Brisbane Clearance Rate Plummets. Is The Property Market Freezing?
Phil Tarrant and Liam Garman unpack a sharp slowdown in transaction volumes, with Brisbane listings up 40% year on year against a 20% clearance rate, and NSW stamp duty takings down 23% in September. They also cover discretionary trust tax changes, the Victorian and NSW election promises aimed at property owners, and a heated disagreement over ASIC's latest look at mortgage broker best interest duty.
NSW collected $663.7 million in stamp duty from residential property transactions in September, down 23 per cent on the $864.3 million banked a year earlier. Phil Tarrant extrapolates that out over four years and lands on roughly $30 billion missing from the state's coffers. Liam Garman runs the same maths nationally and gets about $7.36 billion, almost exactly the six to eight billion the pair forecast on this show months ago. Mess with the most critical asset class in the country, Phil argues, and the revenue consequences arrive faster than anyone in Parliament House expected.
The politics come first. Liam has been deep in Victorian state polling ahead of the November election, where new Labor Premier Ben Carroll has promised, per the AFR, to lift the property tax threshold back to $300,000 after it was dropped to $50,000 under Dan Andrews. Liam's read is that the "I'm not the other guy" pitch is working, with the race inside the margin of error, which he finds remarkable given the brain drain and crime statistics. In NSW, the Liberals are signalling payroll tax changes, while Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has flagged that a re-elected Labor government would let investors restructure trusts hit by the new 30 per cent minimum tax without triggering stamp duty.
Then the harder numbers. Brisbane listings are up 40 per cent year on year with clearance rates around 20 per cent, and Liam's view is that most of that stock is coming from financial distress rather than confident upgraders. Unemployment has ticked from 4.6 to 4.7 per cent, but the figure he thinks reporters have buried is the 74,000 part-time jobs lost in the month: people holding two or three jobs to cover rent and mortgage repayments. He also takes aim at the idea that the war in Iran explains inflation, pointing out CPI was already above 4 per cent in February and imported goods rose just 2.2 per cent.
The ground-level colour is bleak and funny in equal measure. Phil relays a well-known buyer's agent telling him real estate agents are now driving Ubers to supplement income. A South Park clip about a vendor insisting a $450,000 house is worth $2 million after 236 days on market lands uncomfortably close to home. Liam pulls up median days on market at 39, up from 28 last year, and Phil cites a Domain finding that a quarter of listings sit for six months or more. Plenty of owners are simply pulling properties and converting them to rental stock.
On finance, both agree the game has changed. Phil says a buyer's agency founder he spoke to this week sees three distinct stages, and while convincing clients to act is still hard, actual buying activity is picking up. The common message from that conversation and from Finni Mortgages is that nothing is vanilla any more: finance has become tactical, and borrowers are fighting for approvals while banks quietly sharpen the pencil. Liam flips a CBRE valuer survey too, noting that if 57 per cent report soft NSW prestige demand, 43 per cent do not, and a third expect no falls over 12 months.
Phil's beef closes the show and Liam refuses to agree with it. The Compensation Scheme of Last Resort levy on credit representatives is tipped to jump from $5.72 to $67, on top of the existing $37, with almost all the increase traced to financial advice sector failures rather than broking. Liam calls $60 a year reasonable consumer protection, citing brokers who pushed him toward interest-only. Phil's wider frustration is an AFR write-up of ASIC's aggregator review, which found brokers skipped the cheapest loan in more than 20 per cent of cases but found no evidence of inappropriate loans or commission chasing. For investors, the point stands: rate is rarely the deciding factor, policy and serviceability are.
Speaker 1: This is a Momentum Media production.
Speaker 2: Good day, how you going Phil Tarrant? Welcome live on Friday morning for Property Buzz for the third week. I think it's the third week of October. I hope you're all happy about a good week. Have you been dialed into what's been going on and around Parliament with some discussion changes to... Discretionary Trusts. How the government is doing generational change, they tell us, generational change to the taxation system, trying to make it fairer. They tell us that the money that you make through doing work should be seen the same way as the money that you make through doing investments. So you shouldn't be taxed more from the labor. Investment should be taxed the same way as what labor is taxed. So, you know, maybe the name's on the tin, Labor. We're going to have a chat about that today. We're going to be talking about the property market. We're going to be talking about some issues that I have. And when you think of Phil Tarrant, you typically think of this bloke's got a lot of issues. The one man who has more issues than the Islam gum my co-host probably does here
Speaker 3: I am deep into reading about Victorian state government at the moment, as you were talking. And it's When's November sometime and man,
Speaker 2: on not
Speaker 3: Ben Carroll, the new Victorian Labor Victorian premier, This dude is doing everything he can to not
Speaker 2: get reelected.
Speaker 3: Well, I know to not be Dan Andrews. Andrew, so I'm reading, you know, if elected Premier Carroll, and this is from the AFR, has promised to return the property tax threshold to $300,000 after I think it was Dan Andrews dropped it to $50,000. He's kind of taking these seemingly pro-business policies, anti-tax policies, and if some of the polls, as much as I hate to say this, as much as some of the polls are showing. It's working. It's working. You know, all you got to do is say, I'm not the other guy and that's good enough. The people of Victoria will vote Labor potentially for a fourth time.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's going to happen?
Speaker 3: Do I reckon it's too close to call? It's within a margin of error. It's within the margin of error. It looks like pretty 50-50 at the moment. So, which is, it's quite mind boggling to me, especially some of the data that's coming out of Victoria. Of course, it's been. For years and years and years, it's had a brain drain, people leaving the state, moving elsewhere, the rates of violent crime, the rates of carjackings. I think Melbourne's now at four times greater carjackings than other cities. Look, it's
Speaker 2: There's a lot
Speaker 3: my opinion.
Speaker 2: of unhappy people about the crime in Melbourne,
Speaker 3: I
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 3: know. So the fact that it's 50-50, it's truly mind-blowing to me, to be honest.
Speaker 2: And I think, and I don't want this to become an immigration discussion. However, there's a lot of discussions, from what I understand in Victoria, in relation to how a lot of the crime is. propagated, and who is behind that crime, and and some of the leniencies provided to that because of maybe cultural differences and
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: and that's a really, really complex issue. I don't want to get into it, I don't want to make or take a position on it. but it's
Speaker 3: their judges
Speaker 2: It is very, very, very difficult scenario.
Speaker 3: love bail down there, don't they? Their judges love, love letting people out on bail down there, and you can kind of see it in the statistics, but perhaps enough said. I'm trying furiously to self-censor myself because I've got very few nice things to say about the government down there.
