I have consistently cautioned that the state and federal governments’ plans to blanket our cities with high-rise apartments will not improve housing affordability. The reason is simple: it is too expensive to construct apartments. As a result, they cannot be delivered at a reasonable cost to buyers. Urbis highlighted the excessive cost of apartment development,
When Australia’s international borders reopened in early 2022, the nation was already well in the midst of a rental crisis. As a result of the pandemic, demand for rentals surged significantly, first in regional areas as people sought to make their exodus from lockdown-impacted cities and then in the capitals as individuals stuck at home
From the Market Ear AAII bull – bear spread vs. SPX. All this bull… and we are still in neutral land. Chugging along Russell continues trading inside the perfect trend channel. We are printing new recent highs, and buying that 21 day moving average continues to be a simple but profitable strategy. Overboughter GDX has
In February, on ABC’s Q&A, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated that the government was cutting immigration and relieving pressure on the housing market by reducing international student numbers. Albanese noted that the student visa system was being “abused”. This week, we learned that international student enrolments hit a record high of 839,200 in the year to
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this week released data on Australia’s residential housing stock, which was valued at a record $11.6 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, equivalent to $1,017,000 per dwelling. The following chart compares the value of Australia’s dwelling stock to the country’s GDP. It shows that the entire residential housing
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has cut the official cash rate (OCR) by 2.5% since July 2024, taking the OCR down to 3.0% from a peak of 5.5%. The Reserve Bank has slashed rates so aggressively due to the pervasive weakness of the New Zealand economy. In particular, New Zealand’s labour market has suffered
Who would have thought a few years ago that the racist Guardian would be the leading purveyor of propaganda in the national media? Patrick Commins is a journalist journeyman happy to write anything for any paper’s point of view, and today he has committed spectacular hara-kiri for the racist Guardian. In an ageing society with
The Market Ear on this mightiest of bubbles. King AI “The 30 or so AI stocks in S&P 500 have a combined 43% of market cap. Even more compelling, these names have driven almost all of the returns and most of earnings growth since ChatGPT / Nov 2022”. Source: JPM Pulse on AI “…it couldn’t
Recall that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told ABC’s Q&A in February that Labor would cut immigration and relieve pressure on the rental market by reducing the number of student visas, which he said were being “abused”. “On immigration, particularly when it comes to housing, three quick points. One is that the biggest thing that you
The ferrous complex is as crazy as usual. With blast furnaces resuming after the warmongering parade, we should expect HRC prices to keep falling with rebar. Steel mill margins are collapsing here, and iron ore is the culprit. Goldman has scuttlebutt. China lead has been increasingly irrelevant, lots of trips up there post results so