The share of properties available to rent in Australia has hit a record low after the national vacancy rate recorded its largest drop in over a year, a new report has revealed.

Rental vacancy rates fell 0.14 percentage points in August to hit a new low of 1.10%, with the share of rental properties on the market now 54% lower compared with pre-pandemic levels, the report by property data firm PropTrack shows.

The data come as advocates for housing affordability argue that without government intervention, the crisis will become more severe.

PropTrack economist and report author Anne Flaherty said there was “a host of drivers” that have led to the tight vacancy rate, including a growing population, the number of people in each dwelling falling and first home buyers being increasingly locked out of the market.

“For renters who may be looking to be first home buyers, they’ve faced a situation where because of interest rate rises, they can borrow 30% less on average,” Flaherty said. “But at the same time, property prices are still sitting as high as ever.”

Housing affordability has now hit its worst level in at least three decades, according to PropTrack. Households earning a median income of just over $105,000 can afford the smallest share of homes since 1995 when records began, at just 13% of homes sold in the past year, a report from PropTrack revealed last week.

“The amount homebuyers are having to save is incredibly high,” Flaherty said. “Those mortgage repayments are very, very high and the amount that they can borrow is less. So that’s also keeping people in the rental market longer.”

The supply of vacant rental properties in regional areas has also deteriorated, with the vacancy rate falling to just 1.1%.

“Rents are predicted to continue rising off the back of these incredibly low vacancy rates, which are driving up competition for properties,” she said. “But if rents reach high enough, it might lead to a tipping point for some tenants where the amount they would be paying in mortgage repayments would be less than their rent.

“So I think that when we start to see that happen, that could lead to a bit of a shift.”

Maiy Azize, a spokesperson for the housing affordability advocacy group Everybody’s Home, said the low vacancy rates proved “only the federal government can create affordable rentals for the people who need them, when and where they need them”.

“For years governments have been walking away from social housing, relying on the private sector to deliver affordable homes,” Azize said. “These numbers show that’s a dangerous approach.

“Australia’s social housing shortfall is massive. We need to create 25,000 new social homes across the country every year. We’re calling on the government to act now and end the shortfall for good.”

Source : TheGuardian

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Outlining her plan at the weekend, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said longer fixed-rate deals would enable people to buy houses with smaller deposits and with lower monthly repayments.

Longer mortgages are common in countries like the US, Canada and Japan, but unlike in some of those, Labour is not proposing they be underwritten by the taxpayer.

Ms Reeves has asked those involved in carrying out a Labour review of financial services to work with the mortgage industry to find ways to remove regulatory barriers and help trigger a broader cultural shift.

Sky News’ Money team asked three industry experts whether they could take off.

Richard Donnell, head of insight at Zoopla, tells Sky News it is a “good idea”, but the challenge will be ensuring rates are as competitive as shorter-term deals, otherwise people won’t be willing to take them out.

The main advantage, he says, would be for first-time buyers.

The risk of high mortgage repayments means purchasers – especially first-time buyers – are finding it harder to get on the ladder. As they struggle to get a mortgage, rents have also been rising, leaving people with less in savings. Combined with historically high house prices, first-time buyers are finding it had to put aside the bigger deposits.

“The advantage of long-term fixes is it means you probably avoid the need to stress-test affordability,” Mr Donnell says.

“I believe the government needs to look at how it can support the market for longer-term rates to develop at rates that will support demand for this type of product, as it’s a big mindset change.”

Would Britons really want to lock in?

Kevin Roberts, managing director at Legal & General Mortgage Services, isn’t convinced as things stand.

“It is worth noting that 25-year fixes are already available in the UK, but receive relatively little interest. Typically, people tend to choose the product that offers the lowest rate at that time, and that’s usually a shorter-term product, such as a two or five-year fix,” he said.

David Hollingworth, a director at L&C, agrees.

“There’s potential to grow this sector but until pricing and tie-ins are addressed they may continue to be a useful niche option rather than a market wide choice,” he said.

Two other major drawbacks

Mr Hollingworth highlights another issue.

“Longer-term fixed deals will often tie the borrower in with an early repayment charge throughout the fixed-rate period,” he said.

So if a mortgage needs to be reviewed at some point, perhaps because someone wants to move house, options become more limited.

