Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Queensland has reported eight cases of community transmission overnight linked to two distinct clusters that have emerged, both arising from workers at the PA Hospital.

In total, 10 new cases of COVID-19 were detected including two cases in hotel quarantine, after the state's capital went into a three-day lockdown at 5pm yesterday.

Six of the community transmission cases are close contacts of confirmed cases, while two are still under investigation but are believed to be linked to a known historic infection.

There are now 78 active cases of COVID-19 in Queensland's hospitals, with the majority acquired overseas.

Based on genomic testing, the clusters have been divided into two groups: one connected to a doctor at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, and the other to a nurse from the same medical facility.

Of today's cases, five are linked to the nurse and her sister, and all attended a hen's night party in Byron Bay over the weekend. One of those five is a man living on the Gold Coast – an entertainer at the event.

The new cases come after 14,589 Queenslanders got tested for COVID-19 yesterday.

"We have seen a rapid escalation in testing numbers, which is fantastic, so we can find if we have further spread anywhere," Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said.

With an influx of overseas travellers from Papua New Guinea, the number of active cases in Queensland's hospitals has ballooned in the space of a month, up from five in late February to 78 today. Of the total active cases, 65 were acquired overseas.

Palaszczuk notes new mandates for health professionals working with COVID-19 cases are coming into effect, ensuring all health workers in Queensland's coronavirus wards have received at least the first of two vaccine doses.

In terms of vaccination efforts, the Premier notes 89 per cent frontline healthcare workers and hotel quarantine workers have received at least the first jab.

Palaszczuk notes the call to place Brisbane into lockdown yesterday was the right one, considering the number of new cases reported today.

"We want to get on top of this community transmission, so the steps that we took to go into this lockdown, as you can see by those numbers of community transmission today, was absolutely the right call," says the Premier.

Queensland Health continues to provide updates on locations where COVID-19 cases visited. Late yesterday Brisbane CBD locations were added, including the Hanwoori Korean BBQ Restaurant and the Wintergarden carpark, while other locations have been added including a cafe near the Mater hospital, and a gym in Morningside.

New South Wales is also on high alert in response to the outbreak in Queensland after confirmed cases visited a number of venues in Byron Bay. 

While no new cases were recorded in NSW overnight, the state's Premier Gladys Berejiklian said "we need to brace ourselves".

Updated at 10.29am AEDT on 30 March 2021.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Stamp duty rated as the most inefficient tax in Australia

Across all levels of government, whether federal, state or local, the current stamp duty regime is the most inefficient and should be abolished, according to Housing Industry Association chief economist Tim Reardon. HIA recently joined a chorus of industry groups calling for the abolition of stamp duty after the NSW treasury proposed replacing the longstanding regime with an annual property tax. MPA contacted Reardon for a discussion on how the new proposed levy would compare. He pointed to the Henry tax review published in 2010 which found that the cost of stamp duty equated to 70 cents out of every dollar raised, making it, not only inequitable, but, the most inefficient tax in Australia. “Almost any other form of tax will achieve a more efficient outcome,” he told MPA. While he wouldn’t comment on whether the annual property tax proposed by the NSW government would be the best solution, he said the abolition of stamp duty in the state was a good thing. “The objective is to abolish stamp duty and this certainly moves towards that outcome,” he said. Read more: HIA joins growing call to abolish stamp duty Stamp duty as it currently stands is both inequitable and unreliable, he explained. Those who were required to move last year to seek new education or employment opportunities because of the pandemic incurred a punitive rate of tax if they purchased a new home. “With retirees or elderly Australians that might like to move to be closer to family or to be closer to medical services, they likewise would be penalised if they were to buy a home to locate to,” he said. “It’s unreliable - as we saw both in 2018 and again last year, at a time when the government needed a reliable source of revenue, stamp duty revenue fell away very quickly. It particularly happened in NSW in 2018 where a small slowdown in house prices led to around a $500 million reduction in stamp duty revenues.” While not reviewed by the Henry tax review, an annual property tax could potentially reduce the efficiency costs that are currently involved through a number of factors, he said. “Because it doesn’t distort household behaviour, such as influencing your propensity to move, the efficiency costs are significantly lower,” said Reardon. “Because it encourages efficient use of land, its efficiency costs are much lower. Because it then means for other factors, such as allocation of public health resources and the allocation of expenditure on infrastructure, because those two also become more efficient, you get a significant efficiency improvement over and above the stamp duty regime that currently exists.” REINSW CEO Tim McKibbin recently told MPA that an annual property tax wouldn’t benefit all segments of the market, especially cash-poor retirees who may not be able to afford the extra yearly cost. Read more: Stamp duty change could mean a 50% surge in property sales “We have people in properties that don’t respond to their current needs, but they are going to stay there,” he said. “Stamp duty or property tax is not providing any incentive to move.” Reardon said the transition from stamp duty to any other form of tax would be difficult, but that the benefits of abolishing the current regime were clear. “I think all political parties, governments and economists certainly agree that abolishing stamp duty is a good outcome but it is that transition that is the difficult part,” he said. “The community benefit, the economy-wide benefit, from abolishing stamp duty is sufficient that any individual households that are worse off can be appropriately compensated. “The ACT have provided the slow transition model and they are doing it over a course of 20 years. NSW are looking at an opt-in model, which would mean that only those households that elected to defer that payment would incur that ongoing annual cost - which would mean that the impact on retirees that are asset rich and cash poor would be minimised.” Related stories: REINSW repeats call for lower stamp duty rates What stamp duty changes could mean

