With all eyes on the US fed rate rise tomorrow and RBA Governor Phil Lowe admitting yesterday that he expects (officially admitted) inflation to raise above 7% by end of the year, interesting times are ahead for the $10 trillion Australian housing market.
Question is, what kitchen sinks are coming from dumb shit Jim Chalmers (thank god we have a career unionist and ALP apparatchik to handle the biggest economic crisis ahead, right after the printing spree of his intellectually-equal predecessor Josh Frydenbergsteinwitz) to try and keep the housing market somewhat afloat?
Some suggestions being thrown around:
- Tax deductions on PPOR mortgage interest
- Total super withdrawals for mortgage repayments and/or FHB deposits
- 50-year mortgages
- Immigration tap up to 11
I honestly don’t know and with the price of absolutely everything else going up I don’t know if they can do much, but it’s not going to be the bcnich eternal catastrophe in my view.
I also don’t know realistically if immigration is going to be any fix at all. Realistically you wouldn’t want to move here if rates are 3% by end of 2022, petrol is $2.50 a litre when the excise cut runs out on July 1 and food prices are through the roof, not to mention potential rent increases. Not saying they won’t try bigger incentives for the open the gates crowd, but whatever.
I personally believe the ALP will stay away from the super funds because that means union funding is in trouble. Not that they’ve mostly been any fucking use the last three years by supporting mandates, so fuck them either way.
I think the PPOR tax deductions are coming first around this time of year. Happy to be proven wrong, but I’m sure more knowledgeable types than I have a better idea of what’s ahead.
Ride that Kali Yuga either way.
all i know is we’re fucked, everything is getting cooked this year and there’s almost nowhere to put your money anymore
Beat me to it. Treasury bonds might be the only option and I’m trying to crash course my way through it because fuck bailins.
LOL spoke too soon. Ubank now offering 35 year mortgages.
the fuck is ubank
35 year loans won’t do much other a few percent more to borrow. You need something to allow you to borrow 10-15% more.
I would imagine increase bank profits by extension of loan period.
how long you reckon before people start turning on albo and he starts getting blamed for all of this? im giving it like 4 months tops, poison chalice like i said. he’s cooked.
4 months for his approval ratings to tank.
Next year for the media to turn against him.
Albo’s shared equity scheme will be expanded. They’ll increase it to 50,000 applicants.
Immigration to go full throttle through lowering thresholds for the golden ticket visa. We’ll also take an additional 30-40,000 refugees.
They bring in rebates for buying dogboxes to help Harry along.
Then the no cost option of rezoning where more places will be eligible for medium density (but only after developer mates have picked up sites cheaply).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10917591/Huge-rise-millions-Australians-Fair-Work-Commission-awards.html
hes already lifted wages this morning
what if albo is a real deal socialist and friend of the people ?
obviously chalmers is a neoliberal scumbag , but maybe he doesn’t matter and is just there to take the blame
I’m not really sure what power “treasurer” actually comes with
but wage inflation is the only sensible way out of this
is it really a huge rise
i dont know anyone who actually gets paid minimum wage, its like how people always wail about america having a low min wage when nearly no one actually gets paid it over there anyway
It’s a start
if it wasn’t significant then why didn’t the libs do it
Stagmal,
Problem with the 5.2% rise is that it will be consumed by an existing inflation + income tax of 19% on anything over 18,200.
Yes, it is a great step forward, and a necessary one. Just not sure it would do much good, if not send people backwards.
RBA believes inflation will peak at 7%, but they are usually wrong and likely underestimate inflation. Effectively people will go backwards.
Yesterday Peachy mentioned wages don’t feed into input costs as they used to. This is true. However, if we start raising wages across the board you are effectively debasing the currency. Aud will fall and we will import inflation.
Roundabout way of saying higher wages will be met with higher interest rates. I don’t mind what Labor is doing in protecting the vulnerable low paid workers though.
Small businesses are already getting smashed out there. Wage inflation will send a lot of them to the wall.
That depends on what they sell , as their customers may now have more to spend
reject shop to the moon
I don’t see how it necessarily involves debasing the currency
can you explain ?
increasing wages doesn’t change the amount of currency in circulation , it changes the velocity and distribution
Why don’t we just make the minimum wage $100 per hour then everyone has more to spend and everyone will be richer. No impact on the currency.
