20 March 2008

ACT real eastate slowing down ?

| gabrukhan
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Just returning from a property auctions evening where only about a fifth were sold, the rest passed in, with quite a few not even attracting a single bid. A very stark contrast to one held just last month when everything on offer was lapped up after very brisk bidding.

Is this just a minor pre-easter hiccup or is the ACT property market finally slowing down ? Maybe this has a ray of hope for first home buyers.

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No, that was my point. I guess I didn’t express it properly. A licence holder can be held to be giving advice in any context, paid or unpaid, talking on the bus and overheard by a third-party, anywhere. It’s incredibly onerous, I guess because it was the only way ASIC could actually prosecute the rogues back in the bad old days. The point is that it is up to you to prove you weren’t rather than them to prove you were, which you do by ticking off a number of boxes on a checklist, which you cannot do if you don’t know the audience.

In reality, it’s almost impossible to meet 100%, hence my first post to Graham reminding him. Graham’s second post removed any ambiguity about whether he was giving advice or just a recommendation to do more research, which is a crucial difference.

I could go on and on but I won’t because we are already into shades of meaning and the reality is ASIC can remove your licence any time they want anyway. But it doesn’t help you if you give them a reason to want to. They are red-hot on anyone they think might be a rogue, even if you think you were just careless.

So, in context – as everybody who posts on RA is unpaid in that role (as opposed to financial planners or reps or holders of other licences who are providing a fee based service), you agree completely with my post above, and were merely stating the obvious for the less perceptive readers of RA…

Maelinar, anyone can talk about whatever they like. OTOH, Financial Planners or Reps or holders of other licences can’t, without doing some checking up on their audience first (that are too boring to detail). Believe me, ASIC takes it quite seriously, probably because of the rorts and rogues of the 80s and early 90s.

“It certainly is a busy time to be allocating capital! The stockmarket is piquing my interest more than property at the moment.”

Yep there are some interesting speculative buys out there in the resource sector.

I treat it like gambling just invest in speculative stocks money you can afford to loose or at least take a big hit. But when it comes off its quiet amusing.

This whole nobody’s allowed to talk about what they think might be good or not on the stockmarket is all bollocks. It’s not the f’ing secret service. Besides, anybody reading a paper in the last 3 years would know that the US and Europe have been handing out dollars hand over fist for fertilizers.

Well, it’s up to you, but personally I don’t do it, in public anyway. FYI, the advice from our company’s lawyers was that even dinner party conversation could be held to be giving investment advice. The issue that caused them concern is that the recipient of the details only has to believe you are an ‘expert’, that knowing you manage investments makes that a reasonable belief, and that therefore you are giving investment advice. Therefore they could potentially sue, or ASIC could decide to make an example of you for not taking due care. I suppose, like any advice from lawyers, it could just be arse-covering, I’m not qualified to judge.

You want to be very careful about saying things like that, Graham, esp on a broadcast public forum like this.

(25 years experience as a portfolio manager in wholesale funds management.)

Gentlemen invest in the stockmarket, not residential property.

regularbrowse6:22 pm 20 Mar 08

I agree with “thetruth” the ACT housing slow down will be sped up by public service cutbacks, just as it was in 1997-98 after Howard Govt came to power. This time, the additional financial pressure for house prices to stagnate or fall will be the increasing cost of borrowing (thanks to the credit crunch) and the large numbers of baby boomers who will downsize and try to buy their dream townhouse on the coast. But if those boomers invested their super funds with the share market in its current volatile state, well… they might just be moving in with their 30-something kids for their twilight years.

We haven’t seen this level of interest rate since about 1997 when the average house price in Canberra was $140k (compared with $460k now). Wages (gross) have increased by about 50% (my guesstimate) over that period which make it equivalent to purchasing a $210k house.

Now there are a number of other factors so I am not suggesting that this is the real value of real estate, but it shows how sensitive folks are going to be when the double whammy of interest rate rises and slowing growth hit (we can feel more comfortable about borrowing if we know our salaries are going up through growth (but Rudd has a deliberate policy of making working families hurt to stop borrowing and stop spending)

Holden Caulfield12:37 pm 20 Mar 08

I don’t know what to think. I’ll wait for pottsy to tell us what’s really going on.

Interesting facts and commentary, Thetruth. I wonder if that angry person from teh Kambah golf course estate ever managed to flog their house?

The post-election APS spending cuts would have had significant flow-on effects right through our economy, and also they’ve introduced a feeling of “more to come”. There’s something on the front of Teh Australian today about Defence not hiring civilian staff from outside the APS, which is interesting. The Federal Budget will see some very big spending cuts, there’s bound to be whole programs going, and possibly bits of agencies, too. Again this flows on outside the APS.

Interesting to see how it pans out. I don’t expect we’ll ever see $50k units in Qbn again, however.

still siting waiting watching …. the budget is the last of the three stings for Canberra (that will take a longer time to work through)after the election of the Rudd Government and interest rates… in the September quarter about 850 more people left Canberra than arrived from interstate (so much for the live in Canberra campaign). While the Sept quarter is the traditional “leaving” quarter – I expect that trend to continue. Canberra’s population is only rising because of babies (they don’t buy houses for a while).

Then will come the ACT budget cutbacks after the ACT election (because of the impact of stockmarket returns – why they are still included in the budget I don’t know – and the fall in land values (both for rates and sales) and THEN the growth in GST revenues will fall due to slowing economic growth. Add to that the ACT purchasing freeze around the actual election. THEN it will all start biting in time for the next purchase freeze for the early commonwealth election called in late 2009 or early 2010.

Overall – the slow down in Canberra will be at least for the next 30 odd months – so those that sell now will do better than those that sell in 10 months time.

BTW – add to that the long term PS retirement tsunami that will hit in about 2011 as the peak of the babyboomers hit the magic 55 which will result in a rapid increase in outward migration.

Mike Crowther10:33 am 20 Mar 08

Not bidding and hoping to pick up a passed in property with an after auction offer is a buyers tactic. You’ll find many properties passed in, sell the following week this way.
The risk of this method is you will miss out on the property if someone does bid on it. This only matters of course if it’s your ‘dream home’. If its for an investment, temporary or a step to somewhere else, it’s a good method.

*ahem* I can do beer though.

I’m no real estate troll.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy10:29 am 20 Mar 08

Dunno about the trolls, but I’d say I’m already up for a beer!

@Maelinar,
well you have arrived matey!
Have a beer for me this arvo!

Oh god. Are you asking for the trolls to come out ?

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy10:04 am 20 Mar 08

Having plenty of cash, and being able to retain sensible LVRs are essential for longer term success in property investment. Hocking up to the eyeballs to buy an investment property in the hope of rapid growth is a recipe for disaster.

I would say that is an awesome idea, however just dont go in too hard, as we are in for a rough ride of the next 10-18 months where the market can still take a couple of sharp dives, facilitating a banks size 10 up the pooper if you run out of cash.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:01 am 20 Mar 08

I’d say parts of the market are definitely slowing down. Of course, there will always be properties that continue to perform well in terms of growth, but in a stagnating market the number and type of such properties narrows. If anything, now is a good time to go hunting for bargains. I’ll certainly be looking to buy later this year.

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