Families pooling funds and buying together
With affordability at its lowest level on record, first-home buyers have to think outside the square.
The home-ownership dream rarely used to feature a sibling in your bathtub and a parent on your certificate of title. These days though, first-home buyers are prepared to be flexible.
Housing affordability fell to record lows in the March quarter this [...]
Variable home loans reach record levels
Home buyers are flocking back to variable rate mortgages which now account for 91% of the residential lending market, their highest proportion in four months.
Mortgage broker Mortgage Choice reported in April basic variable mortgages accounted for 48.15 per cent of all home loans approved - up nearly one per cent from March, while standard variable [...]
First homebuyers improving rental vacancies
Melbourne’s outer suburb vacancy rates have improved from 0.7 per cent to 1.8 per cent in the past six months, according to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria’s April vacancy rates.
Vacancy rates across Melbourne is reasonably steady having been between one and 1.4 per cent for 12 months. However it‘s significant that there’s a noted [...]
Investors …waiting and watching!
It’d seem the stars are aligned: low rates, population growth, low vacancy rates, strong rental market and a shortage of housing in the majority of capital cities.
Since late 2008, the number of loans to first home buyers has outweighed substantially those to existing owner-occupiers and investors as first-time buyers rush to take advantage of the [...]
House price rise bucks a global trend
The value of Aussie homes increased in the first quarter, bucking a global trend downwards, according to a recently issued report.
House and flat prices in Australia increased in value by 1.6% in the first three months of the year, helped by a scarcity of supply, lower interest rates and incentives to first-home buyers.
The slight recovery [...]