Election the unknown for next year's market (Post 2 of 2)

Posted to The Age (13/12/12) on 16/12/2012 at 2:23 PM
Commenting on "Election the unknown for next year's market"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/election-the-unknown-for-next-years-market-20121212-2b9vu.html

The apartment market in Sydney and Melbourne has been oversupply for many years, and many have not increased in value in real terms. Living in an apartment is a lifestyle choice, so says the apartment dwellers. Apartments used to be called flats in the 60s and 70s, including those high rise housing commission buildings. Like many single syllable word, flat is an English term, while multi-syllable (normally three or more) apartment American. In short, apartments of today are glorified, jazzed up flats.

Unless one has been used to living in an apartment such as those from high-density living places like Asia, it is difficult to understand the mentality of many who choose to swap their more comfortable home for a cubby house. The amount of body corps fee, all other associated costs and lost opportunity in investing a large sum of money for air-space instead of land, should be more than sufficient to have a full time person looking after a family's daily needs.

I still enjoy looking out of my window to see the beautiful flowers in the gardens, taking the shopping out of the car boot and entering through the door from the garage straight into the house, and having my video turned on reasonably loud to experience to the surround sound effect. Oh no, I can't see myself living in an apartment everyday!

Have I lived in an apartment before? Yes, I have stayed at my friend's luxurious apartments / condos overseas on several occassions, but did not like it.

Election the unknown for next year's market (Post 1 of 2)

Posted to The Age (13/12/12) on 16/12/2012 at 1:27 PM
Commenting on "Election the unknown for next year's market"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/election-the-unknown-for-next-years-market-20121212-2b9vu.html

Whichever party wins the election is not the determining factor for the boom-and-bust of the real estate industry. The concern of today is unemployment. The reported unemployment rate is totally unrealistic, and unreliable. To understand the extent of economic misery, all you need is to count the number of For Rent or For Lease signs in busy shopping strips, CBD commercial buildings, and the number of people carrying bags of purchased items in shopping centres.

Gone are the good old days of economic recovery. The wheel of economy stops when people stop borrowing and stop spending. Unfortunately, it is the uncontrolled spending leads to over commitment of debt here and overseas. The fear of inability to recover the debt by the lenders put the brake hard and the wheels come to a halt.

Accelerated spending helped China, India and many developing countries to create employment, which cannibalised ours and many developed countries'. The thought of employment recovery is farfetched, because there is no way but probably with one possible avenue that our labour costs can be lowered substantially to compete in the international arena.

That possible avenue relies on new migrants coming to Australia with different mindset and attitude towards work. The costs of construction, direct and indirect, may come down, not dissimilar to the scenario of Asian restaurants and cafes serving mouth-watering and appetite satisfying meals.

When will this prophecy be realised? I think the process has already begun!

Growing tomatoes is a great way to introduce gardening to young minds

Posted to The Age (2/12/2012) on 7/12/2012 at 1:25 PM
Commenting on "Growing tomatoes is a great way to introduce gardening to young minds"
http://theage.domain.com.au/design-and-living/growing-tomatoes-is-a-great-way-to-introduce-gardening-to-young-minds-20121201-2ankj.html

The question is how to plant the seeds in the parents' minds. They are far too busy in looking after themselves or household chores, let alone tending the garden.

I have not come across many people having new well thought out but rather "sterile" gardens. Those gardens with vegetables seem to be just a fad hobby. They "inherited" the gardens from the previous house owners, or for many Asians, the front and back gardens or lawn areas are turned into concreted slabs.

Many high rise apartments offer almost no garden space; while townhouses/units may have slightly bigger rear areas, but most builders concreted them to form an outdoor extension to the generally small usable indoor living zone.

The next very big thing

Posted to The Age (6/12/2012) on 6/12/2012 at 12:57 PM
Commenting on "The next very big thing"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/the-next-very-big-thing-20121130-2ajie.html

Why wait till the next project before people be friendly to the fellow neighbours and environment? They can still walk to next door to say hello, walk or cycle to the supermarket to do their shopping, or just turn off any unused appliances including all the chargers for mobile phones, iPad, computers, TV, etc.

There are many suburbs under utilised, not only around Fisherman Bend. It is good to have high density living to improve efficient utilisation of resources, but where are the employment prospects? Service industry can exists long term because primary or secondary industries exist. We can't keep importing goods, no matter how cheap they are from overseas, because our money flows out of this country. With that in mind, the secondary or primary industries will be at outskirts of CBD, leaving CBD an empty shell. This happened once before with decentralisation of Melbourne in the 60s.