Speaker 2: I don't think many property investors will do anyone in and around the real estate community Go and speak to property managers down there, they'll say They they're on the front line. So so the state tax revenue office down there who collects things and the the fair trading bodies that polices real estate rental transactions.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just this thick the book on on compliance issues around and and and you know some boffins in in Parliament House down there in Victoria will sit there and go, oh, we think this is a really good idea. That, tell me, tell me, there's a common theme here because it feels, I've never spoken about this, some parliamentary committee or some boffins sitting behind some, some desk in a government job somewhere will go, we think we should do this. They'll implement it, and then it goes down to the property manager. The property manager needs to interpret it, right? And then they've got two people they've got to deal with. They've got to go to the lab with the landlord well this is all changed it's going to go stump up give me some more dough because you've got more compliance but then when a tenant comes on the tenant comes on and goes oh can I at least use property and they go yes you can but for the first 17.5 days it's going to be at this price and then after 17 days it's going to go to this price and they go why is that the lease says 450 yeah it has to be 450 because it's within a year still that it was still there but as soon as that happened it gets triggered and goes up you know so they go sit there in the middle dealing with all this stuff now your mates your mates let's see we get let's see we get changed i saw here in New South Wales and people go what is Property Buzz well I'm not too sure what Property Buzz is but it seems to be making a mark because we're getting a lot of people tuning into this and this is live for those of you who are sitting there eating a bacon egg sandwich you know watching us sort of gibber on on a Friday morning but most people consume this after
Speaker 3: On the weekend,
Speaker 2: over
Speaker 3: yeah.
Speaker 2: the weekend a lot of people listen to this on the podcast channel the Property Investment Podcast Network and also on Property Buzz itself go and subscribe tell your friends Please leave us some reviews. We need them. We need them. I'm told we need
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: them for
Speaker 3: Our producers,
Speaker 2: production.
Speaker 3: they keep telling us.
Speaker 2: They beat me up if I don't get enough reviews every month and every week. So please leave the reviews coming. But I see Liam in New South Wales just to straddle politics a bit. I guess, you know, every single story in Australia today is a property story.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And we laid down that challenge last time that we were on saying.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: They give us a topic and we'll turn into a property story.
Speaker 3: It's
Speaker 2: no
Speaker 3: very easy.
Speaker 2: worries, we can do that. Um, the politics, property, the economy, they're all quite comfortable bedfellows. I saw in New South Wales, and it was only snippet, maybe I dream this, um, but I don't think I did, that New South Wales opposition has come out telling us what they're going to do what they're going to do if they get into power in yourself Wales and I saw they're going to start diddling around with payroll tax.
Speaker 3: Payroll? I did, I thought we're going straight into trust. I didn't see the payroll tax, no.
Speaker 2: payroll
Speaker 3: I did not see that, yeah.
Speaker 2: so if you get if you get government changes as well as payroll tax but what I wouldn't
Speaker 3: Which, which opposition is that?
Speaker 2: The lips.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. And I mean, like, it's one of those things. I mean, you've got, you've
Speaker 2: Okay, hold
Speaker 3: got, do
Speaker 2: a gun to my head and ask me who the opposition leader is in New South Wales.
Speaker 3: you not know Kelly's line?
Speaker 2: Kelly's saying, okay.
Speaker 3: Kelly's line.
Speaker 2: I thought
Speaker 3: Member
Speaker 2: it was Kelly.
Speaker 3: for four
Speaker 2: I couldn't
Speaker 3: clues.
Speaker 2: say it. I couldn't
Speaker 3: Member
Speaker 2: say
Speaker 3: for
Speaker 2: it.
Speaker 3: I four
Speaker 2: was saying.
Speaker 3: clues.
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 3: And look,
Speaker 2: remember football clues.
Speaker 3: yeah, I mean, you know, in touch with Keep the people.
Speaker 2: diehard liberal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say so. I would say so. Look, it's one of those things, you know, who is the opposition because because a lot of races that led to running dead third you know like a dead third not like outside of Queensland where you know Premier Chris are fully done a done a pretty fantastic job up there that they're running a pretty dead third so like it's one of those things in terms of political research you've got to take it with a fistful of salt because those outer metropolitan areas which should be liberal in Sydney I'm thinking I'm talking about your Camden's your Wallandilly's These areas like this, they ain't going back. They ain't going back. you got that the nuts wiped out. And look, this is opinion, but when you're a property investor, or when you're in the world of property, the speed at which things are changing, when you do your research and when you're forward planning, it's now not enough to bounce between Labor and Lib, that you're going to have to factor in the One Nation opinion on this. They do actually have some pretty thorough policies, um, bringing negative gearing back, capped off at two
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 3: Yeah, logical, bit of a middle way, probably keep everyone keep everyone happy. But the other big thing in New South Wales that's happened in the last 24 hours, Phil. Now, big asterisk, keep in mind the election in March, so what are we, five months out maybe? I don't know, ish. Well, are we in October? Five months. If re-elected, it's an important thing, if re-elected. So not re-elected, not going to happen. But um, Treasurer Daniel Mookie has said that a re-elected New South Wales Labor Labor government would allow rollover for people that need to restructure their trust. So people that have been hit with new tax changes with discretionary trusts with a minimum of 30% tax. If you need to restructure a re-elected New South Wales Labor government would not trigger stamp duty if you had to change around trust structures. So if you had to change around the title I'm guessing of the ownership of that property. um
Speaker 2: So everyone is going to be isolated so
Speaker 3: will be, I mean, it'd be if you own
Speaker 2: inside
Speaker 3: property in
Speaker 2: a trust
Speaker 3: a trust
Speaker 2: So you can just change property or
Speaker 3: but
Speaker 2: shares
Speaker 3: it'd be ownership of it, I would say, be the ownership of the asset in so much as the property. So if you moved it, and this is how I'm interpreting it, this is how I'm interpreting it, if it is now wiser for you to own this property in a different company or a different trust, they will allow you to move it without triggering stamp duty. Is
Speaker 2: And that was
Speaker 3: how i'm
Speaker 2: a big
Speaker 3: interpreting yes
Speaker 2: question mark, right?
Speaker 3: they'll
Speaker 2: And no doubt if they're going to go to the election with that promise, like, you know, whoever is in opposition, whoever they get, they'll just go, yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: we'll do the same thing.
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: Do you
Speaker 3: the libs
Speaker 2: know what?
Speaker 3: the libs
Speaker 2: But
Speaker 3: will back
Speaker 2: they're running around town right now opening up childcare centres. They're doing everything because I think they're starting to get a bit jittery,
Speaker 3: who's
Speaker 2: right?
Speaker 3: this one Labor or Libs?