“Even though deals can be taken to a new property there is no guarantee that the borrower will still meet the lender criteria at that time, or whether the lender will have competitive rates for any additional borrowing.”

Perhaps more obviously, there is also the concern that rates may fall significantly, as happened after the 2008 financial crisis.

“There may be some concern that they will be left high and dry if rates were to subsequently fall,” says Mr Hollingworth.

What’s already on the market?

The most common longer fix is 10 years. First Direct currently offers a fixed rate of 3.99% over 10 years for a 60% loan-to-value mortgage.

Perenna is a new lender targeting the long-term market, offering rates that are fixed for as long as 40 years but that only tie the borrower in for the first five. They currently offer a 25-year mortgage at 5.75%.

Perhaps recognising the early repayment charge (ERC) issue highlighted above, Kensington Mortgages offers fixed rates for the life of a mortgage and although there are ERCs, they are waived in certain situations – like a house move or sale/repayment.

Who could they benefit?

As discussed, first-time buyers struggling to get on the ladder – but also people who want long-term certainty and perhaps have no intention of moving.

“For example, if they are saving for a wedding in X years’ time, it could be handy to know how much they’ll be able to put away each month if what’s likely to be their biggest expense, their mortgage repayments, stay the same,” says Kevin Roberts, from L&G.

Source: News Sky

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SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) — South Korea’s household assets fell for the first time in over a decade on the back of the property market slump, government data showed Thursday.

The average asset per household amounted to 527.27 million won (398,420 U.S. dollars) at the end of March, down 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to joint data from Statistics Korea, the Bank of Korea, the Financial Supervisory Service.

It marked the first reduction since relevant data began to be compiled in 2012.

Per-household real asset, such as land and housing, retreated 5.9 percent in the cited period, but the financial asset expanded 3.8 percent.

The average value of residing homes per household tumbled 10.0 percent for the past year amid higher borrowing costs.

The Bank of Korea had left its key rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January after hiking it by 3.0 percentage points for the past one and a half years.

Of the total household assets, the real asset accounted for 76.1 percent at the end of March, down 1.7 percentage points from a year earlier.

The average asset among households in the top 20-percent income bracket stood at 1,174.58 million won (887,550 dollars), about 6.8 times larger than 172.87 million won (130,630 dollars) in the bottom 20-percent income group.

Asset for those in their 60s or older added 0.9 percent in the cited period, but assets in all other age groups shrank in single digits for the past year.

The average debt per household inched up 0.2 percent from a year earlier to 91.86 million won (69,410 dollars) at the end of March.

Per-household financial debt reduced 1.6 percent, but security deposit for homes advanced 5.3 percent.

Of the total households, the proportion of households with debt came in at 62.1 percent at the end of March, down 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier.

The average debt among households in the bottom 20-percent income bracket surged 22.7 percent to 20.04 million won (15,140 dollars), while debt in the top 20-percent income group rose 0.4 percent to 206.34 million won (155,920 dollars).

Meanwhile, the per-household average income grew 4.5 percent over the year to 67.62 million won (51,100 dollars) in 2022.

Earned income increased 6.4 percent to 43.90 million won (33,170 dollars), and business income climbed 4.0 percent to 12.06 million won (9,110 dollars).

Public transfer income declined 4.8 percent to 6.25 million won (4,720 dollars) last year on lower government grants for small merchants and micro businesses suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The average non-consumption expenditure per household, including tax, social insurance fee and interest payment, expanded 8.1 percent to 12.80 million won (9,670 dollars) in 2022 compared to the previous year.

Interest payment surged 18.3 percent last year, while expenditure for tax and social insurance fee gained 4.1 percent and 8.2 percent respectively.

Source : Xinhua

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PLUNGING US home sales are having a ripple effect on consumer spending, as fewer Americans are moving into houses that need to be outfitted with furniture and appliances.

The effects are visible across the economy. Spending on furniture and related items fell nearly 12 per cent from the year-earlier period in October. Home goods sellers including Z Gallerie and Serta Simmons Bedding have filed for bankruptcy this year, citing weaker demand, and more are probably coming. Williams-Sonoma’s chief executive said last month that consumers are hesitant to spend on expensive furniture. Home Depot, the hardware and appliance store, said its revenue will likely drop this fiscal year.

