Your pets will always be aware that something new is happening. As with humans, your pets enjoy comfortable and familiar surroundings. Moving away from routines will increase the stress levels.

Quotify has an excellent site detailing some of the measures you should consider when moving with your pets. Among the main concerns are:

> Keeping pet routines regular.

> Ensuring animals are registered and have all their identification tags available – especially during the moving period in case they get lost.

> Have your pet checked by the vet before you move.

> Ensure your pet meets local laws and regulations if you have moved interstate – some states have curfews (and in some cases outright bans) for different animals.

> Make sure your pet is accustomed to its familiar surrounding such as bowls and toys, etc, soon after they have arrived at your new address.

> If you’re travelling by car, ensure you have the correct size animal carrier for your pet.

> It’s a good idea not to feed pets substantial meals during the trip, but rather have snacks and plenty of water.

• Incorporate breaks and exercise time for pets into the trip.
• Take a litter box for cats and scoop and plastic bags for dogs.

> Dogs should be acclimatised to their new surroundings as soon as possible – take them for a walk to familiarise themselves.

> With cats, in particular, it is a good idea to leave one room where they feel completely at home and are not upset by the sight of packing boxes and furniture out of place.

> At a cat’s new location, it is likely to feel out of place for a while and may be happy being kept inside until it’s ready to venture forth.

• A good solution is to leave the cat in cage outside to check its new surroundings – with you not far away of course.
• Making sure your cat is allowed to look outside through windows is a good way of letting them acclimatise.

> Animals such as guinea pigs, mice, birds or reptiles, should be kept in their cages, covered and cool.

• Ensure they have access to water as soon as you arrive at your location.

> You could consider rubbing a towel around your cat’s or dog’s body at your old address and rubbing this around prominent surfaces at your new address to ensure your pet gets a feeling of ‘home’ at its new location.

> Some companies might move pets – always ensure you have up to date vaccination and vet records.

Story by Alice M –realestate.com.au

Australia must do better in the supply of housing – a supply gap that could grow to 600,000 by 2028/29, Treasurer Wayne Swan has warned.

Mr Swan told a Property Council conference in Canberra that the National Housing Supply Council estimates the country’s housing stock is currently short of 178,400 dwellings.

"It seems that the supply of housing in Australia is not as responsive as it could be, and this has been the case for some time now," Mr Swan said in a prepared speech on Monday.

He said reasons for this supply shortage were impediments created by various regulations, slow planning and zoning processes, and complex, uncertain and time-consuming systems for charging developers for infrastructure.

"In the worst-case scenario, it can take as long as 15 years to proceed from the identification of suitable land to a completed house," Mr Swan said.

"We can do better than this."

He said commonwealth and state treasuries and premiers’ departments were now fully engaged in the process of designing reforms to improve the operation of the housing market.

"I’m determined to see the Australian government play a role in reforming the housing market for the long term, embedding better practices in planning and zoning and developer charging," he said.

Mr Swan reeled off a number of initiatives undertaken by the federal government in its efforts to improve the functioning of the housing market.

These included a $6.2 billion national affordable housing agreement with the states, $5.2 million of stimulus money to build more than 19,300 in public housing stock, and a $512 million housing affordability fund.

This is on top of a national rental affordability scheme that encourages institutional investors to deliver low-cost rental housing, the first-home saver account and a more generous first-home owners grant during the global financial crisis.

The government is also committed to $27.7 billion in urban and regional road infrastructure that will help support housing.

"These are all important steps and they will all contribute to improving the functioning of the Australian housing market and, in particular, the supply of low-cost housing," he said.

Over the past few months we have seen some staff changes at the Lennox Head Office.

With Alex Kennedy now off & travelling, Diana Joynson has moved into Holiday Lettings & Rentals. Our new face on the front desk is Paula de Vos and I am pleased to introduce Yonika Mantel as my PA.

All in all this is a great team and we are all looking forward to working together and offering the outstanding service we have maintained in the past.

Natalie, Marie, Trish and myself were fortunate enough to attend the Aust Real Estate Conference – AREC 2010 held in Sydney last April. Truly a valuable opportunity to get together with industry leaders and other like minded agents across Australia and New Zealand. To say that the experience was inspiring is an understatement.

