This article talks crap

Yep...

This = Load of Crap

I have written already about this exact scenario before, AND here we are again. On the plus side, we see journalists pushing up property prices nicely.

Sensationalism at it's absolute worst.

Is this just getting ridiculous now? Stars and Real Estate

In what appears to be a new low for real estate journalism, you can now let the stars decide how you're going to tackle the 2013 property year by reading the horoscopes! News.com.au, a wonderful free news website by the way, has just posted this. Make of it what you will.

"And here we see the duplex IP constellation."

Ownership pushed to the suburbs?

I often fail to see past the obvious notion that our nation's journalists are a bunch of idiotic, moronic, 'non-life experienced' idiots. I mean for instance, read this article. 

While the statistics about how far people travel for work are indeed very interesting, the wording is just all wrong:

"Young people are most at risk as housing affordability worsens and first-home buyers are increasingly pushed to outer suburbs."

Does this writer suggest first home buyers should be buying the premium properties in the exclusive suburbs AS THEIR FIRST HOME? Get a grip please, a grip on the reality that the typical first home owner SHOULD NEVER buy ANYWHERE NEAR the CBD. No wonder we have our 20 and 30-somethings complaining about 'affordability'. 

In Brisbane, where should a typical first home owner, in 2011, buy their home? It isn't going to be any of the 'leafy' burbs, not the Indooroopily corridor, definitely not the CBD, not St Lucia, not Kangaroo Point, none of these places are for FHOBs. 

Young people need to get a grip on reality and realise that home ownership is rarely about living where you want to, but rather a compromise between four main factors: distance to work, the suburb 'age', the size of the property and the entry cost. 

1. Distance to work: As in the article, the closer the better, but this needs to be balance with other factors. 

2. Some suburbs, like those popping up near Ipswich at present, are new suburbs with new homes. These come at a premium. Some more established suburbs, say, Oxley, have generally older homes, but are a tad closer to the city. 

3. The size of the property is always a factor, and as the typical back yard becomes smaller and smaller (read 250 square), a premium is paid for the 'larger' lots.

4. Entry cost is probably the most important factor for FHOBs. The market dictates the overall value of a property, considering ALL factors related to the 'livability' of a property, and this is continually forgotten by many many people. Entry cost dictates basically where you will live, but FHOBs can not enter the market with a $700,000 inner ring home. The article talks about stress etc., imagine what it would be like when you need to make the repayments on something like that, AS YOUR FIRST HOME. 

Ciao.

RBA keeps rates the same and at the same time, becomes boring as batshit

News that the Reserve Bank has kept interest rates exactly where they have since the start of the year is no surprise, and in doing so, have shown how 'safe' the RBA has been over the last little period. Although many of our shares investor cousins are doing it tough (although the smart active ones probably making a lot of dough), the RBA continues to hold the rates. I am beginning to think they are so fixated on keeping inflation at bay, that they are not actually looking at the rest of the data. Of course you'll 'hear' reports that they are, but currently the markets are, in my opinion, looking so negative, that this should have pre-empted a drop in the cash rate, and if this doesn't then what does? For property investors, this continual inflation minimisation policy that the RBA have in place is bad news; we need inflation to help boost our capital gains, but for the immediate future, its not look positive.   

The RBA finds it hard to justify rate rises.

That's how I read it anyway. Unfortunately, one second it's going up, the next second it may actually drop, then we read articles like this. A bit of a mystery this is...

Bad News

Housing Finance Falls

Bad news for investors I think. Or is it positive? Hard to say...