The Federal Reserve last year started a rate hiking campaign to tame inflation, and slowing the housing market is a key way to make that happen. In October, mortgage rates reached their highest level since 2000, helping to make housing the least affordable since at least the 1980s.

On Thursday (Nov 30), the effects of low affordability became even clearer: a gauge of pending sales for existing homes reached its lowest level since the measure started in 2001. Home loan rates have started drifting lower amid growing hopes the Fed will start to expand the money supply again next year, but it could take years for the housing market to return to normality.

“It’s just less affordable to buy a house today than it was a couple of years ago when rates were much lower, and that’s closed out a certain amount of spending that would have otherwise happened,” said Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist at the National Retail Federation.

The average household shells out US$8,000 more on home-related goods and improvements in the two years after a home purchase, according to a study published last year by professors including Efraim Benmelech at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Falling revenue

Without that expenditure, retailers are feeling the pain. Williams-Sonoma, owner of Pottery Barn, estimated last month that its revenue will fall as much as 12 per cent this fiscal year. Ethan Allen Interiors, a maker and seller of furniture, posted a 24 per cent decline in sales in the latest quarter, due in part to slowing demand.

Some firms have struggled to navigate the broad decline in consumer expenditures. A series of companies that provide home furnishings have sought bankruptcy protection this year, including Z Gallerie, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, and discounter on Tuesday Morning. Pillow maker Pegasus Home entered bankruptcy in August, mattress wholesaler Serta Simmons did so in January and the photo frame seller NBG Home sought protection in February.

“From a creditor and trade vendor perspective, there’s concern in the industry,” said Jordana Renert, a partner in the bankruptcy department at law firm Lowenstein Sandler, referring to investors in stores that sell decor. “Until new home purchases pick up or mortgage rates decrease, I think the home-goods furniture industry may continue to see a pause in consumer spending and an increase in chapter 11 filings.”

With mortgage rates having risen as much as they have, it’s not clear when home purchase volume will resurge. Many homeowners are unwilling to sell, in part because that means letting go of the cheap mortgages they locked in during the pandemic. That’s translated to relatively more of the transaction volume coming from new home sales, where developers are looking to offload homes they’ve built.

More than 60 per cent of US home loans have rates below 4 per cent, according to data from Black Knight, while the latest 30-year Freddie Mac mortgage rate is closer to 7.2 per cent. On average, a 1 percentage point increase in mortgage rates relative to where borrowers have locked in leads to a 9 per cent decline in the rate at which people move houses, according to a study by professors including Julia Fonseca at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. If a homeowner, for example, were thinking about changing jobs, the new position would have to pay much more for the consumer to be willing to give up their mortgage.

“Lock-in can prevent households from pursuing labour market opportunities that would have been worthwhile otherwise,” Fonseca said.

Homebuilder pressure

Lofty interest rates are not only crimping activity on the demand side, they are also pushing up prices on the supply side of the market and are threatening to keep them elevated for some time, said Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders.

The interest rate that homebuilders are paying to finance the construction of single-family homes is close to 13 per cent, Dietz said, and material costs have risen alongside inflation. That has made it more difficult for builders to break ground on new homes now, which could squeeze supply for two to three years. The impact could be felt across the economy for some time, according to Dietz.

“If you take all the challenges in the housing market and think of them almost as taxes on new housing supply, those taxes are restraining economic growth,” Dietz said. BLOOMBERG

Source : TheBusinessTimes

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SYDNEY, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Australia will triple fees on purchases of existing homes by foreign buyers, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Sunday, as part of measures aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing.

“Higher fees for the purchase of established homes, increased penalties for those that leave properties vacant, and strengthened compliance activity will help ensure foreign investment in residential property is in our national interest,” Chalmers said in a statement.

The centre-left Labor government would also cut application fees for foreign investment in “build to rent” projects to encourage construction of more homes, Chalmers said.

The government in June pledged A$2 billion ($1.3 billion) to deliver thousands of new affordable homes nationwide, with the aim of boosting public housing supply for Australians on waiting lists.

The changes announced on Sunday will generate around A$500 million ($300 million), which the government could invest in priority areas like housing, Chalmers told reporters in Brisbane, according to a transcript.

“These adjustments are all about making sure foreign investment aligns with the Government’s agenda to lift the nation’s supply of affordable housing,” Chalmers said in the statement, adding the government would introduce laws in 2024 to implement the higher fees.