Speaker 2: Labor, labor, labor.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the, I think New Southwell's Labor, they're they're kind of doing a decent job, you know. Mookie and Minn's, and people on this, people on this podcast, they kind of know my opinion, but you know, Minn's and Mookie seem to be paying it pretty straight back it
Speaker 2: personally means, you know, I've been at functions and stuff with him and you see how he operates. He's, you know, like it'd be easy, I'd like to be critical of him, and he makes it hard to be critical of him. It's
Speaker 3: seems reasonable
Speaker 2: largely not a pretty good job.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We've seen how it's navigated stuff. You
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: know, like he's sort of front line leader, he'll get out there, he'll do his thing. So look, who knows what happens? But I reckon, and I don't want to be the bloke that always says I told you so, but as soon as the government laid down, if you go back to budget night, when, when the government laid down what their views of the future is going to look like, like straight away, the immediacy of that, like within minutes of it coming out, we gather our opinions, right? And which is now all coming to you through
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: fruition, right? Um, New South Wales government in September generated 663 million dollars in stamp duty based off the sale of assets, right? Most of that's going to be housing down 23% on the same time last year, 864 million. So extrapolate it out over four years, that downturn, $30 billion less in
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: the New South Wales coffers. They're going to go broke.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like I'd be sitting there crapping myself if I was, and we've always said this is going to happen, like, you know, mess around with probably being the most critical, critical infrastructure. mess around with property. I think two or three property bubbles ago I spoke about third, fourth, fifth, all the consequences. Well, this was a, an immediate
Speaker 3: Let's
Speaker 2: consequence that
Speaker 3: see how much is a
Speaker 2: i'm
Speaker 3: down
Speaker 2: from
Speaker 3: by.
Speaker 2: 864.3 mil last year a year earlier to 663.7 mil new south wales collected 663 million in stamp duty from residential property transactions in september down 23 from 864
Speaker 3: So, okay, cool. Cool. And that adds up if you round that across the country, that's $7.36 billion lost because stamp duty is about 32%. Now, if you keep it on average, if you average that across every state, now every state's going to be a little bit different, $7.36 billion lost in stamp across the country. You and I on podcasts in the last six months have said between six and eight.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: It's right bang in the middle because I mean, it doesn't take much.
Speaker 2: The Oracle.
Speaker 3: You start saying, oh. If
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: property prices drop by 15%. And then listings are also going to drop or sales are going to drop as well. And you add the two together, it's going to be about 20 something, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you don't need to be a genius for this. But and the thing is, I think it's going to it's going to get worse. And to be honest, looking at some of the data that's been coming out this week, I don't necessarily believe Sydney is going to be the epicenter of the drop in this isn't this isn't to cause panic or anything, but listings in Brisbane year on year. be up 40% up 40% in a year and a clearance rate of 20.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Mate, that is a lot of houses that are sitting there that can't get sold. If you know at this point that you're happy to list and cop a loss, there's two things going on. One, you're happy to also buy in a down market. You're happy, okay, look, I'll just use this as an opportunity to get that extra bedroom or, you know, the kids have gone off, moved out of home, we can downsize. Still, I don't think there's many of them because a lot of people are going to be sitting there a little bit nervous or the alternative is you can no longer afford to hold that home due to acute stress and financial distress. And I think it's the latter that will be driving that 40% increase in listings and a 20% clearance rate. There's going to be a lot of people out there that are going to settle for a lot less than they would have 12 months ago. And if we're talking about a 10 to 15% drop across some of these markets. markets some of these Brisbane pockets where you've been pumped I think they're going to be in a lot of pain and this ties into something that we're going to have to address which is today's or yesterday's actually I think yeah Wednesday or Thursday unemployment figures up 4.7 up to 4.7 percent from 4.6 now the interesting number here Phil which I have seen buried by a lot of journalists analysts, but it's a very cute point. This number of jobs that have been lost, and there have been a few numbers floating around, but here's the one that I take. It's the number of part-time jobs have dropped by 74,000. Right. So this,
Speaker 2: And what period,
Speaker 3: the
Speaker 2: sorry?
Speaker 3: last
Speaker 2: Oh, sorry.
Speaker 3: month. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So 74,000 is the number of part-time jobs lost. So a lot of these people, when you hold multiple part-time jobs, you'll still be counted as employed. Now, we already know that the government did all those employment figures and they keep pushing it back. And, you know, it's like if you work an hour every fortnight or something, you now count it as employed or something ridiculous, not a livable employment. But the number of part-time jobs dropped by 74,000. So what does this mean? It's not necessarily people with their full-time jobs that are being lost, but people that have stacked up multiple jobs to make sure that they meet the bills.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: To make sure that they can pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, these are the people that are being really acutely hurt in today's economy. People with part-time jobs or people that need a second job to pay the bills, they're the ones that, according to this data, getting really hurt. It's not people in full-time employment for
Speaker 2: At the moment, but I
Speaker 3: now.
Speaker 2: saw was it the World Bank or some of
Speaker 3: the IMF.
Speaker 2: these IMF
Speaker 3: The IMF
Speaker 2: international
Speaker 3: has
Speaker 2: monetary
Speaker 3: been.
Speaker 2: funds has gone. Australia, you're in trouble.
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of jobs are going to get lost.
Speaker 3: And actually, I'm going to use this as a chance, Phil, because I wrote an opinion piece a few weeks ago talking about the lack of accountability from Jim Chalmers. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it because this to say in the space of about 10 minutes to blame the war in Iran 20 times is a complete and utter fabrication. We saw the CPI data that came out earlier in the year in February.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: It was already over four percent. It was baked across everything. This was happening before you and I spoke about it on podcast. There were going to be three to four interest rate rises regardless of Iran. Um, I copped a little bit of flack actually from some of our colleagues
Speaker 2: over cool.
Speaker 3: this because they didn't believe it, and um, I said some unsavory things, so I'm actually surprised it never made its way to you, to some of my colleagues. But no
Speaker 2: Oh, well, them giving you a hard time.
