Dorothy

The $21k is for first home buyers who are building a new house. $14k if you are first home buyer buying an established property.

rockpeblar

I think there's still a lot more bad news to come out of America regarding bad debt which will continue through next year and will affect the rest of the world including Oz. We've decided to give it another 12 months before taking the plunge - hopefully by then prices and interest rates will have dropped even more, and I'll have found a more secure job!!

NKSK version 2

Great article here from today's Australian...
Any of the bulls like to comment about the inadequacies in the argument?

House of credit cards tumbles down

(It's a pity that the graphs from the print edition aren't included - one of them is particularly eye-watering)

TrentEnd

Waiting between 6 to 12 months seems like the sensible option to me.

bcworld

I've noticed some of the BE bulls go remarkably quiet since Rio dropped its bombshell!

dpande

Please please look past the easy cash and see this for what it is.

This is to protect the BANKS from collapse, not to 'help' FHBs.

At the moment developers owe banks money (construction loans) for homes they can't sell. The government needs to transfer this debt so that individuals owe the banks money (in the form of mortgages) instead. This will be perceived by the stock market as less risky.

Why else do you get a higher grant for a newly-built existing home than for one that is already lived-in? It's to offload this new housing stock not increase the total number of homes in the country.

Keep your money in the bank (i.e a guaranteed 'safe house') and wait for the proverbial to hit the fan after June when the grants revert to their existing levels.

Damson

Have to say that we got compeltely hooked on watching the HiFX charts chuntering away and decided what we will need to get a pretty good start in Oz when we move and just bought at 2.56. We always said that we wouldn't move until it reached 2.50, so consider ourselves lucky to have achieved this and don't want to risk not moving by not buying now. Even if it now rockets up we won't regret it, as you have to make a decision based on a point in time. Not so long ago we remember it being 2.07. It's nice now to not have the stress of waiting to see what happens. Paid the deposit and now just have to get the rest together in the next year as we Forwarded.

Have to say that I was singularly unimpressed with HiFX. Their customer care was rubbish, with us being left on hold for ages and constantly being 'put through'. We decided to fix at a good rate and after being messed about for so long the operator said she would get someone to ring us back. Half an hour later I chased them up and was again kept waiting ages. Meanwhile the online rate dropped by 2c - not impressed.
My password was entered incorrectly at their end meaning that I couldn't log on and the person I spoke to had the cheek to say that I must have input the security question answer incorrectly! Not good.

DrWho

Sobering reading if you're one of the house price/economic optimists...

joho

Unfortunatley no one knows whats gonna happen. My thoughts are that with the new FHBs (which I thought was for new builds only to help the building companies too but was only listening with 1 ear as it is irrelavant to me) and the prediction that interest rates will drop a further 2 % by easter, that house prices will rise a little and then stop. But I am no property person and is only my thoughts. We bought 2 years ago so ours is not worth as much now but that only matters when we need to sell, and if we are buying again then the other property will also be lower than it would have been too.

Ahh we are all right to a certain degree.

http://www.firsthome.gov.au/

Jo

Centurion

I don't think its a case for not being optomistic about Australia and how it fare. Nobody has ever claimed we will be immune from a global crisis. However, I believe we are, have and will fare better than a lot of other nations.

Kalenge

And that's the truth