Approved Home Loans News

Wed, 2 May 2007
Interest rates on hold: reprieve for homeowners
In a boon for the nation's mortgage belt, the Reserve Bank decided at its quarterly meeting on May 1 to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 6.25 per cent. The Reserve Bank's decision followed the publication of a much lower than expected March-quarter consumer price index, which showed inflation rose just 0.1 per cent for the quarter and 2.4 per cent for the year. This was well within the Reserve Bank’s target of 2-3 per cent. In a rare show of consensus, many economic forecasters are now predicting a further easing in inflation and most believe interest rates will stay on hold for the rest of 2007, particularly given the impending federal elections.

Fri, 28 December 2007



Fri, 28 December 2007
More rate pressure as new morgage rates plunge
The bank of England came under pressure to cut interest rates as early asnext month today as official figures from Britains high street banks showed that new mortgage lending dropped by 43.5 percentlast month compared with last November.

Banks approved only 44,811 mortgage loans in November marginally higher than October but still the second lowest level since records began.

The figures provided the latest evidence of a market slowdown in the UK housing market amid signs of a sharp slowdown in consumer confidence.

Fri, 28 December 2007



Sat, 12 January 2008
BIG BANKS RAISE INTEREST RATES
After much speculation,Westpac Banking Corporation Ltd and Australias fifth largest bank,St George Bank Ltd, have followed their rivals and lifted their variable home loan interest rates.

St George lifted its variable interest rate by 0.20 per cent per annum, citing a significant increase in funding costs.

A short time later,Westpac raised the interest rate on its variable home loans by an additional 0.15 per cent per annum.

Westpac's first option home loan rate will increase to 8.14 per cent per annum and the standard variable home loan rate will increase to 8.72 per cent per annum,effective January 14.

Sat, 09 February 2008
Coke's boutique brewery
COKA-COLA Amatil and partner SABMiller will build a new boutique beer brewery on the central coast of NSW.

Coca-Cola said the brewery at Warnervale would have a capacity of 50 million litres and employ between 100 and 120 people.

Construction is expected to be completed by 2010.

Coka-Cola and South Africa's SABMiller will build the brewery through their Pacific Beverages joint-venture company.

Pacific Beverages last December bought the premium-beer brands Bluestongue and Bondi Blonde from majority Bluestongue shareholder and advertising magnate John Singleton.



Sat, 16 February 2008
Perth..Margaret River Hot Spot
DEVELOPERS have set their sights on Margaret River to establish luxurious apartment and townhouse complexes amid the enviable coastal lifestyle.

The township's most established land developer, Lester Group, is exploring a new concept for studio apartments to be built above garages on some sites within the Rapids Landing development.

Lester Group project manager Simon Munckton said this was a first for Margaret River and aimed to support accommodation demand for the education campus across the road.

"The special home sites are not only being designed to meet community demands, but also appeal to investors who can now achieve a rental income from their principal place of residence,'' Mr Munckton said.

Close by, Brookfield Village will offer quality townhouses with 29 designs to choose from and prices starting from $439,000.

Selling agent Josh Grosse said Margaret River was chosen for its attractive lifestyle, with a thriving town centre and world-class wineries and beaches on its doorstep.

"The individual homes present a great option for many buyers, including first-home owners, retirees, young couples or weekenders and miners who can enjoy the region's attractions and then simply lock up and leave,'' he said.

"From an investment point of view, Margaret River continues to entice more and more retirees and young people looking to live the unique lifestyle, so Brookfield Village is expected to enjoy profitable upturn in the coming years.''

Margaret River's apartment market has enjoyed good growth during the past calender year, with the median price of units increasing 17.9 per cent compared with 4.8 per cent growth in the median house price, according to Landgate Valuation Services.

For more information on studio apartments at Rapids Landing, phone 0418 913 620 or visit www.rapidslanding.com.au.

To express interest in Brookfield Village, call Josh Grosse at Empire Property on 9319 9911.



Tue, 18 March 2008
Higher interest rates will do the trick - eventually
Whenever inflation rears its ugly head and the Reserve Bank jacks up interest rates, it's surprising how many people start applying their minds to the mysteries of economics. They want to be convinced that higher interest rates really will get inflation down.

I guess it's because rising interest rates are unpleasant that so many people conclude they won't.

One common objection you hear is that, because raising interest rates adds to business costs and they pass those costs on in higher prices, this will actually make inflation worse rather than better.

But this is argument is just another example of the "cost-plus" theory of prices, which is fallacious. It assumes businesses always have the ability to raise their prices in response to higher costs.

It's true businesses would always like to pass on their higher costs - and so stop their profit margins being squeezed - but whether they're able to is a different matter. That depends on the relative strengths of demand and supply at the time.

Of course, if the Reserve is worried enough about inflation to be raising interest rates, that suggests demand will be pretty strong relative to supply - as indeed it is at the moment.

So, in a speech he gave this week, the Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, admitted that, yes, it may be possible for businesses to raise their prices without losing sales.

But only initially. "Since higher interest rates do eventually slow demand, it will get more difficult to raise prices in due course," he said.

