Housing industry says cuts to Victorian stamp duty don't go
Treasurer John Lenders defended the narrow scope of Labor's plans to abolish stamp duty for first-home buyers purchasing new homes in regional Victoria, saying this would stimulate housing construction and also ease demand on the metropolitan hou
U.S. Consumer Prices Cool, Validating Fed Decision
The cost of living rose less than forecast in October and housing starts dropped, validating Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s decision to give the U.S. economy another dose of monetary stimulus.
US inflation subdued, housing starts tumble
US core consumer inflation touched a record low in October and new home building sagged, lending support to the Federal Reserve's move to boost the sluggish economy through additional monetary easing.
Big Deficit of New Single-Family Homes Will Need
Annual single-family housing production in 2008 and 2009 fell about one million units short of the housing that would be needed in a normally functioning economy, suggesting that builders will have a lot of catching up to do as the economy improv
US housing construction falls sharply
Construction of new homes fell in October, fresh evidence that the housing industry remains under duress.
US housing starts dive in October
According to the Commerce Department, construction of new US homes fell 11.7% on a monthly basis to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 519,000 units – the lowest since April 2009 when an all-time low of 477,000 was reported.
What Planet Are Deficit Hawks Living on?
The Fed's policy of resorting to the printing press and buying up Treasury bonds to keep interest rates low is having only limited effect. Housing prices, after rebounding very slightly, are falling again.
Low mortgage rates, but not more than 6%
Record low mortgage interest rates? Unfortunately, nobody uses it. Most homeowners pay 6% of their loans.
QE2 and the Reality of Mortgage Rates
QE refers to Quantitative Easing, and the number“2” suggests that this is the second time that Quantitative Easing is being used to make a correction in our current economic cycle.
The boom is back, and this time we may avoid the bust
The Rudd government inherited a turbo-charged economy hitting up against capacity constraints. The inflation genie popped out of the bottle. Mortgage rates rose to decade highs, prompting outcries from mortgage holders about the rising cost of li
Consumer confidence wilts as rates bite
Consumer confidence fell in November to a five-month low as higher interest rates ate into household budgets.The Westpac-Melbourne Institute index dropped 5.3 per cent, to 110.7 points, more than erasing the previous month's improvement of 3.
Interest rates to grow in line with economy
Householders can expect more pain from rising interest rates next year as a bullish economy strains to meet demand for an estimated 380,000 new jobs in the next 18 months, latest Treasury and Department of Finance forecasts show.