Speaker 3: they, they tried to, but the, the thing is a lot of people People fancy themselves far smarter than they are, especially, you know, in today's day and age where you can read your chat GPT summary of what is inflation and suddenly you're an expert, but people aren't. Anyway, so one thing I would like to highlight is when they say, no, it's not inflationary, government spending is inflationary. One. too many well-paying jobs in the economy literally adds to aggregate demand. That's what the IMF said. Two, productivity. We're in this productivity deficit, right? Productivity is going down. The cost of borrowing for big business is increasing very rapidly. Why is it increasing very rapidly? Because the government is borrowing more. How does the government actually borrow money? Everyone talks about bonds. Everyone talks about bond rates, right? Everyone's talking about... bond yields at the moment. You go to an auction to raise money and people put forward their bond yields, and it kind of just, it kind of settles onto a market mean, and that's how you get that bond rate, right? When people see the Australian government's borrowing a lot of money, I'm going to ask for five, five and a half percent for that to lend the money, sets a new benchmark. Suddenly, when big corporates come out and they want to borrow money, but the big super funds or, or large, um, any large fund has already given their money away, or the interest rate goes up for big businesses that want to borrow as well. Guess what? It costs them more money to service the debt. That gets passed on to you. Yes, that is inflationary. Those two things. Now, when people say, no, but it is the war in Iran, Liam, you're being too too politically motivated well yes i am you can't not be politically motivated now but two why is it that fast moving consumer goods and things we're buying from china and overseas only went up in the recent cpi figures by 2.2 percent so we can we're still buying stuff from overseas pretty cheap actually it anchored inflation lower actually anchored inflation lower so we're talking about like oh you know the cost of shipping and this and this yes Yeah, it's gone up not as much as you think
Speaker 2: I saw them the other day, right? It was around eggs, you know, like things that chickens lay. And I think every Australian eats 200 eggs a year or something or other, right?
Speaker 3: It's a lot of eggs.
Speaker 2: yeah
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: There's like an egg cart. Did you know there was an egg cartel? So this is on right now in the Supreme Court or somewhere or other. Anyway, so there's, I don't know, seven or eight egg manufacturers, and this is important, what's this got to do with our property? I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: big
Speaker 2: is that, yeah, big egg, big Yeah,
Speaker 3: I
Speaker 2: and the
Speaker 3: think we'll be.
Speaker 2: claims that have been laid part of the pun, that was fucking pretty,
Speaker 3: That was good.
Speaker 2: that didn't even mean I did, you didn't even know I was doing that, but look at that,
Speaker 3: You realize
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 3: as you were saying it,
Speaker 2: did.
Speaker 3: yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'd say there's, I don't know, seven or eight big egg companies,
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: right? So the claim is that there's collusion amongst these egg companies, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they're saying like the, and again, and I say this all the time, I normally get stats wrong,
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: but I'm normally within a range of it, right?
Speaker 3: You're right
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: 60%
Speaker 2: yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: of the
Speaker 2: time yeah. So
Speaker 3: and yeah.
Speaker 2: we're talking about inflation, right? Food stuff increased from like 2020 to 2026 by. 27% 23
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: 24
Speaker 3: that's
Speaker 2: % come from the number eggs is like 42% and
Speaker 3: right.
Speaker 2: they're going mate, there's a racket there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's a racket, you
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: know, because you guys are colluding to, to, to keep egg prices high, right? So inflation comes in many, many means. That's going to get police, obviously. All these egg companies go, nah, nah, nothing to see here, right? The inflation data I want to see is as a consequence of the manufactured price increases after the credit card surcharge. Still to come downstream, we're going to see it. Inflation is red hot. the IMF has said look out Australia you've got problems ahead Yep. and organizations that haven't yet started looking at how they're going to continue through this current economic climate they haven't done it yet I'll tell you what they're still going to be doing it yet and I'll see you and you're going to and I'm telegraphing a spike in unemployment as a result of this because governments in this environment in this market sorry companies in this environment market are really really struggling they just get hit hit hit one of them is real estate agents I was chatting with with a very well-known buyer's agent this week, and he's going. Like we always talk about deals and stuff and he said, yeah, he does his rounds and speaks to people. He goes, so many real estate agents are now driving Ubers. to your point,
Speaker 3: Are you to serious?
Speaker 2: supplement their income. So I
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: do a lot of research around this and one of the core sources of my research is going to be the video that Paddy's going to show us right now. This is where I get most of my erudite and intelligence material is from this very, very reputable source. Paddy, have you got that teed up? I think we've got two videos from the same source. I want you to play both because I think they may be interconnected if you want to get that going. All right, what else you got for us?
Speaker 4: All right, we've been on the market 236 days now. The new analysis puts your value right around 450. 450? Are you out of your mind? This place is worth 2 million. It's been listed at 2 million for eight months and we haven't had a single offer. Highest comp in the neighborhood is 460 and it's renovated. That's because you haven't found the right buyer yet. You people.
Speaker 3: So, so true, yeah.
Speaker 2: so true. Like, you know, as in satire, if you want, if you want to actually understand at any point in time what's going on in the world, like
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: the immediacy with it, within a week of something happening, South Park all
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: day long. We'll frame it in a particular way. Who's your favorite South Park character? Randy? Randy Marsh is cool, isn't he?
Speaker 3: It's gotta be Randy. Yeah, um, yeah, it's gonna be Randy.
Speaker 2: there's so many. Um, and you know, for those of you who are listening this on in the car somewhere or on a podcast where I was looking at South Park TikTok videos and for some reason they come into my theme and my stream and my algorithm is pretty funny stuff
Speaker 3: I'd
Speaker 2: but love, yeah.
Speaker 3: to get some insight into the average days of market. I'm trying
Speaker 2: well
Speaker 3: to pull it up now.
Speaker 2: I think didn't someone had a report domain had a report last week or the week before saying 25 percent of properties are on market for six months or more or something yeah and this is around vendor under expectations. So, so to your earlier point, people aren't selling real estate if they don't need to sell, okay?
Speaker 3: 39 days, up from 28 last year. Uh, sorry, okay.
Speaker 2: average like a 40 average days on market, yeah.
Speaker 3: days on market, or median?
Speaker 2: so median
Speaker 3: median yeah
Speaker 2: Yeah, real estate agents are doing it tough. So real estate
Speaker 3: and
Speaker 2: agents don't really care if prices come back a bit, because what they really care about is volume, right?
Speaker 3: they
Speaker 2: volume
Speaker 3: Got to get it out the door.
Speaker 2: is, yeah, key. They need listings, and people aren't listing unless they need to list. Yep. And selling, I was chatting to a real estate agent during the week and he said a lot of people are just holding onto the properties and just turning them into rental stock,
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: right? Because they can't shift it and they're not going to get what they think it's worth, $2 million instead of $800,000. And we just need, there will be a day of reckoning and it just won't be like a single point in time. There will be just this gradual erosion to the normalization of how people sentiment. would have been to the value of real estate will change over time
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: and that's a marker in right now. But to those, uh, as a real estate agents, um, you know, there's a lot of memes going around right now, how, how the, the arrogance of real estate agents in markets which are really sort of vibrant versus, uh, the, the real estate agent of today who's got to work pretty hard for their dough.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right now it's not, not, not an easy time to be a real estate agent, but you speak to to people in the game like Tom Panos you know he'll be telling people well if you're ever going to sell a property you know still sell it in this market because you're buying in the same market and if property continues to erode in value the biggest consequence of that
Speaker 3: Be
Speaker 2: is
Speaker 3: a nice long settlement.