That's the point to grasp: higher interest rates reduce inflation by weakening demand, thereby making it hard for firms to raise their prices without losing sales. Demand may even weaken to the point where some firms are offering discounts on their prices.

How exactly do higher interest rates weaken demand? Short answer: a lot more ways than you'd think. Economists call them "channels".

The first channel is the "cash flow effect". Higher interest rates leave people with mortgages with less money to spend on other things.

But here's a point that's been lost in the discussions of late: it's not just people with mortgages who are hit by higher interest rates, it's also businesses. Almost every business has borrowings. So businesses, too, will be left with less cash to spend on other things.

Another channel goes by the fearsome name of the "inter-temporal substitution effect". It simply means that higher interest rates make it more expensive to spend now rather than later. That's because you either have to borrow to cover the spending or, if you're drawing on your savings, you're forgoing more interest income.

So higher rates encourage both households and businesses to delay their spending. (Note that this is true of all households, not just those with mortgages.)

A third channel (there are more) is the exchange rate. Higher interest rates relative to those on offer in other countries tend to attract capital inflow and so put upward pressure on our dollar.

This worsens the international price competitiveness of our export industries and also makes it harder for our industries to compete against imports in the domestic market. Either way, it reduces net external demand's contribution to aggregate demand.

So be under no illusion: raising interest rates does dampen demand (which is just the economists' word for spending) and thereby does slow the rate of inflation.

Another argument you sometimes hear is that raising interest rates doesn't reduce demand because, though it may reduce the disposable income of borrowers, it increases the disposable income of savers by the same amount.

The good thing about this argument is its recognition that banks merely lend other people's money and that when the Reserve raises the official interest rate this increases banks' borrowing costs as well as permitting them to raise the interest rate they charge their borrowers. In principle, their profits should be little affected.

Some people add that this means higher interest rates add to the costs of the poor while adding to the income of the rich. But this implies it's the poor who borrow and the rich who lend.

If you think that, you don't know much about life - or banks. The poor can't afford to borrow, but the rich can. And banks are reluctant to lend to poor people but keen to lend to the rich. Why do the rich need to borrow? To get richer. (There are, of course, a lot of people in the middle who are neither poor nor rich.)

But what's wrong with the argument that raising interest rates merely shifts income from borrowers to lenders? Well, if we lived in a closed economy - one that didn't trade with the rest of the world - it would be right. All the borrowers and lenders would be locals.

We, however, live in an open economy - one that borrows heavily from foreigners every year. We borrow to allow our imports to exceed our exports and to fund the current account deficit on the balance of payments.

So, because so much of our borrowing - or, to be more precise, our banks' borrowing - is done from foreigners, there's no doubt that a rate rise hits our borrowers harder than it benefits Australian savers.

Yet another argument we're hearing is that higher interest rates won't reduce inflation because the worsening we've experienced is caused by just a few big price rises, which have been caused by factors beyond the Reserve Bank's control.

There's the high world price of oil, for openers, the effect of the drought (or, globally, the increasing use of grains for fuel rather than consumption) on food prices and even the rise in rents, which is occurring because the demand for rental accommodation is growing faster than its supply.

This argument is simply wrong. The rise in prices has been quite widespread. Of the 11 price groups in the consumer price index, seven have recorded average annual increases in excess of 3 per cent over the past two years.

As for the notion that there's nothing the Reserve can do about the rise in world oil prices, the truth is that its effect has been moderated by the rise in our dollar, caused at least partly by the Reserve's higher interest rates.

But the best reason for believing higher interest rates will eventually lower the inflation rate is experience. It's always worked in the past. Anyone who lived through the recession of the early 1990s should be in no doubt about that.

Ross Gittins is the Herald's Economics Editor.



Sun, 30 March 2008
Australia PM urges openness on financial crisis
CANBERRA, March 27 (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised not to retreat into a new era of protectionism on Thursday in response to the global financial crisis, and urged other governments to hold their nerve.

Rudd said governments feeling the impact of the financial crisis would be tempted to blame globalisation and respond by putting up new barriers and regulation to their domestic financial markets.

But he said governments should hold firm on policies that would promote ongoing economic stability.

"Global economic problems require global solutions," Rudd said in a speech to an economics conference.

"As financial markets become more global, and assets are traded more quickly between nations, so too must regulation and supervision become more global."

He said better international rules on transparency of risk exposures, valuations and leverage were needed to rebuild confidence after the crisis, sparked by the collapse in the subprime mortgage market in the United States.

Rudd said Australia's central bank would continue to monitor international liquidity needs and take part in any coordinated central bank action, if needed.

He said the Reserve Bank of Australia would also monitor and maintain appropriate support for domestic liquidity needs.

Rudd cautioned against any push for more domestic protection for financial markets.



Fri, 04 April 2008



Fri, 04 April 2008
Rents to rise by 50 per cent: report
There are more predictions of skyrocketing rents across Australia, with 50 per cent rises predicted by a property monitoring group.

The latest quarterly report on rents from Australian Property Monitors says median asking rents in the major cities have already risen at double-digit rates over the past 12 months.

It expects a further 50 per cent increase in most capitals over the next four years.

