God's country... (Sunny Coast boom)

Sunny Coast

I chatted on Sunshine Coast Radio yesterday about the local real estate boom, and my goodness isn't it going off...

Naturally I'm biased, but the lifestyle is absolutely second-to-none. 

An online version of what we discussed can be found here: (or click on the image below):

Canberra property webinar tonight, with Claire Corby

Canberra property update

I'll be hosting a Canberra and ACT webinar tonight with the top local buyer's agent, REBAA member Claire Corby of Capital Buyer's Agency. 

The video below has some of the details:

And you can register for the event for free here (or by clicking on the image below).

It's a live Q&A event, so please feel from to join and asking your questions. 

This has been a very popular webinar series - look forward to seeing you there!

Cheap Aussie apartments

Unit affordability 

Interesting findings, via Scutty and Citi Research:

Source: Citi

Second wave?

Second wave

A critical few weeks lie ahead for Europe as the colder winter months approach.

A number of European countries have seen a huge surge in reported cases of COVID-19, but to date hospitals have not been overrun, and there have been relatively speaking very few deaths.

The recent surge in cases most notably includes France, where the second wave of cases has utterly dwarfed the initial phase of the epidemic.

France deaths have increased a little, but not nearly as much.

In Britain the deaths numbers have long been clouded by the murky confusion between deaths from COVID-19, and deaths where a positive COVID test has been established. 

But by July and August the worst was clearly over, at least according to the NHS hospital data.

Similar patterns have apparently been playing out to date in Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and a range of other countries and global cities besides (e.g. New York, New Jersey, etc.). 

What then, comes next?

All this presumably means one of two things.

Either there's a large number of deaths in the post, following on from the surge of cases, due to a lag effect.

Or the lockdown sceptics were right, and serious cases have followed a Gompertz curve, with the damage already having been done months ago, and immunity building up in much of the remainder of the population.

Let's hope it's the latter.

House wins

House wins

Me involved in a bit of a yarn here in The Australian today (paywall), wherein Wealth Editor James Kirby discusses the differential in performance between houses and units this year:

Victoria moving to 'Stage Two' measures

Virus cases in single digits

A significant day for Victoria, with just 5 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19, only 1 of which came from an unknown source.

There has been but a small smattering of returned traveller cases across the rest of the country lately, but reported cases in the community have completely dried up over recent days, even in Sydney and New South Wales. 

7 positive cases came to light today in a ship offshore from the Pilbara, but as such these won't show up in the official figures until tomorrow. 

Australia is also now heading into its warmer spring and then summer months, which seems likely to help contain further spread of the coronavirus, based on reports from overseas.

Restrictions eased

Attention is now turning towards  the easing of restrictions, with an estimated 127,000 workers now able to return to work in Victoria under the newly-implemented 'Stage Two' measures. 

The 9am to 5pm curfew will now be lifted, but in order to proceed to 'Stage Three' measures, the average for new cases will have to remain at under 5 for a sustained 14-day period. 

In Victoria it's now become possible for realtors to schedule private inspections again.

Stock listing levels in Melbourne are understandably very low, so it's reasonable to expect there to be a rush of activity over the coming weeks. 

According to CoreLogic's index, Melbourne home values have declined by about 6 per cent since peaking in the early part of April. 

At the weekend Sydney's auction market continued to strengthen, with a preliminary clearance rate of 74.8 per cent from 630 reported auction results this week, with Sydney prices apparently bottoming out only a couple of per cent lower than where they were sitting pre-COVID.

Source: CoreLogic

With a dozen lenders cutting interest rates further this week in anticipation of further easing the bottom is probably just about in for housing prices at the 5-capital city aggregate level, inclusive of Gold Coast.

At the capital city level, home values fell by 3 per cent over a 5-month period, having peaked on 11 April.

Rental vacancies normalising

Rental market normalising

Louis Christopher of SQM Research updated the latest total rental listings figures to late September today. 

Rental listings are finally beginning to rise again, with vacancies in and around Melbourne CBD running at relatively high levels until tenants are willing and able to sign leases again.

Source: SQM Research

It's been a very interesting year for rental vacancies. 

Total listings peaked at a heady 105,517 on May 1 this year, after an initial surge driven by COVID uncertainty.

But listings then fell continuously for four consecutive months, to the extent that listings were actually 8 per cent lower than a year earlier at just 85,514.

Things now appear to be normalising at 87,099, at least in aggregate, with total listings only 2 per cent lower than at the same time last year. 

At the local level different patterns have emerged and are emerging. 

High-rise and inner-city units have been far less in favour this year, notably with double-digit vacancy rates in Melbourne CBD, but elsewhere the rental stock is being taken up relatively speaking much more quickly. 

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A dozen lenders have cut their mortgage rates for owner-occupiers and investors this week, ahead of expected easing.

12 lenders now offer mortgage rates from under 2 per cent.

More from RateCity here.

Podcast episiode #25: Static versus dynamic: This is the best stock market model

Podcast Episode #25

Tune in to Episode #24 of the Low Rates High Returns podcast, where we discuss dynamic market models, and what that actually means in practice. 

It's all well and good to say markets aren't always efficient - but how can we actually deal with that in reality?

Tune in here (or click on the image below):

You can also tune in at Soundcloud, Stitcher, or Spotify.

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You can also order a copy of our new book here, and download a free chapter here.