The top 10 property numbers of the year
The amount by which economist Steve Keen thinks Australian property prices will fall from their peak in the next 10 to 15 years. In October Keen said he expected prices to drop 20% by the end of 2013. We're sure discussions about house prices were on the agenda when the hometown doomsayer met noted American demographic analyst Harry Dent for breakfast in Sydney in September. Both have similar views on the direction of Australia’s property market. Dent predicts the world will experience a second, deeper downturn, starting in the first half of next year in Europe, and spreading to the United States, China and eventually Australia. It was a true bears' breakfast, with not a bull in sight.
On the other hand, Keen's longtime sparring partner, economist Christopher Joye, has just about the opposite prediction. Joye says that house prices will be 55% higher in a decade, a figure he came to based on a survey of 21 leading economists. While the current leverage in the household system cannot realistically increase much further, it is sustainable, he says.
The amount that South Korean-backed Cockatoo Coal mining company paid for a Sutton Forest property near Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's peaceful NSW retreat in October. The company bought the 425-hectare holding through shelf company Aurelius Rural, to ensure the secrecy of its strategic purchase. Locals say Urban and Kidman's peace and quiet may be at an end. "It will directly affect their (Bunya Hill) property, as coal-filled trucks would be passing all day long and maybe through the night on their way to Wollongong for export," local Greg Barnsley has suggested. At least Bunya Hill itself was given a reprieve, as Cockatoo Coal decided to relocate its drill holes meant for the perimeter of Urban and Kidman's property to 200 metres away.
The lot size of Surry Hills' smallest house. Architect Domenic Alvaro conceived of the house after buying three car spaces on a corner in Surry Hills and building a five-storey house above it. It comes with a floor space of 220 square metres. The house, known as Small House, was awarded the World House of the Year at the prestigious 2011 World Architectural Festival award ceremony in Barcelona in early November.
The number of suburbs that appear on both Australian Property Investor and Your Investment Property magazines' lists of top 100 suburbs for property investors. Alphabetically they start withAinslie in the ACT and end with Warrnambool in Victoria. The lists represents the shared outlook of some two dozen or more of the property industry talking heads. The YIP top 100 was made up of 25 suburbs in Sydney, 12 from Melbourne, seven from Perth, eight from Adelaide, five from Canberra, three from Hobart, two from Darwin and 26 from regional areas. In the API list, 17 out of the 100 hotspots are within a few kilometres of the Melbourne CBD.
The sale price of a Western Australian house sold by Nigerian scammers in April. The scam? The vendors were not actually the owners of the house. The snappily sold house (the marketing said “FIRST TO SEE WILL GRAB IT!”) was done so without the knowledge of the landlord owner, who has since complained to the fraud police. The unknowing buyer has also complained to police as being caught in the scam. But you can't say the scammers were out-and-out liars – the marketing did say "LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING!"
The number of buildings on an unnamed bank's "blacklist" that surfaced in September. The blacklist names buildings for which the unnamed bank bars or severely restricts intending purchasers from obtaining finance. The list also includes projects in the federal government's National Rental Affordability Scheme. NAB, ANZ and Westpac all denied having a "blacklist", and the Commonwealth Bank said although it had a "watch list" it also did not have a "blacklist".
The sale price achieved for a Queensland property at the centre of a legal dispute between a WA couple and investment advisory service The Investors Club. Hugh Wilson and Marilee Coombs are suing The Investors Club and two employees after they were convinced to purchase a unit that they claim they later discovered was grossly overpriced. The property reputedly cost $630,000 when the couple bought it in 2007, but official records show a public sale price of $905,000. Two attempts at mediation between the parties failed, and the case is listed for trial.
The price Dr Chris Moss and his wife, Andrea John, paid for a Toorak property. RT Edgar agent Greg Herman told them he had received a bid of $2.6 million from an underbidder named "Tom", who wore a pink shirt and drove a silver Mercedes. Unluckily for Herman, John flagged down a silver Merc and asked its driver, who happened to be named Tom Kartel, what he had bid for the property. Kartel said he had made no such bid. Justice Tim Ginnane found that the agent had been deceptive and had fabricated an underbid in order to achieve a higher sales price. But for that silver Mercedes, Moss and John probably would have paid the $2.7 million and gotten on with things, but as things turned out, the court found in their favour and they were awarded the $200,000 difference.
The price once swashbuckling Western Australian property developer – whose fortune was estimated at $190 million by BRW in 1989 – paid for his beloved Fernhill, the western Sydney rural estate he was forced to vacate in November. Anderson had been seeking to overturn bankruptcy proceedings against him but lost his bid the day after he left Fernhill – rendering him bankrupt and homeless in the selfsame week. An errant fax had given Anderson a reprieve in his bankruptcy case, but in the end the Perth federal magistrate’s court rejected his request to have the bankruptcy annulled after creditors owed more than $39 million blocked the attempt.