In the 1950s, Woody Guthrie lived in one of Fred Trump’s buildings. In newly discovered, never before published writings, Guthrie bitterly rails against the developer’s color line.
There’s no accurate data on foreign investment in Australian real estate, but what we do have suggests it’s only partly to blame for rising house prices.
About a quarter of all renters are spending at least half of their income on housing, and the situation is projected to get much worse over the next decade.
Urban planning and development in Africa has been fraught with many challenges. A study of Accra and Nairobi provides some lessons on what needs to improve.
The federal government has missed an opportunity to give serious thought to housing affordability in Australia. The House Standing Committee on Economics recently released its report on individual foreign…
Warren Buffett has started rolling out his widely successful investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, into a consumer brand. Starting earlier this year, the famed investor began rebranding the energy companies…
Mayfair, Belgravia and Kensington: all London boroughs associated with affluence and grandeur, not student accommodation. But today these areas play host to a burgeoning student population. With the internationalisation…
As Prime Minister Tony Abbott shifts his Asian tour focus to China, it seems likely the threshold for formal approval on Chinese investment in Australia will be raised to A$1 billion. But any move to open…
The level of sub-prime mortgages in Australia may be far in advance of what was previously assumed and provided for by banks. The story was broken on the ABC, and covered elsewhere. The revelations centred…
One question that arises on the topic of real estate is the scale of foreign investment and ownership in Australia. It is understandable that the public has concerns about such investment, especially as…
One of the more interesting outcomes the 2011 Census produced was the figures concerning the housing market. The reason for this interest is how the results contrasted with the idea that Australia currently…
Conflicts of interest undermine the quality of advice and policy. It is critical to the functioning of markets and government that parties involved are free of conflicts, especially monetary ones. We would…
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…
Our Safe as Houses series delves into a topic close to the heart of many Australians - property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view property…
While my recent commentary (here and here) demonstrates Australian housing is in a bubble, I have not explained where this situation has come from. Asset markets, in this case, property, are the subject…
One aspect of housing and stock market bubbles continually repeats: the vast majority of economists either miss or deny their existence. In recent years, enormous asset bubbles have burst in many countries…