The fee hike comes after Chalmers last year doubled the fees for foreign investors buying assets in the country, which the government said would generate A$455 million in extra revenue over four years.

Prices in Australia’s housing market, already among the most expensive in the world, are forecast to maintain steady growth as rising demand outstrips supply in the nation of 26 million people.

Source : Reuters

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US EXISTING home sales dropped to the lowest level in more than 13 years in October as the highest mortgage rates in two decades and a dearth of houses drove buyers from the market.

Existing home sales tumbled 4.1 per cent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.79 million units, the lowest level since August 2010, the National Association of Realtors said on Tuesday (Nov 21). Home resales are counted at the closing of a contract.

October’s sales likely reflected contracts signed in the prior two months, when the average rate on the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped to levels last seen in late 2000.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast home sales would slide to a rate of 3.90 million units. Sales fell in the Northeast, West and the densely populated South, but were unchanged in the Midwest. Home resales, which account for a big chunk of US housing sales, plunged 14.6 per cent on a year-on-year basis in October.

“Prospective home buyers experienced another difficult month due to the persistent lack of housing inventory and the highest mortgage rates in a generation,” said Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist.

The rate on the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.31 per cent in the final week of September, before peaking at 7.79 per cent in late October, the highest level since November 2000, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac.

Though it has since retreated following data this month showing the labour market cooling and inflation subsiding, the rate averaged a still-high 7.44 per cent last week.

There were 1.15 million previously owned homes on the market last month, down 5.7 per cent from a year ago. At October’s sales pace, it would take 3.6 months to exhaust the current inventory of existing homes, up from 3.3 months a year ago.

A four-to-seven-month supply is viewed as a healthy balance between supply and demand. With supply still tight, multiple offers were the norm in some areas, keeping house prices on an upward trend. The median existing house price increased 3.4 per cent from a year earlier to US$391,800, the highest for any October.

Properties typically remained on the market for 23 days in October, up from 21 days a year ago. Sixty-six per cent of homes sold in October were on the market for less than a month.

First-time buyers accounted for 28 per cent of sales, as they did a year ago. This share is well below the 40 per cent that economists and realtors say is needed for a robust housing market.

All-cash sales accounted for 29 per cent of transactions compared to 26 per cent a year ago. Distressed sales, including foreclosures, represented only 2 per cent of transactions, virtually unchanged from the prior year.

Source : TheBusinessTimes

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In recent years, property prices have largely followed a consistent upward trajectory; however the last 12 months have been anything but smooth sailing for the housing market. A combination of factors from rising interest rates, falling property prices, and shaky public confidence have been a perfect storm for the property market that looks to have no sign of ending just yet.

A perfect storm for the housing market

Buoyed by the prospect of falling prices, many wannabe homeowners hoped the predictions of a property crash would finally allow those priced out of the market to get a foot on the property ladder; however, as yet, this hasn’t materialised.

This is because the value of any falls in purchase price have been tempered by the increased cost of borrowing; average falls in sold property prices in 2023 are reported to be around 4%, but with the soaring cost of borrowing, the reality is that buying a property with a mortgage has actually become a more expensive prospect for many. If interest rates are to remain at their current levels, the only way affordability can be improved is if earnings rise or property prices take a meaningful fall.

The problem of uncertainty

An uncertain marketplace creates an environment of low consumer confidence. A property purchase is likely to be among the most significant buying decisions an individual will ever make, therefore, before taking this step, they understandably want to be as sure as possible that they are making a sound investment with their hard-earned money. First time buyers, particularly those with low deposits, are at particular risk of falling into negative equity should they purchase at the start of a sustained period of declining prices. This is making potential buyers much more cautious and therefore much more keen on securing a discount on the listed price.

Goodbye 2023, hello 2024

As we approach the end of 2023, it appears that buyers and sellers have reached an impasse. While buyers are wanting a discount on their purchase to cushion the squeeze on affordability and mitigate the risk of negative equity, sellers are so far reluctant to take a hit on the price they want to achieve.

So what does this mean as we look into 2024? Well, should this stalemate continue, this has the potential to create a property supply shortage as wannabe sellers hold firm. While some property sales are a necessity, such as in the event of death, divorce, or redundancy; many property transactions are optional, fuelled by a want – rather than a need – to trade up or down.