It says strong migration levels are outpacing residential construction, while renters are being discouraged from moving into home ownership by rising mortgage interest rates.



Sat, 03 May 2008
$A, rates, surpluses up for years


A RENEWED surge in commodity export prices is set to keep the economy bubbling along, interest rates high, the dollar strong and federal budget surpluses fat "for years to come", analysts say.

The Reserve Bank's commodity price index yesterday posted a 10.2 per cent increase in the month of April alone, resulting from jumps in contract prices for coking coal, iron ore and thermal coal.

And the index is almost certain to surge further as the RBA said that only about one-third of the latest "large increases" in commodity contract prices had been accounted for in April.

Commonwealth Bank chief currency strategist Richard Grace said the flow-on effects from the surge in commodity prices, including a tripling of coal prices at the last contract negotiations, would cement the economy's strength, pushing the dollar higher and delivering budget surpluses.

"I can't see the budget surplus disappearing for years to come," Mr Grace said yesterday. "Because the income is going to come in and that's going to mean increased company profits which means increased company tax, which goes to the government," he said.

"We've still got a labour shortage in this country so unemployment is not going to rise and plenty of people are also going to be paying income tax to the government."

The lag effect of the mining boom would also mean higher interest rates would be around for some time, despite the signs of a slowing economy.

"The government, with all that money, delivers income tax into the economy but what tends to happen with this virtuous circle is it puts upward pressure on inflation and then pressure on interest rates," Mr Grace said.

"Because this (price spike) will last for years, this is why interest rates are likely to remain high for years and hence why the Aussie is going to remain strong for years."

Mr Grace estimates that the stimulus from the commodity price surge was equivalent to about 2 per cent of GDP.

"And that's a massive income injection and this is the main reason why the government is running such large budget surpluses," Mr Grace said.

NAB Capital economist David de Garis said the commodity price index spike would significantly boost Australia's national income.

"The tripling in coking coal prices would alone mean that export receipts would jump from $15.5 billion up to $45 or $50 billion, so that's another $30 billion plus rise on coking coal receipts alone -- so that alone is 2.5-to-3 per cent of GDP," Mr de Garis said.

"And because of the greater exports out of Australia, that will mean a lot more corporate income and more wage rises and more government revenue."



Mon, 02 June 2008
Property crash not likely
Despite continuing gloom overseas, there's good news for owners here.

Rapid increases in interest rates have slammed Australian home owners with a mortgage to a point where they are now making the highest repayments in the developed world. Thankfully, one consolation is that generally house values are holding up.

I know there is a big increase in home repossessions and loan defaults, and property values are relatively stagnant, but compared with the rest of the world our real estate prices are staying pretty solid.

The question now is whether Australian residential property prices are overvalued and could we see the same sort of cracks which are happening overseas.

The news from overseas is just appalling. A recent US house price survey by the National Association of Realtors recorded an average 7.7 per cent drop for the year to March - the biggest fall since records started in 1982.

Would you believe states such as California and Florida are seeing average falls of up to 30 per cent over the past year as the credit crunch bites hard. At this stage 1-in-194 homes in the US have been repossessed and that ratio is climbing constantly. There are reports that some financiers are repossessing homes and then asking the owners to stay rent free to protect the property from vandals.

Now there are fears this sort of property crash could spread to Britain based on its current valuations. Average house prices in Britain are running at six times average earnings, which is way above the historic average of 3.7 times wages.

Australian residential property values are currently double Britain's historic high - 12 times earnings in Sydney and 10 times in Melbourne.

Australian mortgage repayments are 57 per cent of average incomes compared with 50 per cent in Britain where the historic average is just 30 per cent.

A recent survey in The Economist magazine says Australia has the most overvalued residential property in the world.

All these comparisons make for very nervous reading and you'd think would point to an impending crash the size of that in the US. That may very well be the case a few years down the track.

But for the moment there appears to be a couple of significant planks underpinning Australian property values.

Firstly, the high skilled and business immigration numbers combined with low construction levels is creating a shortage of supply accentuated by the banks tightening development financing.

Full employment also means that even though higher loan repayments are stretching family budgets, household incomes won't fall.

The other factor is the rental crisis. Strongly rising rents are usually a precursor to rising values as investors chase property to take advantage of the strong yields.

For property owners it looks like a crash in values isn't on the cards for at least a few years. For those looking to get on the property merry-go-round for the first time, property is not going to get any more affordable either.

But it seems there is hope of picking up an affordable bargain if you know where to look.

Last week on my Sunrise program we interviewed Terry Ryder who is a former property writer and now runs a business called Hot Spotting, which analyses property issues.

Terry Ryder put together a list of the top 12 places to buy a house for under $200,000. Yep, $200,000 and many on the list are well below that level down to $90,000 in one area.

Now before you chortle and say they must be in the middle of nowhere, Ryder's 12 locations all have good community facilities and reasonably good employment prospects for people moving there, because they're booming.

There are only two locations on the list close to a capital city - Melton near Melbourne and Elizabeth on the outskirts of Adelaide.

Ryder says most areas close to Sydney and Brisbane were priced out of this list.