You don’t get something for nothing. If everyone’s income doubled the purchasing power collapses.
Come on Freddy, that’s lazy and disingenuous
you’ve now changed your statement
you originally claimed it will debase the currency and the AUD will fall
that is not the same thing
if the price of labour increases, there are various local costs that will increase as well not least of which will be interest costs and mortgages
It also doesn’t necessarily imply an increased desire for imported goods
remember we don’t manufacture anything
for starters, you can look at the mining infrastructure boom period where the AUD was it at highest, and so was wage growth
and pre 2008 crisis when wage growth was it at highest, AUD was also at its highest
so prima facie your argument is bullshit
We already had this discussion.
As you say we don’t manufacture anything so an increase in income directly implies an increase in imports.
im not replying to this idiot but if somebody else wants to jump in I will engage
lol.
no one else even cares about your deluded assertions.
We should do it then. Raise minimum wage to a million dollars. Fuck it. Make it ten million so everyone can retire before 30.
You alluded to a mining boom. So we are in fact exporting. AUD being supported by commodities sold in USD and then converted back to AUD.
So what would happen if we exported nothing at all (including food)? All the money flows would be out of AUD into foreign currency. The AUD would keep falling and we would keep on importing inflation. What stops the AUD falling?
1) We can bring back all the the manufacturing, farming, etc. If we then persist on large pay rises we go back to the classic inflation spiral.
2) Interest rates. Compensation for the holding of a currency that is being debased by way of wage inflation.
And it is debasement. Purchasing power is being diluted.
Not in comings world.
In his world certain particular costs will increase meaning there will be only good effects and no ill effects from this increase, because reasons.
I think he might be an undercover economist from a reserve bank somewhere given the stellar flawless logic deeply grounded in reality on display.
Nah he’s just a doctor. No bigger mugs with money.
I tend to agree with this to a point where it does not affect it directly. it may cause other events which may lead to more money in circulation but that would be indirect.
very low wages are a way to keep otherwise insolvent businesses in business (Aus is riddled with such businesses) or to make big rich businesses even more rich.
Reducing interest rates doesn’t effect house prices directly either as MB was so fond of pointing out. It’s the behavioural changes resulting from the change that actually causes the effects and all these high level economic theories completely ignore human behaviour hence why they work so badly.
There is simply no way you increase people wages significantly and they don’t spend more on imports, either through higher costs or increased consumption.
The goal now is not to lift house prices but keep them where they are or only let them drop 10-20%.
Even a 25% drop which would be huge only takes us back to 2019 levels it won’t be a disaster unless you’re over leveraged.
The rest of the world is dealing with high energy prices, higher cost of living, higher interest rates. Australia is relatively no less attractive, people might not be willing to make such a big life decision in this environment. Immigrants will still come if you open the gates.
PPOR tax deduction will smash the budget. Imagine rates being 8% which I think they were around 2008. You’d have people making a $50k, $100k tax deduction.
50 year mortgages will be a good one and banks can make even more money out of the financially illiterate.
Raiding super is definitely on the cards. They did it before two years ago for a novel cold so they’ll do it again. Labor might be more reticent though their union mates won’t like it. I don’t think they’ll have much choice at some point unless they want to be as unpopular as Biden and the Democrats.
They won’t let people pull $10k out of super again and spend it on TVs and tit jobs. That will egg on inflation even more. But they’ll let people in dire circumstances direct their super straight to the mortgage.
For the last two decades the indebted have been rewarded for gambling with their futures but the day of reckoning has arrived for anyone not financially secure and those that don’t live within their means are set for restless nights.
All because of a novel cold.
it really was all bc of rona, or at least a lot of it
really exposed the sham that you could just borrow money endlessly and have no consequences for it, hopefully that this whole debacle will have put that notion to bed forever (unlikely)
i suspect in like 2-5 years time all countries will roughly have the same per capita death rates from covid too, making any attempt at mitigating it completely futile
i still can’t wrap my head around what we just went through and how now it’s been totally forgotten even though that insane reaction to something so trivial was majorly implicated in what is about to come
we’ll never see an hysteria that enormous ever again. like ever, i just can’t fathom how crazy it was
The real pandemic is coming now. Suicides went down during the outbreak of COVID, but they’re heading up up and away over the next few years.