So while those that need to sell may be required to adjust their expectations as a consequence of weakening buyer power, those who do not have to move may well make the decision to stay put and ride out any impending storm.

Adjusting to a changing marketplace

While a stagnant property market is a possibility in 2024, the alternative is that buyers and sellers alike may find they adjust to the ‘new normal’ over the course of the year; for purchasers the new normal means higher interest rates, whereas for sellers the new normal is a reduction in the price that they can command for their property. With revised expectations on both sides, this may be enough to kickstart the housing market once more.

A cooling market or a crash?

It is important to make the distinction between a cooling in property prices and a wholesale property crash. Many experts are predicting house prices will experience a drop in 2024, however, estimates for the scale of this drop are relatively conservative. It is perfectly possible for house prices to fall without the property market suffering a catastrophic crash in the process; for many, this appears to be the most likely scenario as we look forward into 2024.

The housing market does not exist in a vacuum; property prices rising or falling is often something which happens in tandem with something else, be that changes to interest rates, unemployment levels, availability, and population levels. With demand for property ever-changing, and the short-term economic outlook so uncertain, forecasting the future of the property market – something which until recently was easy to predict – is now becoming an increasingly impossible task.

Source : Today’sConveyancer

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Australia’s property prices have soared to record levels in several capital cities as limited sales volumes and rising populations more than made up for the dampening effect of higher interest rates, two data groups say.

The new figures show significant growth in Brisbane, Adelaide, and in Perth, where five areas have recorded annual gains of more than 15%, while prices in Sydney are 7.51% higher than a year ago.

Overall, national home prices crept 0.36% higher in October, bringing the rise to just under 5% for 2023, according to PropTrack. Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane values are all at record peaks.

Graph of Australia’s annual change in state capitals’ property values.

“We’ve seen national prices have now risen for 10 consecutive months,” PropTrack’s senior economist, Eleanor Creagh, said. “It’s certainly a daunting increase for someone [who’s] yet to enter the market.”

Rival data provider CoreLogic said its national home value index rose 0.9% in October alone, accelerating from September’s revised 0.7%. The 7.6% increase from a trough in January left the index just 0.5% below the peak recorded in April 2022, the group said, citing slightly different tracking methods.

“There’s an increasing diversity of capital growth performance,” the head of residential research at CoreLogic, Eliza Owen, said.

“Sydney and Melbourne are loosening up a little bit. Hobart, Darwin and Canberra have been flat or falling in recent months and remain down quite substantially year-on-year,” Owen said. “But then when you look at Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth – those cities are performing quite differently with [price] growth trending at over 1% a month, inventory levels very low, values at peak, and showing little sign of slowing down.”

The rise in property values during 2023 has caught many analysts by surprise, given the Reserve Bank has been lifting interest rates at the fastest pace in three decades including four rate rises in 2023 before a pause in past four months.

For many people housing is their biggest asset. When home prices fall, it tends to dim households’ sense of wealth, cooling their spending, a trend the RBA had been factoring into their economic models.

With most economists now predicting another interest rate rise next Tuesday, CoreLogic and PropTrack expect some of the real estate fizz to diminish.

“I think the re-acceleration in housing [price] growth might be short-lived, given the increasing prospects for a rate rise next week,” Owen said.

A revival in new listings – including a 10.7% rise in Melbourne and 9.3% in Sydney since the start of spring – will also put a brake on the pace of price gains in some markets, she said. A renewed drop in prices can’t be ruled out.

“New listings added to the market across Sydney in the past three months is about 23,000 properties as opposed to 21,000 sales,” Owen said. “The supply/demand position is shifting.”

Creagh said other cities such as Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide may take a lot more to slow them down.

Home prices in the Western Australian capital rose 0.52% alone in October, a 16th month in a row of gains, and are now 10.9% higher than a year earlier. Rental vacancies are less than 1% and landlords average just 16 days to rent out a property.

“The Perth market remains incredibly competitive and the total number of properties listed for sale in Perth continues to hit record low levels,” Creagh said. “It’s a similar story in Brisbane and Adelaide, whereby the number of properties listed for sale remains well below previous decade averages.”