Read more about it in our June newsletter!

With 2010 fiscal year end upon us I would like to congratulate my team of hard workers for their effort and dedication which has shown an outstanding growth factor in both sales and rentals, despite the difficult economic climate.

KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK.

You can download a copy of our June 2010 newsletter here

Lois

Many people invest in apartments because they often have a cheaper buy-in price than houses and are also thought to be a lot easier to maintain without gardens to worry about, and with the costs of building maintenance shared across other owners.

But what makes a good investment unit?

Location, location

You can’t get past the fact  you need to look for an apartment in a good spot. In the city, walking distance to public transport and shops is a must. Nearby schools can be handy but many renters are single or young, childless couples, so a school nearby is probably going to be third on the list after a train or tram station or a very reliable bus route that is here to stay, and shops, cafés and other services. Buyers agents say you should look for a quiet side street rather than a busy main road.

Many renters are professionals who want to get into the city fast. For that reason, apartments closer to town are recommended over those on the outskirts by many buyers agents who argue they will attract higher capital growth. The downside is they often cost more to buy than units further out.

An apartment in an area where there’s high development and plenty of other similar flats around would probably grow in value more slowly than an older unit in a pre-1980s building. That’s because at sale time there could be stacks of similar new flats on the market but a well-built, well-located older unit will be a scarcer find.

Amenities

You might get away with a shared laundry (although internal washing facilities are better) but you will definitely want to look for a place with a car space. It broadens your likely tenants, and also, when it comes time to sell, gives you a valuable marketing point.

Big or small block?

Apartments in large complexes tend to have higher running costs because there are often more facilities, such as lifts, gyms and pools. Therefore your strata fees will be bigger and your rental return or yield (calculated as your annual rent divided by your purchase price, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage) could be lower. That’s one of the reasons many buyers agents tell investors to look for older-style three-level walk-up apartment blocks.

On the flipside, proponents of newer apartments argue they can attract a higher rent, and will be let faster as they are more attractive to tenants. In NSW, the Government has also recently introduced incentives to buy off-the-plan apartments. There’s also the higher depreciation benefits that can be claimed from a newer building, simply because they have more plant and equipment in the building that can be depreciated, which some investors find very handy at tax time.

If you are tossing up between an old and a new apartment, you really need to look at rental yields of other units in each block, and also the capital growth history of apartments in each block. To do this, you can ask the agent for figures they may have, search sales and rent history online or consider purchasing reports from research companies such as the Fairfax-owned Australian Property Monitors.

Outlook is important

Most of us don’t want to wake up looking at a brick wall every morning, so it makes sense that the apartments most likely to appeal to tenants and future buyers alike are those that have a nice outlook. Check with council to make sure there’s no developments planned nearby that could impinge on that view.

You’ll also want something that is nice and light and has a decent internal layout – not too poky. Storage can be important in units where space is at a premium so that’s another factor to consider. If there is not enough stow-away space, you might consider adding a bit extra once you take possession if you can squeeze it in.

Sinking fund

For older apartments where maintenance is likely to be required, it’s vital to investigate the amount of money in the sinking fund. You’ll want to make sure it’s enough to cover any big-ticket items such as lift repair, car park resurfacing or painting the building. If there’s not you could be up for a special levy after you buy.

Story by  Carolyn Boyd who is a property journalist and keen follower of Australia’s housing market. As featured on Domain.com.au

Borrowers are unlikely to get any respite from lower borrowing costs for the forseeable future as the big banks continue to replace tens of billions of dollars of cheaper-priced debt at much higher rates.

That was underlined by ANZ yesterday when it disclosed that the new long-term debt it is taking on is costing 20 per cent more than the average price across its $90 billion portfolio of borrowings that extend to the 2014 financial year.

ANZ told investors in London that while funding costs had dropped since the peak of the global financial crisis, pricing remained high and would continue to rise as the bank looked to replace another quarter of its long-term loan book.

