With nearly one in four West Australians living alone, suburbs that offer lifestyle, amenities and accessibility are a lure to these singles. Living in or near a city means shops, bars, restaurants, and cultural and leisure activities are all within reach and the type of housing stock usually suits those who live alone. Single people […]
A leading economic forecaster is warning that Australia’s housing shortage could evaporate by 2018, putting downward pressure on property prices. Many analysts argue a persistent housing shortage over the past decade is responsible for stubbornly high Australian home prices, which are much more expensive that most other developed nations. However, economic and property forecaster BIS […]
Pressure is mounting on interest-only mortgage borrowers as new research shows they tend to be poorer money managers and present as “risk flags” to financial institutions. An apparent propensity to spend their way further into debt and forgo savings when faced with higher costs, and an increased tendency to sell their property if interest rates […]
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has released new figures revealing the low number of broker disputes compared to the banks. The FOS Annual Review 2016-17reported 25,300 accepted disputes overall during the year. Of these, 10,400 involved the banks while only seven involved mortgage brokers. These seven disputes included two around advice, two around charges, one around […]
The sharpest fall in retail spending in more than four years has cast doubt on the Reserve Bank’s economic growth forecasts and adds weight to expectations for a long run of unchanged interest rates. Retail turnover plunged 0.6 per cent to $25.9 billion in August, missing market expectations of a rise from July of 0.3 per […]