I don’t think we’ve begun to see hysteria. The Covid shitshow just made the nutters in charge realise what the plebs will put up with.
As I’ve said before, if people punched on over toilet paper wait until the food shortages and prices get real.
There is nothing wrong with tit jobs and face lifts.
On your four suggested outcomes:
I rank the probablility of this occurring the highest. Easy as to implement, limited impact on the tax receipts (I am basing this on the assumption that many FHB and current PPORs are on ~2% fixed rates for the next 2-3 years), massive positive political message translated into votes.
This too is a possibility, but with lower probability. Nowadays, FHBs tend to be 35 years old, compared to 32 years old just 5 years ago. Say, working for 12 years, starting at 60K per year at 23 and topping out at 102K per year at 35, this gives us, simplistically,
https://rfi.global/article-indepth-insights-with-al-first-home-buyers-australia/
($60K + $120K)/2 * 12 yrs *.095 super rate = $102.6K super balance. Let’s say fees were balanced with income growth. So, a $100K nest egg on average. Some will have more, some much less. In WA one can still build a house in suburbs 30km+ away from the CBD for about $320K, so $100K will cover the deposit and stamp duty and qualify one for an FHB discount. Anything 12km from CBD and we are looking at $700K+, so 10% deposit and no FHB discount.
https://www.realestate.com.au/house-and-land-packages/perth-greater-region-wa/?sortType=price-asc
Plus this would be harder to implement as all of the funds will scream bloody murder at pulling a chunk of THEIR funds to give to builders. Plus, of course, the price of houses will go up.
To me, this will be the last resort – plenty of other levers to pull
We are already running at eleventy, so fait accompli. Increase it more, and the wages will drop. 5% hike for minimum wage only works when you are getting paid rates, not cash under the table.
Other possibilities I see:
God, I am an evil cunt!
Legally the US has no recourse mortgages in many states. ie. you walk away and all the bank is ever entitled to is the property you mortgaged.
Here in EZFKA if you walk away the bank can chase you up for that loss after selling the property till the cows come home, and you are liable for it.
True, but in the US only 12 states have non-recourse loans.
https://www.financialsamurai.com/non-recourse-states-walk-away-from-mortgage/
It still doesn’t preclude the Feds to come after you for the perceived gain. In the US, some states have only Fed taxes, some Fed+State, and some Fed+State+local.
TBH, I threw this little tidbit in the mix just to show that we are far away from plumbing the depths of shitfuckery.
I am really interested in people’s opinion on this bit, though:
Government does a version of Freddie Mac / Fannie Mae, sets a set mortgage rate of, say, 3%, and buys all bad loans off the banks. Including investors.
you’ve got to flesh out the proposal. Depending on how it’s priced it could be bailing out the borrowers only or bailing out the banks. And it could be cheap or costly to budget.
eg
then, having dealt with the existing loan book, you’ve got to do something to new loans/future house purchases… what? Fund those at 3% as well (either directly or through TFF 2.0)?
Last bullet point sounds like the go to me. If interest rates increase to a level that makes it into a distressed loan, fix the rate at a lower level, bail out banks, package all of the bad loans in one big bank, which automatically makes them “investment grade” and a desirable investment, keep sheering the OO sheep.
Taxpayer will not benefit, borrower will benefit some, banking sector will benefit hugely. That is the name of the game. I am not trying to come up with what’s fair or equitable, I am trying to come up with scenarios that fit the EZFKA economic model and help keep government in government.
I dunno. Even after the covid cowardice display, I think such a big sop to the banks might be too on the nose even for EZFKA
What was the bailout for the banks after Lehman Bros.? 800B? When people called their elected official, protested against the bailout, and banks got it anyway. All the gov’t needs to say “the bailout is to protect Australians’ homes” and all will be sweet.
As a matter of fact, we might not even get to have a chance to debate the solution, it will be communicated to us after the fact. Like during COVID and a few other examples.
Isn’t it just far simpler to start with this and skip all the messy stuff?
well yes, as a matter of financial maths.
but politically might be harder – no Covid cover/running interference
massive loan defaults by FHB’s isn’t exactly picnics and rainbows either
https://www.ezfka.com/2022/06/15/what-kitchen-sinks-will-be-thrown-at-australian-housing-before-the-end-of-2022/#comment-24362
Govt already did something similar to that in the 90s. Distressed mortgages received access to fixed rate mortgage bonds at a lower rate. I forgot the name of it. When the variable rate fell below the rate of the mortgage bonds it turned into a political shit fight and the government bought them out of the bonds. I believe they will do something similar.