His personal pick is Parkes in regional NSW because of its location as a transport hub.

In Queensland, Charters Towers is the best pick while in NSW there's Broken Hill, Glen Innes and Inverell.

In Victoria, the best buys are Gippsland, Melton and Mildura.

Further south in Tassie, George Town and the Rosebery-Zeehan area are on the list.

In South Australia, Elizabeth rounds out the top 12.



Sun, 15 June 2008
Don't rule out fixing your home loan


If you like certainty, a fixed loan could be for you. You'll know what your home loan repayments will be during the term of the loan and they won't go up.

But you will only achieve an interest-rate saving with a fixed loan if interest rates keep on rising during the term of the fixed loan.

The best time to fix is before interest rates start rising. Given interest rates have already risen seven times in two years, the best time to fix is probably behind us. But that doesn't mean that you can't still save money.

With ANZ Bank last week predicting two more official rate rises this year, variable home loan rates could keep rising to over 10 per cent this year, or next, so it might be worth considering whether to fix part or all of your home loan.

Looking at the numbers

According to data from the Reserve Bank of Australia, average interest rates on variable home loans were 9.45 per cent in April, well up on 8.55 per cent in December.

Variable home loans rates sat well above the average rate on three-year fixed home loans of 8.95 per cent, according to RBA data.

That means you'd be paying less now on a three-year fixed loan than on a standard variable home loan.

A quick look at interest rates on five-year fixed loans also reveals interest rates of 9.10 per cent or less from the big banks, well below standard variable rates.

Be aware of some costs

But you also need to be aware that it may be very expensive to exit a fixed loan so ask about any costs.

In addition, banks usually limit extra repayments on fixed loans, which could otherwise help you to reduce interest costs, and fixed mortgages may also limit or attract high rates for redrawing.

Most fixed loans don’t have offset facilities, which are common on variable loans and allow you to cut interest costs substantially by allowing the balance in your savings account to offset your home-loan balance, thereby cutting interest charges.

If you do want the security of fixing your loan, but don't want to take the risk that rates will fall, then splitting your loan into fixed and variable portions could be a good idea. That way, you can balance your risks and get some certainty into your home-loan repayments



Wed, 09 July 2008
Nest and less
House prices are flat or falling in most areas of Sydney and Melbourne, and even the most optimistic analysts are forecasting only modest increases over the next few years.

The most recent quarterly data suggest we may be entering a period of sustained price falls. According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia, Sydney house prices fell by 0.3 per cent and in Melbourne by 8.4 per cent between the December quarter last year and the end of the March quarter.

The overall numbers mask variations within each of the biggest cities.

Sydney's lower North Shore, where the median house value is about $1.3 million, was down about 2.5 per cent in the March quarter but prices in the eastern suburbs were about 2 per cent higher.

Property group Knight Frank notes that in Sydney demand for "prime" property, which is defined as that worth more than $1.6 million, remains strong.

There is small but increasing demand from overseas buyers, particularly those from Britain, China, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Knight Frank estimates the price growth in the prime market last year in Sydney was 14 per cent - and up to 30 per cent in some parts of the waterfront eastern suburbs.

ANZ economists, writing in the bank's latest Housing Snapshot newsletter, say interest rates have probably peaked but affordability will continue to slow.

They are expecting established Sydney house prices to grow by little more than 4 per cent this year.

The economists say demand has been strong in Melbourne due to more overseas buyers and fewer people moving interstate. They forecast established house prices in the southern capital will grow by more than 5 per cent this year.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that net immigration last year was 184,400, the highest for 20 years. Net immigration is likely to be even higher this year. Strong immigration is helping to create a floor on house prices, says Rob Mellor, BIS Shrapnel's director of building services and construction.

"There is a floor under the market that is going to keep demand up and prices at a reasonable level," he says.

"I suspect that you might be seeing modest declines out there at the moment but it is not significant - it is not as if prices are coming back 5 or 10 per cent."

Mellor thinks the 8.4 per cent fall in Melbourne house prices in the March quarter is an adjustment after the strong price rises in the previous calendar year, when prices rose by more than 20 per cent. He says the fall simply takes prices back to where they were in the September quarter.

Mellor says there is a lot of pent-up demand for housing. "We are building about 155,000 dwellings a year nationally and our conservative estimate is there is underlying demand for about 185,000 dwellings."

BIS Shrapnel expects property markets to experience marginal price increases this financial year. Property prices will benefit from a lack of supply and record immigration rates but Mellor says despite the positives there is a 50 per cent chance of another interest rate rise by the end of the year.

BIS Shrapnel forecasts flat Sydney prices for this financial year but it predicts the Sydney median house price to increase by 18 per cent over the three years to June 2011. Most of the growth will come towards the end of the period as demand builds.

Such a rate of growth may seem impressive but, after taking inflation into account, that is an average annual increase of about 2.7 per cent.

To June, 2011, BIS Shrapnel forecasts Melbourne's median house price to rise by 16 per cent, or an annual average rise of 2 per cent after inflation

Looking further ahead, Mellor says pent-up demand for housing is such that it would only take interest rates to remain steady for prices to start to grow more strongly.