The rise and fall of Dandenong and surrounding suburbs like Frankston is a good example for one to pay close attention to. Altona, Broadmeadows and surrounding suburbs will follow suit sooner than one can imagine

Surprise drop in jobless rate

Posted to The Age (6/12/2012) on 6/12/2012 at 12:25 PM
Commenting on "Surprise drop in jobless rate

http://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/surprise-drop-in-jobless-rate-20121206-2awzn.html

No wonder people say statistics lies. If each full-time job is replaced by 5 part-timers, the actual scenario is negative not positive. The total earned by these 5 part-timers is far less than 1 full-time employee, because most part-timers are casual who are not entitled to sick leave, super, and other benefits.

Besides all the high profile business closure, more proof of economic slowdown is evident if you just walk down some suburban shopping strips, Dockland, shopping centres, and look up to some commercial buildings in the CBD. I would like to challenge such unrealistic optimism, and reliability of the mathematical model and definition of employment/unemployment rates.

Many real estate agents' representatives and TAFE teachers have fallen victims to the current debacle. Many casuals are never included in the calculations, and their rise and fall in numbers create distortion to the statistics. The number of volunteers has also increased for two reasons. First many retrenched or unemployed keep themselves sane by contributing their excessive spare time, and two these people hope to add something extra in their résumés to make them look more presentable instead of showing a period of absence in employment history.

Wake up all those in Canberra ivory tower; do something now before the next sand storm comes; you may not have the chance to pull your ostrich heads up that had been buried in it for those years.

Royals not amused: Sydney radio hosts 'sorry' for Kate hospital hoax

Posted to The Age (6/12/2012) on 6/12/2012 at 11:09 AM
Commenting on "Royals not amused: Sydney radio hosts 'sorry' for Kate hospital hoax"
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/royals-not-amused-sydney-radio-hosts-sorry-for-kate-hospital-hoax-20121206-2awf3.html

Totally disrespectful. I sincerely hope no listeners will post as your relatives and make fun of you in the public airway. Think about it and grow up.

What young people fear most - and it's not the environment

Posted to The Age (5/12/2012) on 5/12/2012 at 10:30 AM
Commenting on "What young people fear most - and it's not the environment"
http://www.theage.com.au/national/what-young-people-fear-most--and-its-not-the-environment-20121204-2atc5.html

How many of the respondents are out of work with or without teenage children? If you have never been unemployed or struggled to survive from hands-to-mouth, you have no idea what you are talking about.

I have worked hard and actively participated in the workforce until a few months ago. I choose to wind down a bit. I had been young once. I went through past recessions starting from the 70's. No matter how tough those days were, I could find work. Indeed I worked three jobs, 7 days and 6 nights for months during University break, to keep me alive and save up for fees and expenses. For the rest of the time, I worked weekends. I rented a small store room in a share house near Melbourne University. Survival came before lifestyle.

Paul Keating created the smart dole queue, and in fact this will get longer each year. Lack of skilled tradespeople pushed up prices and wages, and this started a chain reaction. In the name of lowering labour costs, advanced developed nations handed over years of R&D, and trillions of dollars worth of blood-sweat-and-tears to China, making many Chinese very wealthy, and probably has the smartest workforce. Many factory workers work on hi-tech machinery and equipment, while we can only muck around with simulated diagrams on an iPad or computer.

For the concerned young people, your hands worth more than your brains and mouths! Don't despair, go to learn a trade instead of getting a worthless diploma!

Auctions looking up as rates go down

Posted to The Age (4/12/2012) on 4/12/2012 at 4:39 PM
Commenting on "Auctions looking up as rates go down"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/auctions-looking-up-as-rates-go-down-20121204-2asok.html

The only way we can see a real recovery in the real estate industry is not a rate cut, but good news in the employment front.

Almost every week, we read or hear about either companies going down the gurgler or jobs being outsourced overseas. What so big deal with another $40 or $100 less in loan repayment when all the other utility bills or rates and charges keep going up, leaps-and-bounce by more than 25 percentage point each time. Such increases swallow up any positive cut by the RBA and thankfully from the bank.