Speaker 2: Is it was a nice long settlement, but is the fact that if your property is worth less and or You were wanting to buy a property in a rising interest rate environment, your service ability to borrow is going to get less and less.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: because there's an important inflection point where you can time your ability to borrow money at a particular rate. If rates keep going up, it's only going to get less and less. So, you know, strike while the iron's hot and think long term.
Speaker 3: I mean, I did raise it last week about the political independence of. of the RBA,
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 3: but this is where it's going to be really acutely challenged when unemployment rises to levels that are very unacceptable to the average punter. Now, the economic data that we spoke about before with CPI figures is backed right across the economy. Yes, the price we're paying at the bowers has gone up 14%. Again, that's also because the government keeps playing around with excise taxes and it's on, it's off, it's on, it's off. of which artificially increases that 14%. It's a very important point. There's going to have to be at least one or two more rate rises, which means to your point, it's very true, your capacity, your borrowing limit is just so substantially lower than what it was before. And all else equal, even if people weren't becoming jobless, you just couldn't borrow. Like, I will say on the selling agent side. So, you know, I've done podcasts selling agents for a few years now and it's people were talking about this months ago, you know, people were talking about this months ago and I'm talking about pre-May, you know, pre-May where I've got a chance to also speak to a lot of prop techs and they flagged this. For ages. You know that the market's not always going to be this good if you're a selling agent. And part of the challenge is that so many selling agents, you'd have a line outside the door of 20, 30 people looking to get into a property and buy it. If you're lucky enough to jump into one of these quote-unquote hot spots, don't necessarily like the term hot spot, if we'll just be liberal with that, um, if you leave one of these hot spots, you have phones probably ringing off the hook by a buyer's agent trying to get cool quote-unquote off-market deals like Randy Which meant that you didn't actually have to do basic work. Like you genuinely didn't have to update your CRM. You didn't even have to be nice to buyers. Like I remember I was trying to buy up in Brisbane in like 2021. or maybe 2022, and these guys just fobbed you off. They did not care. They, and obviously it's a generalization, but they did not care. And you try and get in touch with them, they wouldn't mind, but they just wouldn't, they wouldn't give you time of day. But that's when you know if you set yourself up, if you had a good foundation, then you'd be reaping the rewards now, or at least you'd mitigate your downturn. But it's at times like this where if you fight through, if you do the basics is it right? If you're good to your buyers, if you nurture them, if you stay and support them, in six months to a year it will get back into an equilibrium. Yes.
Speaker 2: It is the point, right? You always got a plan for winter, you know. And then therein lies the challenge for most people: they haven't planned for winter, you know. But when, when you are in that, it can be quite demoralizing when everything's bad and negative and all this sort of stuff. But only, only the very few will be able to move outside of that and start start looking towards spring, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, and, and, you know, I say that with a view towards some of the, the headlines just, you know, yesterday: property market freezes, this transit for transaction volume slump 20, that's you guys are EB, uh, buyers walk away as deals collapse at Liberty, you guys as well, investors pivot the non-bank lenders after tax changes, per sellers face grim spring as listings surge. So listings look hot there, do they? The Sydney suburbs defying seven months of price falls, but this thing on the investors pivot to non-bank lenders after tax changes in our offices today in their studios,
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 2: I saw Arjun Ballywell, who is... For those of you who may or may not know him, he's the founder, sort of MD of Investecate, which is a pretty well regarded buyers agency. And I've seen him from time to time. We normally have a yarn what's going on. We talk about mortgages and property and everything in between. And sort of. Pulling apart three different bits of the market and talking about buying activity and things slumping and all this sort of stuff. And also speaking with, with folk over at Finney Mortgages,
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: the mortgage broking company, they've telegraphed to me on the, on the mortgage side of the game things are starting to sort of pick up a bit, right? And I spoke to Argin today and, um, He said to me across three sort of key areas, it's I guess the defining of people to do buyer's agent, C4 is one bit, getting the finance in order to buy investment properties another bit and then the actual. buying a property. He said the actual buying of property is actually starting to pick up.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: He said that bit is starting to pick up. On the first bit, which is finding people to do buyer's agency work for, is all quite tough, you know. That's a bit of a mindset thing. So I think you've certainly got a tale of, of two halves there. You've got people who need to be convinced, well, they need to convince themselves to actually do something in this market, and that's where the challenge is. But that bit in the middle around finance and to this story here is about which on real estate business investors pivot and not make lenders after tax change so he says finance now is so tactical he says he's never seen it so tactical before and the folk over at Finney Mortgage has said the same thing to me so you know this is this idea of like you know just going to a lender and giving them all your stuff he says nothing is vanilla now Finney saying something nothing is vanilla right right now everything is, you've got to fight to get finance, got to tactically fight to get finance, which may be I'll refinance that one over there and move that there and do this decision for Garcia and whatever else you do, but you've got to fight for finance. This, this is the market. We've got to fight for finance, and lenders are having a lot more discretion around that. But if you're able to get through that first gate, as in I'm going to do something, then the next gate is kind of get my finance sorted out. Once that's done, you're saying that you see an activity there. So these will be those investors who probably, with the benefit of hindsight in two, three, four, five years time, gone, I'm happy I took action there, because it's easy to not take action right now, you know. But that's what I'm hearing, that's what I'm hearing on the street, that's what, that's what the street's telling and me.
Speaker 3: He's it's on the street. I'm hearing on the street banks loosening their policies as well for lending. Here in that one street.
Speaker 2: The banks are, you've got to fight for finance, but, but banks are happy to do a bit of, a bit
Speaker 3: Bit
Speaker 2: of a deal, bit
Speaker 3: of a deal.
Speaker 2: Let's of a deal yeah
Speaker 3: sharpen up the pencil.
Speaker 2: And they're going to be using opportunity, right, to, um, like try and win more work, right? And, and, and I'm not providing financial advice at all, I'm very, very careful about that. I'm not qualified to do that. But speaking generally, it's times like this when you start, you absolutely need a mortgage, you absolutely need a mortgage broker in this environment. If you're going directly to a bank, there's a good reason why 87% now have all mortgages done through more, and I reckon investors are higher. You're not going to get these deals, but you need such a good broker that actually understands it. But this is when you start sort of moving into things going. If I really want to buy this markup, maybe I should cross-collateralize some
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: of my stuff. And typically you go never cross-collateralize, never do it. There are sometimes reasons for doing that, and when you get to markets like this, if you've got a really strong, you know, solid principal place residence, so maybe you might want to start that, that scenario. Don't take my word on it, go and speak to it, go speak to people with mortgage at, um, Finney Mortgages. They'll be arty about it, and they can actually be qualified to provide that other device. But you've got to start thinking differently about finance in this market. Absolutely key, absolutely critical. And there'll be those people who sort of get results, you know, there'll be those people that get results. What else are you seeing?
