Daily Buzz: Saturday, 16 December
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Property Buzz, your daily dose of property news.
Borrowers are increasingly using property to secure a home loan, a Perth plumber faces court for leaky pipes, and Adelaide gears up for its biggest auction week of 2023.
Welcome to Property Buzz! Today is Saturday, 16 December.
A report from the Finance Brokers Association of Australia has shown that the Australian home loan market is increasingly dominated by buyers leveraging other properties to acquire new homes.
– According to the report, borrowers in 2023 were more likely than ever to secure their mortgage with property, either to refinance or for the purpose of buying an investment property.
– FBAA has flagged this trend as a worrying sign of Australia’s diminishing middle class, with those who don’t yet own property accounting for a smaller and smaller share of borrowers
-The report indicated that refinancing increased from 14 per cent to 20 per cent over the past year, while owner-occupier mortgages dropped from 47 per cent to 41 per cent, and investor activity climbed from 29 per cent of borrowers to 32 per cent.
And a Perth plumber’s day in court has served as a warning for consumers to solicit reviews before engaging contractors, after the sanitary drainage in a newly built property in the city’s north was found to be leaking.
– The contractor was repeatedly asked to fix the issue, but subsequent inspections found that the leak persisted for months. He received a fine of $1,500 for failing to comply with a rectification notice and was ordered to pay almost $2,000 in costs.
And finally, while sales are traditionally slower in the lead-in to Christmas, Adelaide is bucking the trend in 2023, with 199 homes going up for auction – the most for the South Australian capital all year and an 8 per cent lift over last week’s figures.
-In other parts of the country, it’s business as usual. Volumes are steady in Melbourne, where 1,412 homes are up for grabs – down just 0.2 per cent on last week’s figures. Sydney and Brisbane are both expecting drops from last week’s numbers, which is unsurprising given the traditional Christmas shutdown is now less than two weeks away.
That’s Property Buzz for today.
See you again next week, for your daily dose of Property Buzz.
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