EMANILA REALTY » Daily Reads

Is the recession over?

Romy C — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:53:58 +0000

Australia’s Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens was reported to have told a Senate Committee that the recession was over and tipped of a rise in interest rates.

Is the recession really over?

Although job ads in Australia are reported to have increased recently, still unemployment in the US increased again to 9.8 percent in September with 263,000 jobs reportedly lost. Unemployment in EU also increased in August to 9.1 percent.

Meanwhile, it would be interesting to see how the banks will respond to the RBA assessment. It was not very long time ago when the major banks raised rates on borrowings.

Updated 6 Oct 2009, 5:00pm - The RBA lifted interest rates by 0.25 percentage points which pushed the cash rate to 3.25%. If the commercial banks do not absorb the rate increase, this will add about $45 to monthly repayment on a $300,000 mortgage.

ACMA steps up education campaign for real estate agents

Romy C — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:10:22 +0000

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that many real estate agents in Australia are unaware of the requirements of the Spam Act (Spam Act 2003) and the DNCR Act (Do Not Call Register Act 2006).

In order to rectify this lack of awareness, the ACMA has stepped up an education campaign which was started in November last year to raise the awareness of real estate agents of the Acts.

According to the ACMA, a special web page within the DNCR website has been created which features real estate industry-specific information including Power Point presentation about the DNCR Act and the Spam Act.

The additional education campaign, according to the ACMA, is “in response to the increasing number of consumer complaints about telephone, SMS, and email marketing by real estate agents.”

The ACMA anticipates that the web page will assist in reducing complaints it is receiving about the marketing activity of real estate agents.

Mixed trends in global house prices

Team Emanila — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:03:59 +0000

According to the latest survey of house price indicators, there appears to be mixed trends on global house price movements.

Global Property Guide (www.globalpropertyguide.com) has reported that in most countries in Europe, major real house price falls occurred during the year to end of Q1 2008. Ireland had a fall of 13.2%.

US prices were also reported to have declined during the year to end of Q1, by -4.2% to -18.1% adjusted after inflation.

On the other hand, strong house prices increases were observed in a handful of emerging economies. Ahead of the pack was China (Shanghai), with an enormous 40.5% nominal house price surge during the year to the end of Q1 2008.

Other countries with impressive nominal house price increases year-on-year to end-Q1 2008 were Bulgaria (31.6%), Hong Kong (31.1%), and Singapore (29.8%). Strong house price gains also took place in Cyprus, Australia and Taiwan.

Again, when adjusted for inflation, many of these price rises look much less impressive. The worldâ€™s top-performing housing market (after inflation) was not China or Hong Kong or Singapore, but Slovakia, where real house prices rose by 29.3%.