Like its big four counterparts, ANZ has been paying as much as one full percentage point more than such debt was costing in the economic boom years before late 2007.

At the height of the crisis and when the federal government’s AAA credit rating was required to guarantee new bank lending, the industry was paying as much as double that to keep wholesale financing sources open.

That situation has eased and the big banks have been able to cut their reliance on government-guaranteed debt – and the price they pay to use it – by using their own AA credit ratings to obtain replacement funding as their borrowings have matured.

Banks have typically borrowed from domestic and overseas investors for two to three years but have been extending these times to about five years to lock in secured funding at fixed rates.

ANZ said yesterday that five years was now the average compared with 3.9 years in 2009, though this would come at a higher cost. At the same time, it had raised 70 per cent of its target of $25 billion for the 2010 financial year, which it estimates it will need to meet customers’ loan requirements in the next year or so.

But the high price of the debt will continue to feed through to interest rates on individual loans such as mortgages, personal loans and business credit, market watchers say.

According to figures compiled by BusinessDay, between now and September next year the banks need to replace long-term funding of the equivalent of $125 billion in pre-financial crisis terms.

Such an amount leaves little scope for loan rates to be eased with the banks looking at any opportunity to pass on higher funding costs to customers.

But after some banks’ controversial decisions of the past two years to increase the price of standard variable mortgages above the cash rate, the big four have kept their increases in line with the rises in official interest rates.

Story by Danny John – domain.com.au

Believe it or not, whilst housing affordability remains a huge issue in Australia, there are still options for the price sensitive purchaser. It’s no surprise they just need to target areas further away from the CBD.

Housing finance data released last week showed that across the country non first time buyers in New South Wales had the greatest average loan size at $315,400 and Tasmanian’s were taking out the smallest average loans at $194,000.  It is extremely rare that anyone would be receiving a 100% loan so for the purposes of the following analysis we have assumed that borrowers have a 10% deposit, therefore they are borrowing 90% of the total value of the loan.  Based on this assumption we can determine their borrowing power which indicates how much the purchaser could have potentially purchased a property for.

On average, purchasers in New South Wales demonstrated the greatest buying power, spending on average $350,444 and Tasmania purchasers had the least amount of buying power at $216,556.  This outcome is to be expected and reflects the characteristics of these markets with New South Wales having the most expensive property market and Tasmania the most affordable.

Looking at capital cities we are all aware that affordability is an issue however it is interesting to note that across all house sales within capital cities, Sydney, the nation’s most expensive housing market, actually had the greatest proportion of total sales priced below the determined level of borrowing power.  21.8% of all Sydney house sales were priced below $350,444.  Obviously most of these are situated in the outer more affordable areas of the city however, it shows that affordable property is still available.  The next best performer was Canberra where 15.3% of house sales were priced below $301,556.

Affordable property is much harder to come by in Perth.  Only 11.8% of all Perth house sales during the last 12 months were at prices below $324,444.  As is the case in most instances the areas where these properties are available are generally the outer more affordable regions of the city.

The Campbelltown Local Government Area (LGA) on the southern outskirt of Sydney has a current median house price of $317,500 which is well below the average borrowing power for the city.  As a result, Campbelltown has had the greatest proportion of affordable sales of any capital city council area in the country over the last year.  71.1% of Campbelltown’s house sales were priced below $350,444 during the last year.

Across the list of LGA’s / Districts detailed, Sydney LGA’s led the way providing nine of the 20 capital city LGA’s with the greatest proportion of sales being affordable for non first time buyers.  All of the Sydney LGA’s detailed are situated some way from the CBD area and all have a median price below $400,000.

Darwin LGA’s were the only regions which had no representation on the list however, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra each had only one LGA.

The result of the analysis shows just how important it is to dig a little deeper with data.  The housing finance numbers show us how much people are borrowing and with a few assumptions we can determine where these buyers can afford to live.

Clearly if you are an average income earner and want to own a house it’s pretty unlikely you are going to be able to live in the blue chip inner city suburbs (although there are some examples, very few, within these areas).  If you are an average income earner looking to buy property, more than ever location is becoming the most important attribute.  The best prospects for growth in property value and the most desirable locations in which to live are those suburbs which enjoy proximity to: public transport, retail and social amenity, schools, working nodes, health care, public open spaces and major roads.

