At the end of 2024, CoreLogic (now Cotality) reported that Australia’s housing affordability—both to purchase and rent—was the worst on record, as illustrated by the graphic below. Home prices relative to incomes, the percentage of income required to service a mortgage, the number of years taken to save a deposit, and the percentage of income
International Reading: Beginning tomorrow, Trump Tariffs Will Affect Nearly 75 Percent of US Food Imports. – Tax Foundation How Trump’s tariffs could affect your grocery bill – The Hill Trump Ends Tariff Exemption For Small Packages – Wired Bessent: Trump Has ‘Backdoor to Privatizing Social Security’ – Mediaite The US Will Be the Biggest Loser
After experiencing one of the biggest booms during the pandemic, New Zealand home values have crashed back to 2019 levels. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, this decline in home values, combined with falling mortgage rates, has drastically improved housing affordability: It is not just home prices that have crashed but construction
Prefabricated housing is often touted as a solution to Australia’s housing affordability crisis. This week, 9 News ran an advertorial on Australia’s budding prefabricated housing industry, which it heralded as “a potential new dawn for Australia’s housing crisis”. These homes, which can be constructed in 10 to 12 weeks and can be “generally installed in one
What do you think happens when you try to manage a narcissist with a narcissist? Both pretend the other does not exist. AFR. Leavitt said of the country’s 18 largest trading partners, two-thirds had a deal. Australia is among the huge majority of countries that have not yet struck a deal and is facing the
Tarric Brooker posted the following chart on Twitter (X) showing that the level of real Australian resource exports per capita has risen from around $3,500 per year in 1988 to just under $15,000 per year currently. Brooker added, “Imagine the dividends of a smaller Australia”, in response to the massive population expansion experienced by Australia this
The perfect bubble is here, says the Market Ear. With systematics now fully engaged, it is hard to argue with. 100% too perfect Ring the bell. This is as good as it gets. Years ago we had the “Bündchen Bottom” in the dollar. Now the market just gave us the Sydney Sweeney squeeze Top –
Goldman wraps the EOFY bump in retail sales. Nominal retail sales rose 1.2%mom in June, above expectations (GSe:+0.9%mom, BBG: 0.5%mom). The quarterly data were also firmer than expectations, with volumes rising 0.3%qoq in 2Q 2025 (GSe: -0.3%qoq, BBG:+0.1%qoq). That said, the acceleration in volumes growth was driven by a rebound in Queensland following flood-related weakness
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released dwelling approvals data for June, which posted another solid rise. There were 15,984 dwellings approved in trend terms in June, the highest volume since September 2022. Despite the rebound, approvals remained 20% below the monthly 20,000 run rate required to meet the Albanese government’s target to build 1.2
The ferrous complex likes to stick to seasonal patterns, but the sgtins are not good when steel gives way. Nor when PMIs give way. China official NBS manufacturing PMI: 49.3 in July, vs. 49.7 in June. Official non-manufacturing PMI: 50.1 in July, vs. 50.5 in June. The construction PMI fell notably in July to 50.6