Other economists are not as sanguine.

AMP Capital Investors' chief economist, Shane Oliver, says prices could fall by 5 per cent or more in capital cities over the next year but there are likely to be big variations between cities.

Morgan Stanley economist Gerard Minack says housing is becoming unaffordable and that prices could fall by 30 per cent across the board.



Sat, 02 August 2008
Debt mutes the horn of plenty


THE combination of rising interest rates and the global credit crunch has pushed the economy to the brink of recession. Consumers have reined in their spending and borrowing, while businesses are finding it hard to get the finance they need to proceed with investment projects. Consumer and business confidence has been falling for months along with the partial indicators of demand, such as retail sales and housing finance approvals.

The Reserve Bank has been cautiously pointing to the signs of slowing demand since March. What has changed views over the past week is the speed with which conditions appear to be deteriorating.

The National Australia Bank's business survey had profits, sales and employment at record levels in January. The survey it released last week showed businesses expect a recession over the next 12 months.

Business borrowing was booming at an annual growth rate of 25 per cent between July and January. Over the past three months, it has been rising at an annual rate of only 3.6per cent.

"The speed with which the economy has turned around is sharper than you've seen in the soft landings of the mid-1990s and early this decade. It is more akin to the end of the '80s, heading into the last recession," says ABN AMRO chief economist Kieran Davies.

He attributes the speed of the downturn to the "tightening in financial conditions". This includes not only the official and unofficial increases in rates, but also the toughening of lending standards by the banks.

This is hitting households as well as businesses. Home buyers can still get a mortgage, but not if they've got only a 10 per cent deposit, as was the case until early this year. In the second half of last year, the banks were welcoming new big business customers with open arms, as companies found they could no longer tap world financial markets with their own bond or commercial paper issues. But then the banks got scared.

They have to set aside twice as much capital for business loans as for mortgages. The banks are trying to conserve as much of their capital as they can because of a fear that over the next year or two they may face large write-offs. "We keep hearing anecdotes of good businesses with good projects that are finding it difficult to get finance," Davies says.

Tumbling share markets have made it hard for companies to access capital there, while they have also contributed to the loss of consumer confidence.

ANZ Bank's chief economist Saul Eslake notes that the Reserve Bank was planning for a sharp fall in consumer demand. In the second half of last year it was growing at a rate of close to 6 per cent: "Reading between the lines of the Reserve Bank's forecasts, it expected that to slow to something well under 2 per cent in 2008. That is a very abrupt slowdown in domestic spending."

Eslake says there are still some positive factors that could change the outlook in the second half of this year.

The tax cuts, which were more generous than any handed out by the previous government, are just starting to filter through into household hands. The petrol price, which contributed to the collapse of retail sales in June, is falling. And the benefits of the new contracts for iron ore and coal are just beginning to flow through.

Eslake puts the chance of a recession at no more than 25 per cent, saying that although consumers are pulling their heads in, there is enough business investment and exports in the pipeline to keep growth positive.

Consumers may feel as if there is a recession, but the long-awaited lift in export volumes could mean that Australia slips past the technical definition of two quarters of negative growth.

"The risk of a recession is small but it is rising and is probably closer than at any time since we were last in one," he says.

Even the US, which has been the epicentre of the world financial crisis, has so far kept economic growth in positive territory. But as the International Monetary Fund has stressed, the crisis still has a long way to run, with no sign yet that the downturn in housing in the US has hit bottom.

It is housing that is the soft underbelly for Australia's economy. For 20 years, Australian households have been rapidly raising more debt and using the lion's share of it to buy housing. Debt has risen at an average annual rate of about 15 per cent, more than three times as fast as income.

In 1988, the average household had debts totalling 32 per cent of its income. Now the average is 160 per cent.

It is the elevated level of household debt that has made consumers so sensitive to moves in interest rates, and which has the potential to pitch the economy into a much more difficult downturn.

The global financial turmoil has been described as a process of deleveraging. Sectors of the economy that had built up excessive debt are being forced to wind it back.

"Deleveraging can only occur in two ways," Eslake says. "People can repay debt, perhaps by selling assets and using the proceeds to repay debt or by saving more. Or else they can default, and that is a process with serious consequences."

The housing market has turned. Demand is falling while supply is increasing. The number of sales is down and prices are starting to weaken. Michael McNamara of Australian Property Monitors says the figures on the number of sales come through slowly. As of March, they were down by 25 per cent.

There are more unsold properties on the market, with 225,000 properties listed for sale, up from 200,000 a year ago. The number of housing loans for new purchases is down by 7.1per cent.

Morgan Stanley chief economist Gerard Minack believes prices will come down 20 per cent to 30 per cent. He does not accept the argument that housing is in short supply or that high rates of migration will support the market, saying that if houses are not affordable, they will not be bought.

"We are in the process of bringing the curtain down on what has been a super cycle for the Western world's financial institutions, which was built on the willingness of consumers to increase their leverage at fantastic prices," Minack says.

Financial deregulation and an extended period of low interest rates added fuel to the fire. "The escalation in leverage over the past 20years is completely off the scale. It is bigger than the 1890s property boom and bigger than the 1920s. It is bigger than anything we've ever seen, and I think we've reached the limit of how far these trends can go. The unravelling will be extremely painful."