Speaker 3: What am I saying? I'm trying to, you know, I'm so opinion based, Phil. I'm so opinion-based.
Speaker 2: You love opinion.
Speaker 3: I love an opinion. I was going to say before, you know, we don't provide financial advice, but I'll give political advice.
Speaker 2: If you don't have any, I've got a bit of a beef.
Speaker 3: Yeah, take it very
Speaker 2: The content scheme of last resort. What do you know about this?
Speaker 3: little.
Speaker 2: Very, very little. So I think it's the content scheme of last resort. Hang on, you talk for a second. Just let me. I'm sitting in this report. Let me just check my facts before I say anything. So what do you see?
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: I This
Speaker 3: was.
Speaker 2: is, by the way, this is live.
Speaker 3: I was really hoping you'd take that. CBRE. About 57% of valuers have shown that the prestige residential market in New South Wales is looking pretty soft. Now, that's on a report, Phil. Now, as a journalist, what you've got to say to yourself is what are their headline numbers hiding? What is really behind what they're trying to say? I mean, inverse actually, because everyone, if you read the bloody AFR or I'll read it every day, obviously, or the IIS or the Sydney Morning Herald, the Guardian in particular, you would think that the world is caving in and the sky is caving in. But 57% of valuers are reporting soft demand for the New South Wales prestige residential market. But you know what that means? 43% say that it's not as soft as you think.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 3: Especially quite when you think about it, 43% of value is saying it's not as bad as you think. Not. Too bad. 32% of valuers expect that prestige house values in their local market won't, will not. That's one out of three, so they won't fall in the next 12 months.
Speaker 2: okay there
Speaker 3: There
Speaker 2: You go, well,
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 2: you know, connected, slightly connected with, with what my beef is this week. It's easy to find beef, but it's going to be a big technical, but, but I'll get into it because it has, has ramifications, consequences for, for real estate and property, right? There's a thing called the content Sorry, the CLSR, which is the compensation scheme of last resort.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Sounds like a government body has invented this, and surprise, surprise, it has, right? Launched in 2024, the CSLR, compensation scheme of last resort, was set up to compensate eligible consumers who have received a favourable determination from the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, AFCA. but have been unable to recover the money owed because the financial firm involved has become insolvent, right? Funded by industry, CSL has an annual levy cap between a million per individual sub-sector, right? So what's happened here? So mortgage brokers fall into this. There's been some dodgy dealings done in other areas and sectors, right? So mortgage brokers, and this is the guys over at Broker Daily saw some correspondence correspondence from the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia, right? And it estimated that the cost per broker per credit representative last year was like $5.72, right?
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: It's going to go up to $67 per credit representative.
Speaker 3: And what's driving that?
Speaker 2: dodgy companies going bust and
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: people needing to be compensated. So, so what brokers, what brokers are saying, you know, this, this profile, this, this framework is going to be this special levy on credit intermediaries, and it's going to go up 11 fold, right? So the issue is that what, why should mortgage brokers have to pay this when they're not the people doing the dodgy dealings? So it's like you get a couple of bad actors are increasing the regulatory and bureaucratic requirements and all those good actors, and a lot of brokers are just going, that's not cool. It's not cool. So, um, brokers in a foray about this. Um, you
Speaker 3: I would
Speaker 2: know
Speaker 3: say, you know, if I could play devil's advocate, if I got presented that this is my best option. And it didn't end up being the best option, I think it's, I mean, we don't talk about very much, $60, right? Is it, what, per month, per year? How often does
Speaker 2: Per
Speaker 3: it go up?
Speaker 2: credit representative.
Speaker 3: Per credit, per year?
Speaker 2: Yeah. But no, this is the levy. It's a lot of money, right? And there's a quote here from Melissa Ashcroft, who's a mortgage broker.
Speaker 3: But I mean,
Speaker 2: She
Speaker 3: we're talking,
Speaker 2: says
Speaker 3: yeah.
Speaker 2: the changes would have a significant impact on both an industry-wide and individual level. The estimate of the pro-special level rises 5.72 to 60. 67 credit representative sits on top of the annual levy of $37. So it's normally 37 bucks. But now this special thing is going to be another six, seven bucks on it, right?
Speaker 3: But I mean, if you're
Speaker 2: But aggregated
Speaker 3: yeah,
Speaker 2: has got to be for this, right? Because everyone's going, who's actually going to pay for this, right? Almost all the increases traces back to financial planning and advice for sector failures. Nothing to anything in broking. Seems like brokers will as part of the scheme be footing the bill that is not ours to carry.
Speaker 3: I mean,
Speaker 2: These,
Speaker 3: you
Speaker 2: these,
Speaker 3: and I, I think we're disagreeing with each other on this and it happens. very rarely happens, rarely, but it does happen. Um, you know, Phil, I've had my fair share of brokers who I thought weren't doing their fiduciary duty. I've had a fair share of brokers, especially when I started my journey, that were pushing me into interest only, which would have been a very, in that circumstance and at that time, for what I was trying to achieve, a very, very bad thing to do. But there was a lot of urging, there's a lot of pushing. I've been through multiple, multiple brokers. There are unfortunately a lot of brokers out there that do not act in the interests of their clients, and, and that is true, and it's very unfortunate. Yes. Yes, like, yeah, 100, 100. Yes.
Speaker 2: Generally believe that, do you?
Speaker 3: yeah Yeah, without doubt. That's why you shop around and get a good broker. Yeah, that's why you don't take the first cab off the
Speaker 2: I'm
Speaker 3: ranks
Speaker 2: not saying that all brokers are created equal. I'm not saying that whatsoever. But what would... 80 plus percent of all mortgages aren't by mortgage brokers, right? Let's just look at the facts, let's get into it. Happy
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not saying that that's untrue, but I'm saying that they're obviously going to be brokers that are going to herd you in places where they get a higher commission, for example, pushing you into things like interest only, pushing you to the top of your borrowing. They do. It is a sales. A lot of them are salesmen first and they're selling their product, which is their recommended policy. That is true. I think it's also very fair if you're going to say it's $60 a year to make sure that the average Australian doesn't have a life altering financial impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: And
Speaker 2: yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know what, you can say whatever you want. Maybe it's a tax on people not doing their fiduciary duty and making sure that the panel is only filled with good lenders.
Speaker 2: okay
Speaker 3: Is that fair?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: You can disagree.