According to PropTrack, the median home value in Sydney was $1.07m last month, 7.51% higher than a year ago and 31.7% more than in March 2020 when Covid first hit the economy. Melbourne’s median, at $815,000, was 3.9% lower than a year ago, and a relatively modest 16.6% above the pre-Covid level.

Adelaide’s median price at $697,000 was 8.77% higher than a year ago, and a nation-leading 55.1% more than in March 2020.

CoreLogic’s median prices for those three cities at the end of October were just over $1.121m for Sydney, about $778,500 for Melbourne and a touch above $700,000 for Adelaide.

Perth led annual price gains by local area, with five areas clocking up gains of more than 15%, according to CoreLogic. Armadale in the city’s south-east jumped 21.5% in median prices to a tad more than $550,000.

The next largest increase was in the Marrickville-Sydenham-Petersham region of Sydney’s inner south-west, where the median price has risen 14.8% in the past year to almost $1.695m, CoreLogic said.

Source : TheGuardian

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The shock that rippled through global housing markets as central banks rapidly raised interest rates last year has given way to a cold new reality: The real estate bonanza that fueled wealth for millions of people is over.

Markets around the world are caught between sharply higher borrowing costs — likely here to stay — and a shortage of homes that’s keeping prices elevated. That’s made housing in many areas even less affordable, while property owners with resetting loans face increasing financial strain.

The US market, dominated by 30-year mortgages, is effectively frozen as homeowners with low rates are reluctant to sell and buyers are squeezed. In the longtime boom areas of New Zealand and Canada, values haven’t fallen meaningfully for house hunters, and people who paid peak prices are now struggling with higher loan payments. From the UK to South Korea, distress is mounting for landlords. And in many places, higher interest rates are only making it harder to build.

The scenarios may be playing out differently in each country, but they all add up to a potential drag on global economies as people shell out more of their income for housing, whether they rent or own. And with buyers increasingly locked out, the viability of homeownership as a path to middle-class security — a bedrock of personal finance for generations around the world — is suddenly looking a lot more difficult. The winners are longtime owners who’ve captured equity from soaring values or don’t have a mortgage, freeing them to put cash in higher-yielding investments.

“The golden age of single-family housing is behind us,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “If you bought in the wake of the financial crisis, you built up a lot of equity in most parts of the world, but the next 10 years is going to be more of a slog.”

Zandi expects that US 30-year mortgage rates, currently about 7.4%, will average somewhere around 5.5% over the next decade, compared with a low of 2.65% in early 2021. Most other developed countries will see a similar increase, he says, even if particular levels vary.

A lot remains unknown. A deepening war in the Middle East and the ongoing economic troubles of China — contending with its own series of property crises centered on its highly indebted developers — could contribute to a broader global downturn that would reduce housing demand and push down prices substantially, causing far worse financial turmoil. And in terms of real estate, commercial property has become more worrisome for the economy.

But even as inflation cools and many countries’ rate-hiking campaigns are easing, consumers are starting to come around to the idea that borrowing costs may never be as low as they were in the 15 years since the financial crisis. It was one thing when rates suddenly shot up and people facing higher payments thought they could muddle through, or take on mortgages with the expectation of refinancing later. It’s another when the higher costs drag on for years.

‘Glacial Period’

In the US, the collision of low inventory, rising prices and the highest mortgage rates in a generation has sent sales of previously owned homes to the lowest level since 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors. The market is now the least affordable in four decades, with about 40% of the median household income required to purchase a typical home, data from Intercontinental Exchange Inc. show.

The most severe effects may still be to come: In a report last month, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists said that the impact of sustained higher mortgage rates will be the most pronounced in 2024. They estimated that transactions will fall to the lowest level since the early 1990s.

“In some ways we’re in the early stages of this glacial period, and it’s unlikely to thaw anytime soon,” said Benjamin Keys, a professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “This weirdness can last for a long time.”

That stands to have knock-on effects. Mobility for jobs could be limited, family members and friends may more often be forced to live together, and, as the elderly age in place, homes may be kept off the market that could otherwise be purchased by younger families. At the same time, homeowners are sitting on near-record equity and the vast majority are unaffected by rate hikes, which might otherwise force sales or result in foreclosures that would give buyers a chance to enter the market.

“Things might get a little more affordable, but certainly not to what people would have hoped for,” Niraj Shah, an economist with Bloomberg Economics, said of global housing markets. “It’s going to be a struggle on both ends.”