Whilst the locations where the affordable properties tend to be located may not have all of these attributes certainly many of them have a number of the desirable features and purchasing in those areas will likely make for a more enjoyable place to live as well as greater potential for future price growth.

Story by JoeyJ realestate.com.au

Million dollar properties are selling at a rate of one every two hours in Australia but there are signs that the red hot real estate market is cooling.

The equivalent of 12 $1 million plus homes have been sold each day at auctions for the past three weekends, according to an analysis of the figures by Melbourne based James Buyers Advocates.
‘There has been an incredible 180 sales over a million in the last fortnight, said spokesman Mal James.

Robert Larocca,  spokesman for the Real Estate Institute of Victoria confirmed record numbers of properties in this price bracket are being sold but he believes the market is starting to cool. ‘Sellers are not getting the increases that we saw three months ago,’ he said.
But analysts are divided over whether this is a sign of the market cooling in the longer term or just the usual winter seasonal drop off. Philip Kingston of Gary Peer Real Estate, said the property market was still performing but was much more normal than it was just a few months ago.

‘The reality is we were living in an unsustainable market. But as long as vendors are realistic, buyers are more than happy to perform,’ he said.

However, Real Estate Institute of Australia president David Airey disagrees and said that while things were normalising, the sector could be in for a bumpy ride in the not too distant future. ‘This is not a market going to offer premium price for property being sold,’ he said.

A key will be tax proposals and unemployment levels, he believes. ‘I think if the resource super profits tax is made reality it will have quite a negative impact on the housing market. The impact on employment and investment in the mining sector will ultimately filter back to the economy and filter back to property and how willing people are to invest,’ he explained.

source: www.propertywire.com

Property investing has become a popular Australian past time with one in ten taxpayers owning a negatively geared property. But just what makes a good bricks-and-mortar investment? It’s not about buying any old house or unit, that’s for sure, and it’s most certainly not about buying something you’d want to live in or even in an area that you necessarily find desirable. Over the next few weeks I will investigate what factors to consider in an investment purchase.

The first biggie is what is better – good price growth, or a high rental return?

There’s two ways to measure your return on investment. Capital growth – the change in price over time – and rental yield – how much rent you’re getting as a proportion of what you paid for the place. Gross rental yield is your annual rent divided by the purchase price, or value, of the property.

Here’s an example: If you bought a flat for $400,000 and you rent it out for $400 a week, you would calculate ($400 x 52) / $400,000. You then multiply that by 100 to get a percentage figure. In this case that gives you a gross rental yield of 5.2 per cent.

People often talk about buying a property with high rental returns. However, most of the professionals who buy property on behalf of investors would advise going for capital growth primarily, and then aiming for a decent yield. Their argument is that just like interest payments left untouched in a bank account, house price rises have a compounding effect when the market is going up. Rent payments on the other hand are generally used to service the costs of owning a property – that is they help to pay interest payments, rates and so forth, and they don’t compound. A bit like if you had a bank account and kept withdrawing the interest payments, it might provide an income stream but you wouldn’t get the benefits of growth on growth.

Generally people who favour high rental yields will be those investors who have less disposable income that they can use to pay the property’s associated bills. They have to have a higher rent-earning property because that’s how they can afford to own it in the first place. People who have more spare cash are more likely to be able to go for a property that has higher price-growth prospects but might attract lower rent.

As a rule of thumb, houses tend to grow in price faster than units. However, units tend to attract higher rent. So units can be cheaper to buy and hold, but may not earn you as much growth in the long run.

Likewise, country properties tend to have higher rental yields and lower capital growth than their city counterparts over time. So country properties can be less expensive to buy and hold, but may not earn you as much growth in the long run.

If you’re in the market for an investment property, deciding what capital growth rate and what rental yield you will target will depend on your own financial situation.

Buyers agent Stuart Jones of Rose & Jones says when buying city investment apartments he targets 5 per cent gross yield and between 4 and 8 per cent capital growth, combining to give  total target returns of between 9 and 13 per cent.

