Housing market is not cooling

In The AFR I reveal that Australian house prices have jumped another 0.8% over September and by 2.7% in the September quarter, which is north of an 11% annualised pace in an embarrassing contradiction of the RBA's claims that its May and August rate cuts had not stimulated "a new round of house price increases". I also discuss some hot new bond and hybrid deals that have performed well, including issues from NAB, Suncorp and ANZ, and question the prevailing fixation in Australian finance with reducing fees irrespective of the consequences for returns and risk. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Excerpt: "While the new RBA governor, Philip Lowe, concedes that "there remain some pockets where [house] prices are increasing briskly", he advised our parliamentarians that the May and August rate cuts did not stimulate "a new round of house price increases". "In fact, house price growth has slowed over the course of the year, and I think that is good," he averred. The wrinkle is he's wrong. Free (VIEW LINK)