I am a big fan of mortgage bonds btw. The hurt that recent buyers are about to endure would not have happened with mortgage bonds. Repayments remain the same. If rates rise the house price falls are offset by the value of the mortgage bonds.
Which way did the bonds run? who was the creditor and who was the debtor?
was it basically just a fixed rate loan to the house buyer, like I imagine, or backwards?
A long term fixed rate loan funded by the government.
It wouldn’t be difficult for RBA to create a longer term TFF targeted at distressed mortgage holders. It would not even need to be for the life of the loan. 10 years would be long enough for wages and house prices to rise.
Ok, got you. So just long duration fixed loans. Yes it would work.
but it would raise the question of “what the hell do we need these private banks for, then?” – if done at scale and without the cover of something like the covid hysteria. (Paging PFH007)
In the USA mortgage bonds are issued by private banks. That is perfectly fine for new loans.
Long term rates are already high and a distressed variable rate borrower would not benefit from switching to fixed. Only a reduced rate issued by the government would help them.
yeah, private banks can conceptually exist in a world of long-term fixed lending.
I was reacting to the ideal of fixed loans in the context of GM’s suggestion of a “rescue” of the housing market and your suggestion of TFF2.0.
if there is a rescue and a tff2.0 – then it’s really the government advancing the cheap loans, in which case there is no real justification for a bank to stand in the middle and clip the ticket.
but outside a “rescue” scenario – I’d agree that long term fixed rate lending would add some stability to housing market.
Impact on tax receipts won’t be minimal.
look at any big bank P&l and you see $20b-$30b of interest.
suppose only half of that is owner occupier non-deductible interest.
that’s still $10b per bank. Multiply by 7 (5 big banks + all little ones) and that’s $70b worth Of deductions.
at an average rate of 30%, it’s $21b cash. More when rates rise.
And this is where the true numbers would be good to make an educated guess. I posit that the $20-$30B of interest is heavily weighted with IO investment properties, as this keeps the mortgage payment down while renting the property out.
Also remember, the deductible interest is applied to taxable income. So if one, hypothetically, is in 30% tax bracket, and has $15,000 worth of interest, the deduction is actually $4,500 for that year. That was the fallacy in the US when people went out and got massive IO loans thinking that the deduction will be the actual interest paid, not a fraction thereof.
I’m making more than sufficient allowance for all that.
i think it is more than fair to assume that only 50% of interest revenue in banks is from OO. ( I don’t think I’ve seen any chart suggesting that investors had overtaken occupiers in volume of debt)
and I have the allied a 30% tax rate to get the cash budget inpact
and I have the allied a 30% tax rate
Ah, yes you have! Missed that part.
We also assume that all of the OO have income to deduct against and this will not be treated like franking credits.
So if this is $21B per year that is being “returned” back to the taxpayer – will this direct cash injection stimulate the economy?
yes – it seems like it would. In the traditional EZFKA way of raining cash on previous house buyers.
….until of course this deductibility gets capitalised into a new higher level of house prices and new borrowers find that they have to devote the value of the tax deduction to funding the house as well. But it should buy a good 24 months, perhaps.
Can kicked until after the 2025 Federal election. Success!
Rope from Bunnings will be the new toilet paper I think, so stock up now if you need it for work because I think there will be a rush on it at some point.
I don’t think the penny has really dropped out there. People are still complaining about lettuce prices and cabbage in their KFC burgers, having to wait 12 months for their dual cabs.
Go long BCF. Tents, sleeping bags. Rope from Bunnings of course.
And crab pots.
50 year mortgages aren’t really likely to be a thing, the problem is that it pushes the end on the mortgage so far past the likely working life of the applicant that the banks can’t claim that there is any real chance of this loan ever being paid back.
Even 30 year mortgages are bumping into this as people buy firt homes later in life.
They don’t want anyone paying it back they let idiots refinance all day, reset at year 0 for another 30 years.
I don’t think banks care about this. On mortgage applications there’s a question about you’ll do if you hit retirement age with the loan outstanding – “downsize” is an acceptable response!