Minack says there is a huge momentum in the growth of borrowing: even with the slowdown, households have $95 billion more debt now than they did a year ago.

There is a danger that what were virtuous cycles during the boom could become vicious in the bust.

Banks that were encouraged to lend by rising asset prices become fearful when prices fall and tighten their lending standards, frustrating the efforts of the central bank and government to stimulate the economy.

Attempts by households to reduce debts can result in a fall in housing prices, putting consumers under greater pressure to reduce debt. The growth in household debt has a counterpart in rising foreign debt, which stands at roughly $700 billion.

Bank deposits have not been enough to fund the rise in household borrowing, so the banks have turned to world markets, which have been more than willing to lend. They are still willing, albeit at a much higher interest rate than was being charged a year ago.

"The funding costs can only get worse if we see interest rates come down here and the currency starts to fall, so that the attractiveness of lending to Australia diminishes," Minack says. The economy may hover along at a reduced but still positive pace of growth for several more quarters.

The darker concerns are for 2009, when the pain of falling share prices is more likely to be compounded by falling house prices, while business will be cutting staff.

In its review of global financial stability released last week, the IMF's head of capital markets Jaime Caruana said the US sub-prime crisis was no longer the greatest threat to the world economy.

Rather, it was that a weakening world economy would reduce the banks' capacity to lend, which would further undermine growth.

Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens and Treasurer Wayne Swan have stressed the strength of Australia's banks as our bulwark against the global financial turmoil. However, they are not masters of their funding costs and their effort to correct for the years of plenty may yet pull the economy down.



Sun, 14 September 2008
Rental yields to jump another 10% in 2009
The stage is set for a recovery in the Australia's housing market fuelled by extremely tight rental market and chronic undersupply according to an economist.

Savanth Sebastian, economist with CommSec said any downward pressure on interest rates is likely to a surge in people looking to buy their first home. "The calls for rate cuts as early as September are being voiced, and potential investors and homebuyers would not want to be caught napping," he said.

"In recent times a perfect storm of factors has ensured that the housing sector remains the least favoured asset class despite the high rental yields on offer. The home loan market has experienced its weakest start to a year in 19 years. The rate hikes have clearly done their part in spooking potential home buyers and investors from signing on the dotted line. Clearly rate hikes, rising living costs and high oil price have all adding to the stress on the household budget. The Reserve Bank has put rate cuts on the agenda - a far cry from the possibility of further rate hikes that homebuyers were faced with a couple of months ago."

This optimistic outlook comes despite the housing finance data showing the number of total housing finance commitments falling by 24.8% over the past year – the biggest fall in 13 years.

"If Australia's population wasn't rising sharply, the fall in home lending would point to lower home prices. But the rental market remains extremely tight, with rental yields expected to jump a further 10% over the coming year," said Sebastian



Sun, 12 October 2008
Banks are bastards




The Reserve Bank (RBA) of Australia announced on October 7 that they would cut the official interest rate by 1% — the largest single cut since 1992 — in response to the US financial crisis.

The RBA decided on the interest rate cut in order to stimulate the banking sector and the economy more generally. However, the small gains made on the Australian Stock Exchange on October 7, directly after the rate cut was announced, were wiped out within 15 minutes of trading the next day, with a drop of 4.7% that brings losses on the ASX this year to a total of around 30%.

While the cut failed in its immediate attempt to strengthen the ASX, a cut in interest rates could significantly improve the situation for Australians with mortgages. However, the four major Australian banks — Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and the National Australia Bank — have said they will only pass on interest rate cuts of 0.8%, effective from mid-October.

The economic meltdown in the US, which is spreading to Europe, will impact most heavily on the poor, with house repossessions leading to increased homelessness while unemployment also dramatically increases as companies “downsize” to reduce costs. The internationalisation of trade means that Australia, despite its current resource boom, is not immune to the problems in the US market — as can be seen in the dramatic losses on the ASX on October 8.

Further exacerbating the impact of the current financial turmoil on working people is the current system of superannuation, which places workers’ pension funds in compulsory investment schemes. This leaves workers’ future survival exposed to this deep financial turbulence: people’s retirement savings could vanish altogether.

When the so-called “sub-prime” mortgage crisis was first exposed in July, the financial repercussions wiped an average of 6.4% off the value of most superannuation funds, with some showing losses as high as 15%.

In this context, with the added pressure of ever-increasing food and fuel costs, banks passing on the full interest rate cut would be welcomed by working people suffering in the wake of economic downturn. If passed on, the cuts would lead to reductions on mortgage repayments and, as a result, generally a reduction in rents.

The 0.8% cut translates into a $273 reduction in monthly repayments on a $500,000 mortgage.

Sharan Burrow, Australian Council of Trade Unions president, has criticised the banks for not passing on the full value of the interest rate cut. She told the October 8 Australian that the four major banks had a combined after-tax profit margin of $15 billion a year and were in the top 20 of banks with the highest credit ratings worldwide.

