. This climbs to 51.6 per cent for lower income households. Hassan said the market was extremely tough for those on lower incomes, and noted the longer rents outpaced incomes, the harder it would become. “It’s pretty bleak. It doesn’t seem anything in the short term will be improving that,” Hassan said. Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday, that people may have to move back in with family or a flatmate to reduce their rent costs, after moving out during COVID-19. “The higher prices lead people to economise on housing. That’s the price mechanism at work,” he said. “We need more people, on average to live in each dwelling.” Ryan Wright and his partner decided to buy after their landlord tried to increase their rent by more than $200 per week.Credit: James Brickwood The sharp hikes have pushed more fortunate tenants such as Sydney marketing professional Ryan Wright to buy property. His landlord tried to hike the rent on his Waterloo apartment by $200 per week last year, and while he and his partner negotiated a smaller increase, they knew further rises were likely. Unit rents in the suburbs lifted 21 per cent over the year to March. “We were paying $875 per week, but then the landlord tried to raise the rent to more than $1000. We negotiated a $75 per week rise. “The laws mean landlords can only raise the rent every 12 months, so when the lease expired in March, we decided to buy because the repayments on our home loan are less than $1100 per week.” That is cheaper than some advertised rents for two and three-bedroom apartments in the suburb, Wright said. “We’re in a very privileged position because we can afford to buy, but there are so many people just being pushed out because they can’t afford the rent increases,” Wright said. Barry Plant Melbourne executive director Mike McCarthy said tenants were making tough decisions about where and what they are renting. “It’s like the stress we have seen for people purchasing a home who have had to readjust their budgets as interest rates rise, we’re now seeing that phenomenon extend to the rental market,” McCarthy said. “People are changing the type of property they want to rent and changing it to a less expensive property like a townhouse or an apartment,” he said. Anglicare Australia acting executive director Maiy Azize said a growing number of working Australians were unable to afford their rent and rising living costs. “Rents have been surging for years … [and] wages are not keeping up,” she said. Fewer available rentals is adding pressure to a tight market.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone The situation was worse for those on the pension or other support payments, she said. More people were sleeping rough, and homelessness services were having to turn away one in three people in need. “Some people are couch-surfing for months at a time or sleeping in cars,” she said. “Even average people who are working are finding themselves in rentals they just can’t afford, and they’re not sleeping rough, but they’re being completely wiped out [financially by rent increases].” Azize said more social and affordable housing was desperately needed to help address the crisis, and payments such as JobSeeker and Youth Allowance needed to be increased.
Yep,doesn't make sense Mick. I got out in 2015. Looking back I don't know how I handled the traffic and expense. Thats where the higher wages are for sure but if you crunch the numbers you can make a sea change work....and of course,I'm an elite trader,so that helps.
"Australia’s property boom making the nation poorer" Two years now this thread has been running and this housing mess started long before this thread. In that time, what has the Australian government done? Nothing! Zilch. Zero. Haven't lifted a finger! They're either blind, stupid, corrupt, incompetent, in bed with the rich, or they are ok with rising prices as it increases their tax take and has other benefits and never mind the business conflict. Everything the government attempted at this point in time has only worsened the issue.