By then they are long gone and it is no longer their problem.
Super will be used to clear or pay down mortgages. If you are 35 and take out a mortgage for 50 years. What’s left after 30 years will be paid with super. Super industry knows this, that is why they keep increasing the contribution percentage. I am expecting Albo to announce a 15% target by 2028.
I think it’s more likely lump sum withdrawals get limited making this harder to actually do, but we’ll see.
The super industry pushes for higher contributions because they literally take a percentage of ALL FUNDS UNDER MANAGEMENT.
Want more profits, need more funds under management. Not competitive enough to get funds voluntarily, push for higher compulsory contributions.
This RBA parody account has the answer. If government prepared to suspend the spot market for electricity…
Reserve Bank of Property on Twitter: “We can do the same to the housing market if house prices fall by another 0.5% and then inversely set a price floor on each and every property at a 25% premium to recent peak valuations” / Twitter
It’s a funny quip… but interestingly the electrickery market generator stepped in when prices were spiralling up out of control for a few days.
the dunces at RBA and APRA watched their main market spiral upwards for decades and did nothing, only stepping in when upward momentum faded.
Of course the thing about markets is when you apply price controls all of a sudden people no longer want to supply items at that price.(or buy if you set a minimum)
Hence the threat/withdrawal of electricity supply until “emergency” price increases completely bypassing the caps.
There’s a time dimension, too.
electricity generators can choose not to supply for a number of hours or days.
but hardly for a number of weeks/months. Because then they have no business & might as well sell up and go home.
I believe every generator of significance has more than 1 generating asset, and isn’t refusing to use ALL of them.
I can fill in the details if you can’t work them out.
There is also a looming problem for the market overseer
As assets go end of life we are reaching desperation point for investment in new assets and any intervention like this really dampens any enthusiasm to invest in generation assets.
The more heavy handed they are now the more likely they are completely screwed when all the current gov built asset go end of life.
As their gov built assets bought for cents on the dollar reach end of life they are….
only after shifting the cleanup costs onto an external entity with no assets of course.
Edit:
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_New_South_Wales and check out how many MWH are scheduled to close by 2028 and compare it to whats already been closed, or even all remaining assets, let alone any built in the last 30 years.
By 2028 we will have more than halved generation capacity.
Off topic but
Anthony Fauci, has contracted Covid-19.
Fauci, who is fully vaccinated and twice boosted, is experiencing mild symptoms according to a Wednesday statement from the NIH.
If an evil old man dies, nobody would be really sad
If he hadn’t of got booster jabs, would he still be considered fully vac?
And is fully vac the same everywhere or different depending on the “health advice”?
add joint ownership with lovey govie as a partner
gov’t to pressure/bribe corps to support RE prices.
*waves at blackrock/stone
here’s a spitball… tip super $$$ in holus bolus but keep it all under the super umbrella so lovey mates in the industry still cream the fees as usual.
ie: change super legislation so it can hold an interest in a persons principal residence
Ah, that’s good brainstorming. Keep the “funds under management” in super up AND get cash into the housing market.
what’s not to like?
it’ll fly too coz ezfka RE addiction….
long* megabank
*not financial advice… not advice at all really, just random dribble
I think we will see CBA at $80 first. Possibly much lower, too.
particularly so, if wolverine gets it right
*long puts on megabank to insure long megabank cornerstone holdings…
*see above
NSW budget: Housing scheme to help frontline workers ‘get a leg up’ in property market (9news.com.au)
NSW Libs 40% shared equity.
State and Fed govt will team up and make it 50% each to make sure there are no properties in Australia under $950k.
I was about to post this… an unusual number of articles on shared raquity and downsizing are perhaps the tell-tale of what is the next “free market” thing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-to-trial-shared-equity-scheme-to-help-nurses-teachers-buy-homes-20220619-p5auva.html
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/siblings-and-downsizing-mum-spend-2-7-million-on-glebe-house-20220616-p5au88.html
https://www.smh.com.au/property/living/i-bought-a-house-in-my-20s-with-a-friend-and-we-re-still-friends-20220527-p5ap1c.html
Shared mortgages, with .gov.au or with a mate, perhaps even with an incognito partner-in-mortgage or .gov.au nominated partner seems as the next free market thing with RE