In addition, Burrow noted that over the March quarter banks had increased their income from fees and commissions by 40% to $4 billion and that their income from interest had totalled $32 billion over the same period.

“The days of excessive bank profits at the expense of home buyers and working Australians are over. Banks need to lower their profit forecasts and cut their fees, charges and loan margin”, Burrow said. “There should be no short-changing of working families from the banks today without transparent evidence and the requirement for a benchmark which will see those interest rate cuts flow to families struggling to pay their mortgages, to pay their bills on a weekly basis.”

The banks should pass on the full value of the interest rate cut to consumers. The October 8 announcement by the Commonwealth Bank that it intends to buy Perth-based BankWest for $2 billion indicates the bank is in a strong enough financial position to pass on the full cut.

Banks play a crucial important role in the lives of working people: we need somewhere to store our money, somewhere to borrow from in order to buy our house. But the current financial situation raises questions about the whole system of a private banking sector run for profit, in which people’s hard-earned life savings are gambled on increasingly volatile international markets.

The question of the nationalisation of banks has a precedent in Australian history. In 1947, then-PM Ben Chifley announced his Labor government’s plan to nationalise the country’s banks. The plan never went ahead, but 60 years later, as banks cry poor and claim they cannot afford to pass on the full 1% rate cut, they should be nationalised in the interest of the public. Superannuation funds could then be placed in a government trust rather than in the casino economy, which is obliterating the future incomes of millions of

Sun, 19 October 2008
Australia Bank Raises Interest Rate
SYDNEY, Australia — Australia's central bank announced Wednesday its decision to boost a key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 6.25 percent, a decision Prime Minister John Howard said signaled a"more challenging"future for economic growth.

The decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia was in line with market expectations and marks the third rate increase this year. The bank last lifted the official cash rate by 0.25 percent in August, and also in May.

Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement his board decided at its monthly meeting Tuesday there was a risk of inflation exceeding the bank's target range of between 2 and 3 percent.

"In the September quarter, the underlying inflation rate was around 3 percent, up from 2.5 percent at the end of last year, and it is likely to remain around that rate in the near term,"he said.

Wednesday's rate rise is politically embarrassing for Howard's center-right government, which campaigned during the 2004 election on its ability to keep rates low.

Howard said the increase signals"a new and more challenging period of economic management in Australia,"which has seen unprecedented growth over the past 14 years.

"I know it will cause pain for some people,"Howard told a media briefing in Canberra."I fully understand that. Unfortunately there are occasions when the Reserve Bank of Australia, which sets interest rates in this country, must lift interest rates in order to prevent inflation taking hold and thereby maintain our financial prosperity and the long-term strength of the Australian economy."

The eighth hike since the bank began its tightening cycle in May 2002, it aims to contain inflation that has accelerated as a tight labor market, higher oil costs and supply bottlenecks combined to push up prices



Fri, 14 November 2008
THOUSANDS of jobs are set to go after St George shareholders approved the $17 billion Westpac takeover.
The vote was 95 per cent in support of the merger despite resistance from some shareholders and St George staff.

The merger will create Australia's largest bank, but 2000 jobs will be slashed despite promises to keep the St George brand and branch network for at least three years.

The job cuts will occur mostly in the technology divisions and back-office operations, where there will be duplication as a result of the merger, reports The Australian.

The Finance Sector Union warned the job losses could be higher, with up to 5000 positions under threat.

Suncorp revealed yesterday it would cut 350 staff, on top of the 200 it has already lost by merging its retail and banking businesses.

Shares in both banks were punished -- Westpac off 11 per cent and St George 9.5 per cent -- as weakness emerged in the broader financial sector.

St George chairman John Curtis, who will become the deputy chair of Westpac , said the financial landscape had changed.

"This is one of the most uncertain economic times we have seen in the past 30 years, so putting together two good banks and making one big bank is extremely important,'' he said.

"In the past six months the financial plates of the world have moved,'' Mr Curtis said.

Mr Curtis said there could be further consolidation in the banking sector, particularly at the junior end of the market, which was struggling with high wholesale costs.



Fri, 06 March 2009
Murdoch tops CEO pay packets
News Corp chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch took home the largest salary among Australia's chief executives last year.

The Australian Financial Review today put Mr Murdoch, whose remuneration topped more than $US20.6 million ($A27 million), at the top of the chief executive salary list.

The figure includes a $US12.5 million ($A16.4 million) bonus and was up 46.5 per cent on his remuneration package of $US14.096 million ($A18.5 million) last year.

Mr Murdoch is followed by Westfield Holdings boss Frank Lowy, who took home $A14.6 million including a $A13.4 million bonus -- up 9.7 per cent on last year.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon came ninth on the list, with a pay packet of almost $A6.1 million, a figure which included $A946,907 in accrued equity benefits as well as post-employment benefits worth $A1.55 million. His package was up 163.8 per cent on last year.

The average total remuneration for the country's highest paid, including the value of share options packages, was $A1.7 million - up from $A1.35 million last year, the newspaper said.

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AdvertisementMore than one third of the 100 highest paid received a bonus of more than $1 million.

