API Blog :: Have your say!

June 25, 2010

Property vs shares: battle of the assets


What’s the best investment for you? Property or share

s?

BY MATTHEW LIDDY

Investors need to take their goals, their individual risk profiles and their investment strategy into account when deciding whether to invest in property or shares, investment analysts say.

These individual factors make it very difficult to say outright that one asset class is a better investment than the other, according to property writer Margaret Lomas.

Lomas likens asking whether property or shares is better to asking which is better out of a Mercedes and an overseas trip.

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How high can property prices go?


Typical house prices in Australia’s capital cities could very well be higher than $1 million by the end of this decade, property analysts say.

BY MATTHEW LIDDY

A storm of debate erupted early this year when Metropole Properties founder Michael Yardney suggested median house prices in Australia’s capital cities could conceivably run to seven figures before this decade is over.

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June 23, 2010

7 ways to increase the transparency of real estate


Australia’s commercial real estate market has been judged the most transparent in the world, but there are many aspects of the residential market that could be conducted with more of an open book.

BY MATTHEW LIDDY

The Jones Lang LaSalle Global Transparency Index finds that Australia has the most transparent commercial property market in the world, beating out other perennially open markets, such as Canada and the United Kingdom.

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May 26, 2010

Will the resources super tax affect property?


The Rudd Government and the mining industry are locked in a ferocious battle over plans to introduce a resources super profits tax, with

the industry saying the tax has put its expansion plans in Australia at risk.

BY MATTHEW LIDDY

But property investors should take the mining industry’s rhetoric with a hefty grain of salt, according to hotspotting.com.au founder Terry Ryder, a man who spends a fair chunk of his time assessing regional Australian property markets.

Fortescue Metals Group says it’s put two of its three expansion projects on hold as it reviews the potential impact of the tax, while BHP Billiton has also indicated some planned projects could move offshore.
However, Ryder doesn’t believe investors need to fear the impact of the proposed tax flowing through to their property returns.

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May 22, 2010

How will NSW’s new property tax affect investors?


Property industry groups have slammed the New South Wales Government’s decision to introduce a new tax on property transactions, but what impact will it really have on the market?

BY MATTHEW LIDDY

In the shadow of the Federal Budget last week, the NSW Government announced it was introducing a new transaction charge of 0.2 per cent for properties valued at $500,000 and above, or 0.25 per cent above $1 million. The decision to introduce what’s become known as the ‘ad valorem’ levy (ad valorem is Latin for ‘according to value’) brought a furious response from the property industry.

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