“With 46,220 properties vacant in Melbourne, the myth we have a housing shortage cannot go on much longer,” Earthsharing Australia spokesperson Karl Fitzgerald said today. Earthsharing’s Speculative Vacancies report highlights that tightness in rental stock does not equate to a lack of housing. The much quoted REIV’s 1.7% vacancy rate (Nov 2010) only refers to [...]

Home Buyers Strike Called The Dont Buy Now Home Buyers Strike was launched Tuesday to warn prospective property buyers that now is the worst time to buy a house. The state of the housing market is unfurling at a rate of knots. A mexican standoff is being played out between sellers trying to maintain prices [...]

Casey Jenkins has re-interpreted the‘I Want to Live Here‘ report with some useful graphs. As you may have read in the original report, we uncovered a genuine vacancy rate five times that reported by Real Estate Institute of Victoria; 6.9% compared to REIV’s 1.4%. By collating data from Melbourne water suppliers we were able to [...]

The Rudd- Swan government’s flat denial of negative gearing reform proves that modern politics is incapable of dealing with the difficult questions. It was all too risky in an election year. The dreams of working families are set to play second fiddle to the propertied class for years to come. But yet the announced reforms [...]

photo credit: Ian Sane On the one hand, the market delivers the best for the least cost. But on the other hand…. few are willing to call it as it is. Yesterday’s National Housing Supply Report used coded language to hint at a ‘possible over-supply of housing’ due to housing investor tax breaks (p50). However [...]