Pete Wargent blogspot
Wednesday 31 March 2021
Credit growth slowest since January 2010
Tuesday 30 March 2021
Jab for victory
Property demand eases a bit
Monday 29 March 2021
Warren Buffett mini-series #3: Be fearful when others are greedy
Sunday 28 March 2021
Podcast preview: Logic versus emotion
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Saturday 27 March 2021
Over 3,100 auctions held
Friday 26 March 2021
Wednesday 24 March 2021
Job ads soar
Time to refinance
Data via CoreLogic:
Tuesday 23 March 2021
Stamp duty receipts on the rebound
Monday 22 March 2021
Hello seller!
More listings
Not so long ago commentators were frothing about the coming 32 per cent property price crash.
Now prices are rising, all the talk is of a market intervention!
The middle ground can be a lonely place to be.
Of course, normally what happens when prices rise quickly is more sellers come into the market, and in time the market finds its level and a more sustainable pace of growth.
Voila...
As I discussed with Stephen Kouloulas in this video here, more building and more supply will calm things down in time.
Podcast: Price is what you pay...
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Saturday 20 March 2021
More on lending standards
Weekend reads
Friday 19 March 2021
Podcast preview
Podcast preview
A sneak preview of the next podcast episode in our Buffett mini-series...
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Thursday 18 March 2021
V is for Victoire!
Employment booms
Although it wasn't in any market forecasts, I did flag the possibility of record high employment rebounding to 13 million this month...
And it was to be so, with the figures sticking up a beautiful V-sign (for victory) to the pessimists, although many still believe employment will decline when JobKeeper ends.
Total employment is now above 13 million.
What more to say?
A huge beat with full time employment increasing by a monster 89,100 in February. Wow!
Now let's hope we have the collective ambition to carry this thing through and push for an unemployment rate of 3 to 4 per cent.
Lending standards remain robust
Lending standards chat
There's been a bit of idle social media talk about lending standards, which overall remain relatively tight.
There has been a modest increase in the market share of higher LVR loans, driven by the success of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme (FHLDS), but overall lending is far tighter than it used to be (with just with a little more oxygen now than during the dark days of the banking Royal Commission).
There has been a bit more lending at high debt to income ratios of 6x or above, which is barely an issue given serviceability ratios are at the easiest level in nearly 45 years.
Regulators mightn't want to see a combination of high DTI ratios and skinny serviceability calculations, mind you, and as such it's possible that 25 basis points might be added to higher LVR mortgage assessment rates before the year is out, just to nudge things back into line.
Overall, though, most of the economist chat simply overlooks that competition in the mortgage lending space and record low rates are driving asset prices higher, much as you'd expect.
Investment loans also remain at very low levels, although this will likely change before the end of 2021.
Overall, lending standards remain robust, as anyone who's been through the wretched process would know!
Borrowing capacity has also been slashed over recent years.