He predicts a “slow puncture” in prices for developed economies rather than a crash, saying that an economic slowdown is unlikely to result in heavy job losses that would cause severe housing distress. But homeowners pinched by higher rates may have to cut back on spending in other areas to keep up with their mortgage payments, Shah said.

“You have distressed people, but not distressed sales,” he said.

Watching Pennies

One of the most extreme cases is playing out in New Zealand, the South Pacific nation that was home to one of the world’s biggest pandemic booms, with property prices rising almost 30% in 2021 alone. About 25% of the current stock of mortgage lending was taken out that year, and a fifth of those were first-time buyers, according to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

Mortgage rates in the country are typically fixed for less than three years — meaning the central bank’s 525 basis points of rate hikes since October 2021 are sending house payments soaring. The RBNZ says around half of the outstanding stock of mortgages have been refinanced this year. It estimates the share of borrowers’ disposable income dedicated to interest costs will rise from a low of 9% in 2021 to around 20% by the middle of 2024.

That’s squeezing the budgets of people such as Aaron Rubin, who took out a NZ$1 million ($603,000) mortgage in 2021 to finance the purchase of a NZ$1.2 million four-bedroom house. After moving to New Zealand from the US eight years ago, he and his wife, Jessica, thought buying a home in the coastal city of Nelson was a decision that would provide stability for their two young children.

At first, the couple paid around NZ$4,000 a month on their mortgage. After a refinancing, it’s now up to about NZ$6,400.

“We can no longer afford to visit our family in the US and we are literally watching every penny that flows in and out of the account,” said Rubin, a 46-year-old software engineer. “It’s time consuming and stressful, and it’s changed our lifestyle.”

He considers himself lucky — his financial situation isn’t dire, and the couple can afford to continue paying their mortgage. He sees many Kiwis under far greater pressure.

The saving grace for many households has been strong wage and employment growth that has kept distress to a minimum, said Sharon Zollner, chief New Zealand economist at ANZ in Auckland.

“Once you deflate it by household income growth, debt is actually considerably lower than it was in 2007,” she said. “But of course, the average hides a million stories, and there are certainly some stressed people out there.”

Investor Pullback

The global housing boom of the last decade made real estate a fast path to wealth in countries such as New Zealand, Australia and, especially, Canada, where tens of thousands of people turned into amateur investors. By 2020, people with multiple homes had come to account for almost a third of the housing stock in two of Canada’s three most populous provinces, Ontario and British Columbia.

But higher interest rates and bond yields mean the math has suddenly flipped. Owning a condo in Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, will now yield only 3.9% after mortgage costs and other expenses, less than the 5% earned by investing in a Government of Canada treasury bill, according to a Bank of Montreal study.

“I don’t see how you can replicate the last 20 years going forward,” said Robert Kavcic, the Bank of Montreal economist who authored the report. “You’re going to have a whole generation of investors learn a pretty hard lesson.”

Higher borrowing costs have already pushed some investment properties deep into negative cash flow, forcing their owners to sell while also damping interest in new purchases. That could spell trouble for regular people just looking for a place to live too.

Investors buying units pre-construction has become a key source of financing for developers in the last decade, and their pullback has already seen the delay or cancellation of thousands of planned units in cities like Toronto. Canada’s already under-supplied market is one reason home prices have proved surprisingly resilient to higher interest rates, and the expected slowdown in building could only exacerbate the shortage.

A similar situation is playing out in Europe, where higher rates and soaring construction costs threaten to intensify supply strains. In Germany, new building permits fell more than 27% in the first half of the year, and in France they dropped 28% through July. Sweden, suffering its worst slump since a crisis in the 1990s, has building rates running at less than a third what’s deemed necessary to keep up with demand, threatening to further test the limits of affordability.

And that’s not even getting into the compounding strain from skyrocketing consumer prices generally. In the UK, which is facing the highest cost-of-living increase in a generation, nearly two million people have resorted to using buy-now-pay-later credit to cover groceries, bills and other essentials, according to a survey this year by the Money and Pensions Service. With more than one million homeowners estimated to be refinancing their mortgages this year at much higher levels, that pressure will only get worse.