Monday, March 22, 2021

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Brisbane breaks record for low vacancy rates, while Melbourne rate doubles in a year

Vacancy rates in Brisbane have broken a decade long record, according to SQM Research. The news comes as vacancy rates in Melbourne and Sydney trend in the opposite direction, with the Victorian capital in particular showing twice as many vacant rental properties as last year. Brisbane finds itself with just 1.5% of properties on the rental market unoccupied, marking a significant supply problem for that market. Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo, Chief Economist at Queensland-based real estate firm PRD, said that it was partly due to the pandemic and partly due to pre-existing factors that had seen Australia’s biggest two cities struggle. “The only places that aren't having fun with vacancy rates are Sydney and Melbourne, where they're going up,” said Dr Mardiasmo. “Regardless of whether you look for a one year, five year or 10-year perspective, they're going up.” “We can't blame them, because they are the cities that have suffered the most in terms of lockdowns. They’ve lost internationally open economies, student and business travellers, import/export, everything. Compared to Perth, Canberra or Brisbane, they're much more open. In some ways, it's ironic that the two big cities that have done best in terms of economic activity and house prices are the ones that are hit hardest when it comes to vacancies.” “The Real Estate Agency of Australia (REAA) puts a healthy benchmark of 3% for vacancy rates, which is considered the natural state where supply and demand are balance. Sydney is 3.3%, which for what they've gone through, is not much above the benchmark. Melbourne is higher, but they've gone through a lot too and I don't see it as a catastrophe. History tells you that they're usually lower than the benchmark, so this is an extraordinary event.” While COVID was an obvious shock to rental markets, it was just the most recent part of a wider trend that has seen vacancy rates rise in Sydney and Melbourne. “The jump pre-COVID was because of people leaving the cities due to lack of affordability,” said Dr Mardiasmo. “There was also a migration of people outside of Sydney, particularly to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. At the same time, this was when quite a few developments hit the Sydney market, so there was a little more supply. As a result of what happened between 2015 and 2017, the government approved a lot of development. That altered the supply and demand, which altered the vacancy rates. And then COVID hit, which sent it up further.” The data reported in SQM’s research puts Australian cities in an unusual position, where some markets are over-saturated by supply, and others by demand. “In a lot of ways, it's a double-edged sword,” explains Dr Mardiasmo. “Sydney and Melbourne have had that much development that they have to consider how to get their vacancy rates down, whereas in other capital cities, because they didn't do a lot of development prior, there are now so many rents who can't find a place to rent. There's no immediate supply. Everyday you hear about people apply for 10 or 20 rentals and not getting anything. You hear that the market is so hot right now that you have to sign papers when you come to the open house because there's 20, 30, 40 people inspecting the same property.”

Monday, March 8, 2021

How do we tell the difference between possums and rats in a roof?

How do we tell the difference between possums and rats in a roof?