For city houses, Jones seeks gross yields of between 3.5 and 4 per cent.

Jones says it’s important to target realistic returns. "People read stories about somebody who bought a property for $100,000 and then in two-and-a-half years’ time it was worth $350,000," he says. "People chase that but what they don’t realise is it comes off a low base … there might have been something environmental that went on at the time, like a mine opened up around the corner and all of a sudden you know your place is worth more than you would realistically get in a normal market.

"It’s not about finding bargains, it’s about getting a good combination of yield and growth and allowing property to do what it does through the passage of ownership, and that is grow."

On a note sure to please tenants, Jones says smart investors need to look after their properties and keep them fresh. "If you take from property and don’t give to it, like a relationship, it’ll stop giving to you," he says.

Story by Carolyn Boyd. Carolyn is a property journalist and keen follower of Australia’s housing market.

Australian households are directly responsible for about a fifth of Australia’s carbon pollution, and the Federal Government is offering a range of incentives to help people reduce carbon pollution in their homes.

For example, the Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme offers eligible Australian households a $1000 rebate for a solar hot water system, or a $600 rebate for a heat pump system.
The Scheme replaces the home insulation program and the solar hot water rebate, which were discontinued in February this year.

The Green Loans Program also aims to help households ‘go green’ by providing home sustainability assessments that will help Australians to improve the energy and water efficiency of their homes, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Rebates of up to $500 are available to households for the purchase and installation of a new rainwater tank that is connected for internal reuse of the water for toilet and/or laundry use, or for the purchase and installation of a permanent grey water treatment system.
For more information on the incentives, visit www.environment.gov.au/

Read the article from the Age Newspaper

Rates are on hold but the housing fire could already be out.

The Reserve Bank decided to keep interest rates on hold during the week, much to the relief of many a home owner, citing concerns about European economies along with satisfaction with current inflation levels.

"Consistent with that outlook, and as a result of actions at previous meetings, interest rates to borrowers are around their average levels of the past decade, which is a significant adjustment from the very expansionary settings reached a year ago," Governor Glenn Stevens said.

But the damage to the housing market could already have been done, with some signs of moderation already emerging.

The RP Data Rismark Hedonic Home Value Index released last week showed signs of softening in April, rising by just 0.2 per cent over the month, after 16 months of strong gains.

A graph of the index’s rolling quarterly capital gains highlights a distinct pull-back in April after a peak in December.

Interest rates have jumped from 3 per cent to 4.5 per cent in as little as eight months. Unsurprisingly, that has had an impact on the number of loans approved, with housing finance falling for six consecutive months.

After dropping a cumulative 14 per cent from October to March, housing finance is now at its lowest level since February 2009.

The majority of this fall is due to owner-occupiers pulling out of the market – down by 24 per cent – as the first home owner’s grant was reduced, while investors rose 9 per cent.

The argument for why Australia didn’t experience the collapse in property prices seen in the US and other parts of the world has always been that the supply of accommodation here was limited while the demand continued to grow.

The stronger lending practices of our banks are another factor. We didn’t have as many loans going to property buyers who obviously couldn’t afford to pay them back.

The NINJA loan (no income, no job and no assets) was non-existent here.

But international commentators rightly point out that it is rare for bubbles in any kind of market not to burst.

The renowned value investor and founder of global investment management company GMO, Jeremy Grantham, says both the British and Australian housing markets should decline by about 40 per cent.

If they don’t, he says, it will be the first time in history that a bubble has not behaved in such a way.

We should be fortunate enough to avoid a property crash of the magnitude of that in the US but prices in any market rarely go only in one direction. They do fall, so don’t be surprised if property values start to soften.

Source: Domain.com.au

There’s no denying that when it comes to property investing and making money from renovating, first impressions count. Changing the first impression of a property is the second highest returning “add value” technique. Here’s why…

BY ANA STANKOVIC

In this day and age most potential buyers start their search for properties online. They look up the locations they’re interested in, enter their budgetary constraints and select certain property profile details that they require.