A report released in September by KPMG showed almost a quarter of UK mortgage holders are considering selling and moving to a cheaper property due to the surge in financing costs, and mortgages with late payments now account for over 1% of the value of outstanding home loans. For landlords, who often have floating-rate mortgages, it can be worse, and that translates directly into pressure on renters.

London landlord Karen Gregory had little choice but to sell her building after her mortgage payment jumped more than threefold, leaving her with the prospect of evicting a young couple with a baby on the way. They found a new home before her deal, but the situation left her fed up.

“Landlords have had enough of the increase in interest rates,” Gregory said.

Asia Shakeout

In Asia, South Korea is contending with its own landlord fallout. The country has the developed world’s highest ratio of household debt-to-gross domestic product, at 157%, if the roughly $800 billion is counted from “jeonse” — a rental system unique to the country.

Under the system, landlords collect a deposit called jeonse that’s equal to roughly half of a property’s value at the start of the lease period, which typically runs for two to four years. When interest rates go up, jeonse becomes less attractive than paying monthly rent and the size of the deposits landlords can get from renters falls. Because owners often use new deposits to pay back old ones when leases expire, it becomes harder for them to meet their obligations.

The risk of defaults from jeonse landlords is expected to persist through 2024, because the contracts coming due were signed when prices — and hence deposits — were at record highs.

Hong Kong, meanwhile, has been hit by China’s slowdown, a population exodus and rising rates that have halted once-unstoppable price gains. Since its currency is pegged to the greenback, the city’s monetary policy generally moves in tandem with the US. That’s caused mortgage rates to more than double since the beginning of 2022. Existing-home prices in the notoriously expensive area have fallen to a six-year low, builders are offering deep discounts and the government is slashing extra stamp duties for some buyers to revive the hub.

Unless interest rates start falling, the Hong Kong housing market will continue to suffer. Prices in the city had surged so much in the past decade that homes are still unaffordable to many, meaning the recent drop in values doesn’t offset the higher borrowing costs — the same scenario that’s playing out in much of the world.

Housing markets “have had a real party the last two decades, and this is simply because you’ve had record low interest rates and lack of supply fueling house prices,” said Shah of Bloomberg Economics. “The decade ahead has to be the decade of great moderation.”

Source : Bloomberg

The post Higher Interest Rates Are Shattering Housing Dreams Around the World appeared first on Amora Escapes.

September was a bumper month for Australia’s auction market, with well over 10,000 homes heading under the hammer. According to the Domain Auction Report September 2023, auction volumes for the combined capitals came in at 9,518 and auction volumes for the combined regionals were 1,340.

The combined capitals recorded its strongest pace of monthly growth since October 2021, the strongest annual growth since April 2022, and the highest volume since May 2022.

The combined regionals saw the highest auction volumes since December 2022.

“The lift in auction listings is driven by stronger clearance rates and property market conditions, motivating sellers to list,” said Domain chief of research and economics, Dr Nicola Powell.

“This was highlighted when auction listings started ramping up earlier during the winter months, and the official start of the spring selling season saw higher volumes than last year.”

Auction volumes for September 2023

Source: Domain.

As volumes rose, clearance rates fell. The combined capitals recorded a clearance rate of 64.5%, and the combined regionals recorded a clearance rate of 44.6%.

Auction performance for September 2023

Geographies are ABS GCCSA. Auction reporting rates are 92.8% in Sydney, 98.0% in Melbourne, 87.8% in Brisbane, 92.3% in Adelaide and 91.4% in Canberra. Source: Domain.

“The September auction performance shows Australia’s housing market is in the continued recovery,” said Dr Powell.

“While clearance rates have fallen, they remain high relative to recent years. This drop in clearance rates is driven by increased auction listings for the third consecutive month, providing prospective buyers with more choices – helping to ease competition and urgency.”

Combined capitals and combined regionals clearance rate, by month

The number of properties sold prior to auction fell to its lowest point this year in September. Domain’s report noted that:

“A lower proportion of sold prior indicates that sellers are less likely to accept offers before auction day due to increasing competition between buyers.”

Properties withdrawn from auction increased this month to their highest point this year. However, it remains low compared to recent years.

Median auction prices rose for houses, while the unit market recorded mixed results.

Median auction price and respective changes for September 2023

Source: Domain.

Source : ThePropertyTribune

The post Australian Property Market Records Largest Auction Surge Since May 2022 appeared first on Amora Escapes.