Vacancy Rates: February 2021

Capital city rental vacancy rates – February 2021 Feb-21 Jan-21 Feb-20 MoM ∆ YoY ∆ Sydney 2.8% 2.9% 2.6% ↓ ↑ Melbourne 4.7% 4.6% 1.6% ↑ ↑ Brisbane 1.4% 1.6% 2.1% ↓ ↓ Perth 0.7% 0.7% 1.8% – ↓ Adelaide 0.6% 0.6% 0.8% – ↓ Hobart 0.5% 0.4% 0.6% ↑ ↓ Canberra 0.8% 0.9% 1% ↓ ↓ Darwin 0.8% 0.8% 3.2% – ↓ National 1.9% 1.9% 1.7% – ↑ Note: The vacancy rate represents the portion of available, empty rental properties relative to the total stock of rental property. The rental vacancy rate is based on adjusted Domain rental listings and will be subject to slight revisions over time. Nationally, the vacancy rate held steady in February at levels recorded before the pandemic, at 1.9 per cent. This is the lowest vacancy rate since March 2020, the month before the COVID-19 induced peak of 2.6 per cent in April 2020. In certain areas, competition between tenants will be fierce as tight vacancy rates remain across some capital cities. Many tenants will find themselves operating in a landlords market and should brace for rental price hikes. February was a month with mixed results across the capital cities. Vacancy rates in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra continued to tighten, while Melbourne and Hobart rose. Perth, Adelaide and Darwin vacancy rates all held steady. As February draws to a close, the longer-term annual growth figures show the true extent of how COVID-19 has affected capital city rental markets since February 2020, a month before the beginning of the pandemic. Melbourne and Sydney vacancy rates have slid from the COVID-19 induced peak, indicating the worst is behind landlords. However, annual vacancy rates remain higher, fuelled by prolonged lockdowns and higher vacancies concentrated in inner-city apartment markets due to a lack of international students and hard national border closures. Sydney’s and Melbourne’s rental markets are far from uniform; inner-city areas or those close to universities remain tenants’ markets while outer suburban areas continue to be landlords’ markets. All other capitals have drifted below their vacancy rates from February 2020. This will be a welcome boost for landlords, especially those in Perth who have seen a stark turnaround in the vacancy rate in recent years, falling from 5.0 per cent in June 2017 to a mere 0.7 per cent in February 2021. Sydney’s vacancy rate is the second-highest of all the capitals, rising to 2.8 per cent compared to 2.6 per cent in February 2019. There were an estimated 17,769 vacant rental listings at the end of February, an approximate rise of 9 per cent in estimated vacant rental listings over the year. Tenants will find the most pronounced rise in vacant rentals in the Inner City, Strathfield-Burwood-Ashfield, Parramatta, Kogarah-Rockdale and Eastern Suburbs-South. Melbourne tenants will find vast rental options, with estimated vacant rental listings jumping 212 per cent year-on-year to just under 27,000. The best chance of a rent negotiation will be in Melbourne City, Stonnington-West, Port Phillip, Boroondara and Glen Eira; these areas have seen the sharpest rise in vacant rentals. Highest vacancy rates Highest vacancy rates across greater capital city areas – February 2021 Rank Sydney Melbourne Brisbane & Gold Coast Perth Adelaide 1 Parramatta, 4.9% Melbourne City, 11.7% Brisbane – Inner, 4.3% Perth City, 1.3% Adelaide City, 5.2% 2 Strathfield – Burwood – Ashfield, 4.5% Stonnington – East, 8.7% Sherwood – Indooroopilly, 3.7% Cottesloe – Claremont, 1.0% Prospect – Walkerville, 1.0% 3 Auburn, 4.2% Stonnington – West, 8.0% Brisbane Inner- West, 2.9% South Perth, 1.0% Holdfast Bay, 0.8% 4 Botany, 4.0% Whitehorse – West, 7.5% Nathan, 2.4% Canning, 0.9% Norwood – Payneham – St Peters, 0.6% 5 Pennant Hills – Epping, 3.9% Boroondara, 6.5% Mt Gravatt, 2.3% Melville, 0.8% Unley, 0.5% Source: Domain Note: The vacancy rate represents the portion of available, empty rental properties relative to the total stock of rental property. The rental vacancy rate is based on adjusted Domain rental listings and will be subject to slight revisions over time. domain Embed this table Lowest vacancy rates Lowest vacancy rates across capital city areas – February 2021 Rank Sydney Melbourne Brisbane & Gold Coast Perth Adelaide 1 Camden, 0.4% Mornington Peninsula, 0.3% Caboolture Hinterland, 0.1% Wanneroo, 0.2% Tea Tree Gully, 0.1% 2 Wyong, 0.4% Nillumbik – Kinglake, 0.3% Capalaba, 0.2% Gosnells, 0.3% Gawler – Two Wells, 0.1% 3 Blue Mountains, 0.5% Yarra Ranges, 0.3% Nerang, 0.2% Armadale, 0.3% Marion, 0.2% 4 Gosford, 0.5% Cardinia, 0.4% Mudgeeraba – Tallebudgera, 0.3% Rockingham, 0.4% Playford, 0.2% 5 Wollondilly, 0.8% Casey – North, 0.7% Coolangatta,0.3% Cockburn, 0.4% Port Adelaide -East, 0.3% Source: Domain Note: The vacancy rate represents the portion of available, empty rental properties relative to the total stock of rental property. The rental vacancy rate is based on adjusted Domain rental listings and will be subject to slight revisions over time.