Underpinning the 29 per cent pay rise for the top executives were the best company profits in more than a decade



Wed, 15 April 2009
ANZ cuts home loan rates by 10 basis points
ANZ BANKING group will lower the interest rate on its standard variable home loan by 10 basis points following the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision to reduce the cash rate yesterday.

ANZ's standard variable home loan rate will be lowered to 5.81 per cent for new and existing customers and will be effective as of Friday 17th April.

The reductions come after the Reserve Bank of Australia cut the cash interest rate by 25 basis points to a 49-year low of 3 per cent.

"Tight competition for customer deposits and volatile wholesale funding markets are keeping our funding costs high,'' ANZ head of Australia operations Brian Hartzer said.

"But ANZ understands the current economic environment is placing a strain on many households.''

On Tuesday, CBA said it would cut its standard variable mortgage rate by 10 basis points to 5.64 per cent, effective April 17.

National Australian Bank said it won't cut rates because of the high cost of wholesale funding.

Westpac is the only of the big four banks to decide if it will pass on yesterday's cut.



Sun, 14 June 2009
Job ads fall for 13th month in May - ANZ survey
JOB advertisements fell for the 13th straight month in May and declined by about half over the year, a survey shows.

The ANZ survey released today found the total number of jobs advertised in in newspapers and on the internet fell 0.2 per cent, seasonally adjusted, in May to an average of 136,457 per week.

Job ads also declined by 49.9 per cent over the year, suggesting total employment in Australia would contract over the year ahead, ANZ head of Australian economics Warren Hogan said.

"Job advertising has fallen to about half the level it was at a year ago and is consistent with outright declines in the level of employment in Australia over the second half of 2009,'' he said.

"We expect these falls in employment to start coming through in the official statistics at anytime.

"Overall job advertising remains weak and is consistent with rising unemployment over the year ahead.''

ANZ expects unemployment to breach six per cent in 2009 before eventually peaking at more than eight per cent in 2010.

The bank is forecasting a 29,000 rise in unemployment with the release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) May Labour Force report on Thursday. The median market forecast is for unemployment to rise 0.3 percentage points to 5.7 per cent in May, with a loss of 30,000 jobs during the month.

The number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers decreased by 1 per cent in May to an average of 8123 per week, following a 3.1 per cent gain in April.

Newspaper advertisements are now 52.5 per cent lower than in May 2008.

In trend terms, the number of newspaper job advertisements fell by 4.1 per cent in May to be 55.6 per cent lower than a year ago.

The fall in newspaper job advertisements in May was driven by decreases in most states and territories, the survey found.

The largest falls in percentage terms were in Queensland 4.9 per cent, the Northern Territory (4.5 per cent) and New South Wales (1.5 per cent).

Western Australia fell 0.8 per cent, Victoria fell 0.4 per cent and the ACT dropped 0.1 per cent.

Tasmania and South Australia were the only two states to record increases, up 12.5 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively.



Wed, 23 December 2009
Anna Bligh's plan for Aboriginal home ownership failing
THE Bligh government's plan to open the way for Aboriginal home ownership in remote north Queensland settlements is failing, as not a single home loan has been signed since a new leasing scheme was introduced 18 months ago.

Native title laws are being blamed for the bureaucratic bottleneck that has left Aborigines who are keen to own a home forced to remain in the public housing system.

The statutory body that facilitates home loans for Aborigines living in remote communities, Indigenous Business Australia, says it is "ready to write home loans tomorrow" for a number of families, but negotiations over native title have stalled their plans.

IBA general manager Ron Morony said achieving home ownership had been much more difficult for Aborigines in Queensland than it had for those in remote communities in the Northern Territory, where 12 home loans had been signed and another 29 people were waiting for loans to be approved.

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"Our frustration has often been just getting through the technical stuff of leasing," Mr Morony said. "What is kicking in is native title rights, which we have got to get clear with the traditional owners before we can actually agree to these leases."

IBA says it is negotiating with eight communities in north Queensland, including Mapoon, Palm Island, Yarrabah, Wujal Wujal, Hopevale, Cherbourg and Doomadgee on home ownership, but until the land issues are resolved "these discussions cannot progress past expressions of interest or inquiry stage".

The Queensland parliament passed laws in July last year that were billed as the vehicle to enable Aboriginal home ownership in remote communities on land held in trust by Aboriginal councils. The legislation allowed for individual 99-year residential and commercial leases to be signed in remote communities, and the new laws were touted as the key to resolving land tenure issues and allowing economic development. However, it is indigenous councils and not the Queensland government itself which are able to grant leases.

The Queensland government's Resource Management Indigenous Services executive director James McNamara said there were five applications for 99-year residential leases being assessed and processed by councils and trustees, with the assistance of the Department of Environment and Resource Management.

"Processing 99-year leases is a matter between the individual applicant and trustee of the land," Mr McNamara said.

Mayor Percy Neal of Yarrabah near Cairns blamed delays by

the local land council for the failure to progress 99-year lease applications.

"I think just about everybody wants to own their own home," Mr Neal said. "Yarrabah council has always pushed the issue that we want to see people get their own homes, but these guys -- the state, the land council -- are continually stuffing around."

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