The weekend's state election in Queensland has seen the ALP set to regain the state from the LNP and celebrate one of the biggest swings in Australian political history. It spells the end of former Premier Campbell Newman's political career, and trouble for Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Sydney's residential property market boasted an auction clearance rate of 70.5 per cent on the weekend of 31 January and 1 February 2015. This is nearly 10 per cent lower than 12 months earlier.
Australia’s largest residential developer, the $10.32 billion property giant Stockland, is expected to hand down a bumper first-half result on the back of the quickly improving housing market when it reports on February 11. Stockland will be the first of the major listed property trusts to hand down its result this earnings season.
Addressing a real estate conference in New York, Rupert Murdoch pledged to work with agents and disrupt the $US35 billion industry with investment in new technology. Murdoch was explaining his strategy after acquiring Move, the operator of Realtor.com, which is the third most-trafficked website network for property listings in the U.S.
Mortgage subsidies in the U.S. have encouraged banks to lend more to homeowners and less to firms. Mortgage insurance giants may do serious damage to the American economy if they take on too much risk, says The Economist.
Townsville's property market has been negatively affected by subsidised housing and rising unemployment, with the Real Estate Institute of Queensland's rental survey showing that the vacancy rate rose by 0.7 percentage points to 5.4 per cent in June 2014.
Sydney developer Harry Triguboff's fortune swelled by $1.3 billion in the past year, the biggest gain of anyone on the Forbes Australia Rich List. That moved him up five spots, to No. 2, with a net worth of $5.6 billion.