Only once they’ve got the search results of this initial selection do they start prioritising which of these properties interest them. Out of the ones that look interesting to them, they’ll go and drive by a number of them and have a look at them from the outside before narrowing it down even further to a select few that they’ll actually inspect.

If a potential purchaser has two properties which are in the same area, have similar profiles (number of bedrooms, bathrooms and parking spaces) and are similar in price, which do you think they’ll be more interested in:

-       the one with peeling paint, falling down fence, big bushy plant hiding half of the façade, green eaves, rusted garage door, etc., or

-       the one that’s neatly presented and looks light and modern.

The answer is simple. It’s human nature to judge a book by its cover, but it’s only because they’re trying to imagine themselves living there. It doesn’t matter how good your renovation is inside if you can’t get potential purchasers through the door to actually see it.

It’s a numbers game. The more people come inside and inspect the property, the more are likely to be interested and pursue purchasing it, creating competition and pushing the price higher. So it’s in your best interest to get as many people through the door as you can.

Winning Formulas for Success on average gets around $4 for every dollar that we spend on renovating that first impression of a property.

So how do you work out what immediately needs to change with your first impression? There’s a simple way that a colleague of mine suggested a few years ago and it works a treat.

Stand on the opposite side of the street from your property and turn around so that you’re facing away from it, turn around and face it for five seconds and away again.

Anything unappealing that caught your eye in that time should be neutralised or removed. If there was a bright color, falling down verandah, rot, big plant, etc. – anything at all that stood out in a negative light – it needs to be addressed.

Once you’ve done this, have a look at other homes in your area that are in the next price bracket from your property – what are they doing? You want to increase the value of your home so it pays to try and get your property to look more similar to higher priced ones in the same area.

Ana Stankovic is well known as one of Australia’s leading renovating-for-profit specialists and is regularly featured in prominent industry publications, expos and continually educates investors. To find out more or sign up for Ana’s free newsletter, visit www.RenovateAndProfit.com.

Story from the API Blog

Reserve Bank gives borrowers a breather, leaving interest rates unchanged amid renewed signs of global economic weakness.

The Reserve Bank has given borrowers a breather, leaving interest rates unchanged amid renewed signs of global economic weakness.

The central bank’s decision today to keep its key cash rate at 4.5 per cent snaps a series of three rises in as many months, and follows a month of turmoil on global financial markets.

Worries about a worsening debt crisis in Europe sliced 8 per cent – or more than $100 billion – from the value of Australian stocks in May, and virtually eliminated any expectation of a rate rise by the RBA today. The monthly shares slide was the worst since the depths of the global financial crisis.

”Since the Board last met, concerns about sovereign creditworthiness in several European countries have been a focus of financial markets,” RBA governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement accompanying today’s decision. ”Investors have generally displayed a good deal more caution.”

Even so, Mr Stevens said ”global growth is still expected to be at about trend pace in 2010. ” While conditions in Europe have been relatively weak,  growth in Asia – home to many of Australia’s top trading partners – ”continued to be quite strong and may need to moderate in the year,” he said.

Since October, when rates were at half-century lows, the RBA has lifted the official interest rate six times in a bid to discourage excessive spending as the economy rebounded from last year’s slowdown. Those rate hikes have piled about $300 on to the average monthly payment for a typical 25-year, $300,000 mortgage.

”They’re obviously waiting and seeing what the effects of past interest rates have been,” said NAB head of Australian economics and commodities Robert Brooker.

”We don’t think they’ll be moving up again until towards later in the year.”
Despite rising company profits, low unemployment and an increase in weekly wages, the recovery remains patchy.

Data out today showed building approvals sank 15 per cent in April, the most since November 2002. Retail sales, though, rebounded, rising 0.6 per cent in April, twice the pace of growth that had been expected by economists.

The Australian dollar was little changed after the RBA’s verdict, trading recently at 83.75 US cents, from 83.64 US cents just prior to the announcement.

Story by Chris Zappone Fairfax Digital

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute’s Consumer Sentiment Index has indicated a 7.0% fall in consumer confidence during May.