Speaker 2: Oh, mate, you get these, you know, you might not be a broker bro, you know.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: But the customers, consumers walk with their feet, right? And what we're talking about here is brokers having to compensate for the mispractice, malpractice of other financial services professionals to compensate. them for the advice they've provided to other people. They go, why should, like this is a completely separate thing, why should, why should we be involved in this? We're just humble people sorting out
Speaker 3: We're
Speaker 2: credit for
Speaker 3: not if
Speaker 2: people we
Speaker 3: that
Speaker 2: lender's don't tell people to
Speaker 3: getting
Speaker 2: make
Speaker 3: their
Speaker 2: investment
Speaker 3: first traffic by recommendations from brokers.
Speaker 2: So there's a story in the Fin, uh, and I want to talk about this because every now and then the Financial Review, some hipped up journal who probably had a bad relationship, like, like you potentially may have
Speaker 3: No,
Speaker 2: had with
Speaker 3: I just,
Speaker 2: a broker, gets on there, gets on the bandwagon and will, will point to all the reasons why they, people shouldn't be using mortgage brokers. And typically they're just, it's a beat up of brokers, and, and most of it I'm substantiating.
Speaker 3: I'm not beating up brokers. I use brokers. My point is if the tax is $60 to make sure. that people on your panel that have been referred to by brokers,
Speaker 2: But you've got professional
Speaker 3: it's
Speaker 2: liability insurance.
Speaker 3: a very reasonable,
Speaker 2: Why does an insurance provider,
Speaker 3: very reasonable.
Speaker 2: if someone's been a crook, their insurance should be providing it. But this is bigger than this. So the story here, ASIC wants mortgage brokers to explain when lowest rate is not offered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: There's
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: actually, again, more government regulation and bureaucrats who have no idea what's going on. I've sat in meetings with people and they go, why would you use a mortgage broker? They're all in it for themselves. They just give you the loan that they get the highest commission on.
Speaker 3: But that does happen. It
Speaker 2: They've got best interest duty.
Speaker 3: Of course They've it happens.
Speaker 2: got best interest duty. Oh, they're only putting into that because they've got a higher commission.
Speaker 3: But they do do that.
Speaker 2: They.
Speaker 3: big broker. Yes. No.
Speaker 2: mate now
Speaker 3: There are brokers that do that.
Speaker 2: 80 of people use a mortgage broker. Do you reckon they're that bad that wouldn't, wouldn't
Speaker 3: no I don't No,
Speaker 2: So you're
Speaker 3: I'm not saying
Speaker 2: a bank branch they'll skank you.
Speaker 3: that they're bad, but I am saying that they are bad. I'm selling agents like they're bad BAs. It happens.
Speaker 2: That's fine, but it's not a headline story. So here we go. In more than one in five home loan recommendations,
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: mortgage brokers are passing over the cheapest deal. As the corporate regulator says, many are failing to adequately explain why. An
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: ASIC
Speaker 3: okay.
Speaker 2: audit of the largest aggradi groups, blah, blah, blah, found compliance with their best interest duty obligation could be improved, including closer monitoring of broker fees and increasing resources to handle. borrower complaints.
Speaker 3: Hmm
Speaker 2: The best interest duty called for the Sahane Royal Commission to act in the consumer's best interest when recommending a home loan only applies to mortgage brokers, doesn't apply to people in banks.
Speaker 3: I had with banks, like what?
Speaker 2: Oh, g'day, Liam. How you going? Welcome to XYZ Bank.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You need a home loan. Have this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's really, really good. By the way, all my bonuses are connected with making sure you get that home loan. Might not be right for you, but God, I've hit my targets.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Happy day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like out of bank, you're not offering other banks.
Speaker 2: No, but they can offer the loans that they have. have
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: that they're able to provide
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: they will provide. I'm not saying they do, but they aren't obliged by ASIC to offer you the loan inverted commas that's in their best interest duty to act in the consumers best interest when recommending a home loan only applies to mortgage brokers no
Speaker 3: Okay, I never said anything about this story. You're getting defensive.
Speaker 2: you're getting defensive ASIC said ASIC said that seven of the eight aggregators that reviewed reported that brokers did not recommend the cheapest Cheapest home loan option in more than 20% of cases it found instances where brokers did not have a clear evidence to support these recommend a good a hey going lean what do you want I need to buy an investment property I need to buy an investment property
Speaker 3: But I never defended ASIC with this. My home loans, I have taken out many home loans where the interest rate is higher because the policy is what I'm shopping for. I understand this,
Speaker 2: quote from ASIC
Speaker 3: but
Speaker 2: Commissioner
Speaker 3: I'm on your side with
Speaker 2: No, you're not
Speaker 3: this.
Speaker 2: no, you're not You
Speaker 3: We
Speaker 2: know, obviously in the context of cost of living scenarios, price will be a major factor for many consumers. This is, again, like when people get involved in stuff, and look, I'm sure the commissioner knows a fair bit about mortgage, right? Features are part of these sets, but price is obviously the dominant factor. I disagree. I completely disagree.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: For some borrowers,
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: getting the cheapest home loan possible is fine. But unfortunately, people have been conditioned to think that the best loan is and has the cheapest interest rate. When you say to someone, yeah, you can get a five and a half percent loan. No worries.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: There you go. I can have an offset. We didn't ask for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I know I'm locked into this,
Speaker 3: I agree
Speaker 2: but I
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 2: could, I had all this money offset. I could have done this, but I'm not. You're the financial reviewer as far as I'm concerned with this,
Speaker 3: Okay,
Speaker 2: right?
Speaker 3: fair enough. I do agree
Speaker 2: His
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 2: warning comes that means intense foreign competition for business.
Speaker 3: Okay, hear me out, hear me out, hear me out.
Speaker 2: Still, the regular, no, no, no, still the regular found no evidence of brokers actively putting customers in inappropriate loans or favoring lenders who pay higher commissions.
Speaker 3: Okay,
Speaker 2: So
Speaker 3: hear me out.
Speaker 2: there's a
Speaker 3: What
Speaker 2: bit
Speaker 3: if, okay,
Speaker 2: up there.
Speaker 3: he's a hypothetical, right? He's a hypothetical. What if you had a real dodgy 30 lender, 40, 50 lender, like the lowest you get, hyper dodgy, right? And they
Speaker 2: Which
Speaker 3: had,
Speaker 2: is because they're 50 lenders
Speaker 3: no,
Speaker 2: and they're dodgy.
Speaker 3: it's a hypothetical.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Hypothetical, we're talking about a loan shark, right? And they have the lowest rate, but you have to present a lender. who you would not personally go with because you don't trust them, but you have to present it because they've got the lowest interest rate. ASIC in this circumstance, and this will actually agree with you on this one, because you like myself shop around for policy that allows you to get the serviceability right. And I totally agree. What if this ASIC policy leads people to present very suboptimal loans, kind of like what you're highlighting to people and they get sucked in? Wouldn't that be against their best interest duty?
