After many months of lobbying for the Queensland Government to withdraw their newly introduced transfer duty surcharge on foreign investment, the property industry has lost their battle. "As announced in the State Budget 2016-17, additional duty of 3% will apply to acquisitions of residential land by foreign persons (including companies and trusts) from 1 October 2016."   Queensland Government What does this mean for foreign investors? For an investment property with...

Source: CoreLogic Housing finance data for July 2016 was released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) earlier today.  The release showed that the total value of mortgage lending in July 2016 was recorded at $31.8 billion which was -1.8% lower compared to the $32.4 billion worth of mortgage lending in June 2016.  The value of mortgage lending is now -4.1% lower than its peak of $33.2 billion recorded in April 2015.  With home values continuing to rise it would te...

Source:  API The housing market has seen a significant surge in the number of high-rise units approved for construction, new ABS data has shown. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this week published building approvals data for July 2016 detailing a record-high number of high-rise approvals in recent years. Throughout the month, the market experienced the second highest monthly number of approvals on record, with 20,987 dwellings approved for construction nationally 11...

ATO requires clearance certificate for sales over $2 million The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has introduced a new rule which affects investors who plan to purchase or sell a property with a market value of $2 million or more. Announced in 2013 and legislated this year, the change was introduced to ensure foreign residents meet their capital gains tax (CGT) obligations. Effective from the 1st of July 2016, the new withholding rule requires Australian residents who are selling a p...

Source:  CoreLogic Weekly rents have fallen by -0.6% over the past year Combined capital city rental rates have fallen by -0.6% over the past year which representstheir greatest annual decline on record (based on data back to 1996).  At the same time a year ago,capital city rental rates had increased by 1.1%.  The factors forcing rental rates lower include: thesoftest wages growth on record, relatively high levels of housing investment following record highsrecently,&nb...

Source:  CoreLogic
Population growth nationally remains strong but continues to trend lower, meanwhile dwelling construction is booming creating a much closer relationship between housing supply and demand.
Demographic data for December 2015 was released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) last week.  The data showed that the national population was estimated at 23.9 million persons, with the population having increased by 326,073 persons over the 2015 calendar...

Source:  CoreLogic Actual rental change falls to a new record low in May 2016 Half of the capital cities have seen rents rise over the past twelve months, including Sydney (0.9%), Melbourne (2.3%), Hobart (3.7%) and Canberra (0.1%). Large rental falls in Perth (-8.8%) and Darwin (-16.9%) have pulled the combined capital average lower, with rents in Brisbane (-0.9%) and Adelaide (-0.9%) also lower over the year. It is anticipated that the rental market weakness ...

Source:  CoreLogic Australia's regional areas are now under the spotlight as capital city property markets become too expensive. As capital city property markets become too expensive and force buyers to look for more affordable alternatives, Australia's regional areas are now under the spotlight with some of the more popular regions showing a lift in transaction levels and median values according to CoreLogic Regional Report for the March 2016 quarter. The Illawarra r...

Source:  CoreLogic Based on the CoreLogic May monthly rental review released today, while rents increased slightly by 0.1% in April, overall, capital city rental rates edged lower, falling 0.2% over the past 12 months. Key Findings: Rental rates are currently $490/week for houses and $467/week for units across combined capital cities; Five of the eight capital cities saw a modest rise in rents over the past twelve months, including Sydney (1.4%), Melbourne (1.7%), ...

Source:  Bees Nees City Realty Affordability - it's the hot topic of the day. Helping first home buyers enter the market is an emotive issue in politics right now and last night's budget saw the government confirm it will stick with current negative gearing rules (provided they win the upcoming election of course). This real estate agent was at a meeting last year where the Shadow Treasurer spoke about housing affordability and he became agitated and passionate when he...