The Index now sits at 108.0 points suggesting that consumers have become less confident in domestic economic conditions over the last month. This is likely to be the result of a volatile share market, economic instability in Europe and higher interest rates. Whilst this month’s result is the weakest since June 2009, the Index remains well above 100 points which is the point where optimists and pessimists are evenly balanced.

A subset of the Index, the `Time to Buy a Dwelling Index’ recorded a fall of 15.4% from 104.3 points last month to 88.2 points, indicating that a majority of people surveyed believe the optimal time to purchase a home may have passed following the strong capital gains in home values over the last year and interest rate hikes.

The Reserve Bank’s Head of Financial Stability, Luci Ellis said at the Australian Financial Review’s Residential Property Conference this month, that housing prices had continued to receive upward pressure in Australia.

“It would be helpful if more of that demand could be accommodated with extra homes for occupation, instead of by higher prices,’’ she said. “Every cycle starts with something real, something fundamental. Recent data suggest that we do not have a credit-fuelled speculative boom on our hands. It would not be desirable for the current situation to turn into one.’’

While the Rpdata.com Market Activity Index has shown slight easing during recent times, the above average pre-listing activity level suggests that the listing environment should remain buoyant amongst real estate professionals over the coming month. Both the number of new properties entering the market and the total number of properties available for sale remain well above 12 month average levels despite falling below the level from the same time last year.

Story by Curtis Cooper REA

Having an understanding of median sale prices can add an extra dimension to your property purchasing skills.

Take care not to confuse median sale prices and average sale prices, the two numbers can vary enormously.

Averaging adds up property prices in a list and divides by the number of properties. The median price is the figure in the middle of a range of numbers arranged from lowest to highest.

So, if you have  11 properties, the median price would be the price of the 6th property from lowest to highest. There will be five properties below it in value and five properties above it in value.

Median and average prices can be quite similar if the prices form an even range from high to low. However, if the list of  11 properties has  eight low priced and only  three  high priced properties, the median value will look low compared to the average value. Conversely, with three low priced and eight high price properties, the median value will be higher than the average value.

Median prices are usually quoted by suburb/area or by a time period.  Suburb figures are usually calculated on the previous 12 months. Areas with less than 10 sales during that time don’t give enough data to generate relevant figures.

Comparing different areas with similar median prices can help make better sense of what median prices are all about.

Capital city medians are a good guide for suburban house prices, however houses within five kilometres of the CBD will have a much higher value than the median price for that city.

While median prices can assist as broad indicators and allow comparisons between cities, looking at recent comparable property sales in specific areas will always give the clearest understanding of the market you are in.

The best understanding of property values will be a combination of both median pricing – a macro view – and individual property sales in your target area, giving a complementary micro view.

Story by Sally Howes Domain.com.au

A major computer security firm has urged Facebook to set up an early-warning system after hundreds of thousands of users were hit by a new wave of fake sex-video attacks.

British-based virus fighter Sophos warned users of the world’s biggest social networking site to be on guard against any posting entitled "distracting beach babes", which contains a movie thumbnail of a bikini-clad woman.

In a press statement, Sophos said the malicious posts appear as if they are coming from Facebook users’ friends, but it urged recipients not to click on the thumbnail.

By clicking on it, users are taken to a rogue Facebook application informing them that they do not have the right player software installed, Sophos said.

It tricks users into installing adware, a software package that automatically plays, displays or downloads advertisements to their computer, and the video link is spread further across the network.

Sophos said that "hundreds of thousands" of Facebook users were believed to have received the posts over the past weekend.

It followed a similar scam that spread on Facebook the week before involving a fake posting tagged as the "sexiest video ever".

"It’s time for Facebook to set up an early warning system on their network, through which they can warn their almost 500 million users about breaking threats as they happen," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"A simple message appearing on all users’ screens warning them of the outbreak would have helped in halting the attack," he said.

"Unless something is done, it won’t be surprising if there is another widespread attack this coming weekend, affecting thousands more users."

The social networking site is already under fire for revealing users’ information too freely on the Internet.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Monday that the website "missed the mark" with its complex privacy controls and would reveal simpler features in the coming weeks.