Speaker 2: The reason why someone goes to a mortgage broker is to find the most appropriate loan for their circumstances. I've spoken to tens of thousands of investors over the years, and I could probably count on one hand if I asked them a question, which lender did you go to, they would say it's because they had the lowest rate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: property investors.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Most people say, I didn't really care who the lender was and I didn't really care too much about a couple of basis points. I just wanted the home loan. For me to pay a premium of x number of basis points
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: over the cheapest, right, with the view of I could get the loan and or they didn't want all this information and or it was a lot faster and or it was this, this, this, this, this, this. Often it's, it's so low as a consideration. Yes, it is one of the consideration, talking for property investors. But for most of them, it's just like it's one of the home loan,
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: right? So this is the sort of stuff I've seen in media that really gets my goat, right? When you every now and then cyclically, they'll want to beat up mortgage brokers. They'll want to beat up mortgage brokers and it's this misaligned and what I would say targeted commentary around
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: it all by
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: ask the question, why? Who is really behind these
Speaker 3: Big
Speaker 2: stories?
Speaker 3: bank.
Speaker 2: Who is behind these stories?
Speaker 3: Big lender.
Speaker 2: I tell you what, the banks aren't happy that mortgage broker share is still growing, despite the fact that they're making harder and harder to do deals with banks,
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: right?
Speaker 3: Watch out. Big bank, big lender.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the MFWCO, she said price absolutely matters. I'm not disagreeing with that because I've said that consumers have confidence that the broker has considered available options and can clearly explain why a particular loan is in their best interest. At the same time, the lowest cost loan is not necessarily the right loan for every borrower.
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: It's
Speaker 3: -hmm.
Speaker 2: a job and the role of the broker to educate the consumer. Do you want an offset, Mr. Garmin?
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Yes or
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: no?
Speaker 3: -hmm.
Speaker 2: What's an offset?
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: It means that you pay less interest because you
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: use it as a savings account.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Is this the best institutions help brokers continue to win over customers? Brokers arrange record mortgage volumes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ASIC examined after March of last year with many operators lifting investment in their systems over the last 18 months once the order was completed. Aggregate is blah, blah, blah. ASIC said it supported the greater use of artificial intelligence. That's great. So then it says. At the bottom of the article, Liam, a small volume of complaints. Okay, so nothing is here then. Scrutiny on the best interest duty comes as ASIC has put their entire mortgage origination chain on notice by including heightened security of bank referrer programs and remuneration. Mortgage payments will be the most significant expense of any Australian household that a mortgagee or mortgage will be paying. So we want to understand how mortgages are being approved, what advice is being provided. provided, and as part of that process and what outcomes are there for consumers. I'm all for this, I'm all for this. So if I was the, the asset commissioner here, um, you know, I'm going to continue. Asset also found evidence that some broken complaints were being missed, withdrawn without being investigated or delayed. It pointed to insufficient resources, like information to investigate proper cause. Fair enough, mortgage brokers will generate a small volume of complaints representing about 5.4% of the total made to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, AFCA. That's what we're talking about before around that levy. 5.4% of all complaints for financial complaints to the regulatory body from mortgage brokers, right? But Kirkland
Speaker 3: So
Speaker 2: said,
Speaker 3: is that over or underrepresented?
Speaker 2: it's usually underrepresented. But Kirkland said, well, who's the other 9.4%?
Speaker 3: But the other 94%, yeah,
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Who's the other 94%?
Speaker 3: well, the other hundreds of thousands of people that work in financial services.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Kirkland Asset Commission said ASIC needed brokers to get the basics right for those consumers who have complained as there may be a really serious reason behind a complaint. If that complaint is investigated, that might lead to a significant outcome for them. I reckon this report has come out and there was one little bit. which said more than one in five home loan recommendations are passing over the cheapest deal. And the Fin Review's gone, I'll take that little bit and turn it into a beat up. That's my beef. Double
Speaker 3: Oh
Speaker 2: down on beef.
Speaker 3: my gosh, that was the beef. That was a long beef.
Speaker 2: You know, I've just spoken at you.
Speaker 3: I'm tired. No.
Speaker 2: Do you have anything to say? You
Speaker 3: I'm, oh, I am so convinced. Wow, I, I can't believe how wrong I was. Um, yeah.
Speaker 2: Can't, you can't. But that's, you know, you can't. Yeah, yeah, there's gonna be people in every profession or a little bit on the nose, right?
Speaker 3: That's like, um, uh,
Speaker 2: but I don't want to propagate, I don't want to propagate these views that, that brokers are in it for themselves. They're obligated, they're obliged, best interest duties to do this properly.
Speaker 3: is behind it, I'm telling you. Yeah. Um, I'm
Speaker 2: I know anyway
Speaker 3: gonna have to get on with my Friday. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had this talk people sent me this article and said I want you to talk about a film
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. Sure. Oh,
Speaker 2: sorry Liam's not happy
Speaker 3: I'm happy, I'm always happy.
Speaker 2: What's our email address?
Speaker 3: I think hello at propertybuzz.com.au.
Speaker 2: We haven't set it up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do. We have it. We have it. I haven't checked it since last week, but we have hello. We do have hello, Property Buzz. Yeah, yeah, why not? hello at propertybuzz.com. No, we actually do have it. We do have it. We set it up during our live chat last week.
Speaker 2: Well, if I got any of this wrong, let me know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was tempted to get things wrong. Sorry, Liam,
Speaker 3: No,
Speaker 2: if I got
Speaker 3: it's it all right.
Speaker 2: wrong. It's just a pain in the ass. I'm passionate about mortgage. Oh, okay. Didn't come across. No, didn't.
Speaker 3: Didn't
Speaker 2: Didn't get that.
Speaker 3: Come across at...
Speaker 2: Didn't
Speaker 3: all.
Speaker 2: get that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I think I've annoyed him. Sorry.
Speaker 3: No,
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 3: that's
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: Sorry. Care about the good work financial review? Keep them honest. Keep brokers honest. Watch out for them. propertybuzz let's get on with that friday i think which yeah uh propertybuzz.com
Speaker 3: today Yep.
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in, like us, follow us, do all that good stuff, and
Speaker 3: Send
Speaker 2: we'll
Speaker 3: your complaints through.
Speaker 2: send you complaints through. See you next time. Until then, bye.
Speaker 5: The information featured in this podcast is general in nature and does not take into consideration your financial situation or individual needs and should not be relied upon. Before making any investment, insurance, tax, property or financial planning decision, you should consult a licensed professional who can advise whether your decision is appropriate for you. Guests appearing on this podcast may have a commercial relationship with the companies mentioned.