Without job security, there is no certainty in one's future, let alone one with a family. Those at the ivory tower with 6-figure pay cheque cannot understand the pain and suffering of the "working families" or very soon the "non-working families". For goodness, it is time the pollies grow up and stop the idiotic squabbles in the Parliament, and come up with constructive policies and strategies to curb the decline of employment.

The Chinese are dealing with real stuff hands-on, with R&D knowledge and blue-prints handed to them free-of-charge from the so-called smart Western nations including Australia, while our university graduates know basically nothing more than just theories and designs on papers. Many Chinese factory workers are working on hi-tech machines while we still ponder when we will have the opportunity to see one.

Auction clearance rate plunges

Posted to The Age (4/12/2012) on 4/12/2012 at 4:36 PM
Commenting on "Auction clearance rate plunges"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/auctions-looking-up-as-rates-go-down-20121204-2asok.html

The APM figures are quite rubbery. Each week, the auction results of major cities are published online in The Age under auction results. The figures do not quite match the REIV results published in the Sunday Age. The question is, which one is more reliable?

I have written on many occasions that real estate agents tend not to report unfavourable auction / sale results, to avoid tarnishing their sales records, which the agents tend to brag to the potential vendors when appraising properties,

Auction results do not paint a realistic picture about the real estate market. During bad time like now, many houses are in the market to be sold by private treaty (private sale). Agents tend to ask for big marketing expense for auction, and owners who are in financial difficulty cannot afford to pay the additional money. It must also be noted that many smaller agencies do not encourage auction, because they do not have an in-house auctioneer or do not want vendor to incur an external auctioneer fee. Additional expense will make the agent to be less competitive in such cut throat commission base business.

Know the drill, do your homework

Posted to The Age (4/12/2012) on 4/12/2012 at 4:17 AM
Commenting on "Know the drill, do your homework"
http://theage.domain.com.au/home-investor-centre/know-the-drill-do-your-homework-20121130-2ajh5.html

It may look good in drawing, or even from the scale-model, but looking down from the real thing are the ugly roof tops of many old buildings. You may be also looking into someone's bedroom or lounge through the window in the opposite block, unknowingly become a peeping Tom. Similarly, your neighbour across may be watching your movement and activity.

Many people believe that it is safer to live in apartments, free from burglary or assault, but then there are always tenants who do not know the security rules, and kindly allow strangers to follow them into the building, or even press the elevator button for them.

Balcony has its advantages and disadvantages. Due to fire risk, many smokers do smoke in the balcony, but unfortunately the prevailing wind blows the smoke into the neighbour's apartment. Although the wall separating the adjacent apartments may be thin, it does form a much better sound barrier than the wall-less balcony. The noise of neighbour's chitchat, especially on mobile phone with their mates can be very distracting if one is watching a show on the television, or doing school work that requires concentration.

Instead of paying a substantial amount pay to owners’ corporation, I can afford to live in a bigger house having Jim's mowing to mow my lawn, paying Chubb to monitor my security alarm or buying enough food for a big Alsatian dog.

House prices on bumpy road of recovery

Posted to The Age (3/12/12) on 3/12/2012 at 12:59 PM
Commenting on "House prices on bumpy road of recovery"
http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/house-prices-on-bumpy-road-of-recovery-20121203-2apzv.html

Unfortunately Leith van Onselen was correct by predicting the fall would be between 30% and 50%. There are several areas suffered from such disaster, and the local papers' property section is full of house foreclosure sale. In fact, many new suburbs may become ghost towns if economy and employment do not take a different turn.

A lot of real estate gurus have been teaching and preaching that prices of real estate double every 7 years. The choice of word "every" is not the best, but without which the statement does has some merit. This is not impossible for a property to double in price if it is purchased at the bottom of the cycle.

Desktop take flight

Posted to The Age (30/11/12) on 2/12/2012 at 10:18 AM
Commenting on "Desktop take flight"
http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/tale-of-two-cities-a-happy-story-for-inner-suburbs-20121026-28b7t.html

To understand the psyche of this, one must understand why PC (PERSONAL computer) / desktop computer was invented and promoted. Certain things will always remain as private and confidential, and Cloud storage does not fit the bill.

Other reasons are about ownership and control. Ownership uplifts one's status, and with that comes with perceived power and control. In larger organisations, such culture of hierarchy and positions still prevails.

When the whole world goes Cloudy one day, there will be no locked filing cabinets or drawers in all workplaces.