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In September 2010 Express Commission provides commission advance s to leading residential, commercial, and industrial real estate agencies and business brokers across Australia.

Our clients are based in every state of Australia and include both independent agencies and members of Australia’s most successful real estate groups including:

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Market Update

1.  Housing Market Cooling - Economists

The national housing market appears to be cooling under decade-high interest rate rises with prices falling in half of Australia's capital cities in the opening months of 2008.

Prices fell in Sydney, Perth, Hobart and Darwin in the March quarter as national house prices rose by a much slower pace than the pre-Christmas period.

The Australian house price index rose by 1.1 per cent in the three months to March to post its slowest quarterly growth rate since early 2007, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Monday (5^th May)

The result was significantly lower than the December quarter's upwardly revised 4.1 per cent climb but it was still much higher than gloomy market forecasts of a 0.1 per cent increase.

Prices jumped by 13.8 per cent in the year to March.

Sydney posted the sharpest March quarter decline, of 1.5 per cent, to see prices rise by a comparatively modest annual pace of 7.1 per cent.

The resources-driven city of Perth posted the nation's slowest annual growth pace of 0.6 per cent.

Conversely, Melbourne house prices surged by 4.1 per cent in the three months to March to be a nation-leading 25.9 per cent higher over the year.

Lehman Brothers chief economist Stephen Roberts said the wide disparity in house price inflation across Australia, during the March quarter, was an early sign of a real estate market slowdown.

2. Weekend Auction Clearance Rates

• Sydney - 47%
• Melbourne - 62%
• Brisbane - 33%

3. "Co-ownership" - the latest buzzword

With housing affordability at an all-time low co-ownership is fast becoming the latest buzzword.

Jeremy Levitt, director PodProperty, a co-ownership specialist that has been pivotal in the smooth execution of thousands of joint purchases, welcomes the Federal Government’s decision to allow people who buy property together under a co-ownership framework to aggregate their First Home Saver loan accounts.

“This represents acknowledgement by the Federal government that co-ownership is a viable model in tackling the mounting housing affordability problem,” says Levitt. 

Buying a home with others enables costs such as the purchase price, legal fees and stamp duty to be split between co-owners, making it easier and more affordable to enter the property market.

“With Treasury signaling its permission to join First Home Saver accounts together, first homebuyers may have a very serious weapon in their arsenal to combat worsening housing affordability,” declares Levitt. 

The First Home Saver Account scheme will come into effect on 1 July.

Findings of a recent Mortgage Choice Franchise Owner Survey indicate that joint borrowing is becoming a trend in the property market leading Mortgage Choice National Corporate Affairs Manager, Warren O’Rourke to note that consumers wanting to enter the property market are starting to become more lateral thinking and look for options available to them.

Despite the successive interest rates hikes beginning to put the brakes on house prices, affordability remains a key issue for first homebuyers and Levitt congratulates the Rudd Government on “affirming co-ownership as a way of surmounting the crisis”.

Levitt, a former lawyer with commercial law firm Allens Arthur Robinson, co-founded PodProperty, Australia’s first service to assist groups of people to purchase property together as tenants in common within a secure legal framework.

Source: Lending Central

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