Economists

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Here’s how you spot a real estate charlatan, someone who likes to present themselves as a real estate expert but who in reality knows nothing worth hearing …

- They speak of Australia as a single property market; and/or

- They attribute price growth to “record low interest rates”

Mostly these pretenders are economists. I would remind you of a much-quoted definition of an economist: Someone who can tell you tomorrow why their predictions yesterday didn’t come true today.

We have learnt over the years, but particularly in 2020, that the bigger the name and the media profile, the worse they are at analysing residential real estate and forecasting outcomes.

Cast your minds back to the predictions in March/April 2020 from senior economists employed by the major banks, big institutions like AMP and even those working for specialist real estate research entities. And then again later in the year when the so-called September Cliff was proclaimed an impending disaster.

There was a chorus of predictions of a long recession, with double-digit unemployment and real estate values collapsing. How spectacularly wrong they were. Only the specialist property analysts got it right.

But the appalling track record of economists with real estate analysis stretches back years and includes the alarmist predictions about property prices in the wake of the GFC – also proven to be spectacularly wrong. 

It’s remarkable that media continues to give these charlatans airplay. Credibility, it seems, is optional, so long as you have “economist” in your title.

So the nation’s gaggle of chattering economists has been compelled to admit they got it wrong in 2020 and most of them are now forecasting big price growth this year. You will note that what they are predicting is already happening, highlighting another characteristic of this bloated and overblown profession: predicting the recent past.

And how do they explain the gathering boom? Record low interest rates!

God help us. The lack of expertise among the talking heads who clutter up the airways with their simplistic analysis is quite breathtaking.

As we all know, we’ve had ultra-low interest rates for years. Very little has changed in that regard to explain the recent uplift in sales activity. When Sydney and Melbourne were having their real estate boom from 2013 to 2017-ish, economists generally explained the price rises with “record low interest rates”. They had no response to the obvious question at the time: how come prices in Perth and Darwin were falling, while Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide were stagnating?

The “low interest rates = property boom” theory also fails to explain why the last two genuine nationwide property booms, in the late 1980s and in the early years of this century, both occurred during periods of very high and rising interest rates.

My view, strongly, is that record low interest rates do not explain what’s happening in real estate across most of Australia.

The growth is being fueled by multiple factors, including …

- A stronger-than-expected economy

- Lower-than-predicted unemployment

- State and federal stimulus measures

- The build-up of savings during the pandemic period

- People in lockdown reviewing their life choices

- Ultra-low vacancies, putting upward pressures on rents and prices

- Pent-up demand, leading to rising sales activity

- Low listings levels, relative to rising buyer demand

- The Exodus to Affordable Lifestyle trend, which is hugely influential

- Increased spending on major new infrastructure

- The revival of the resources sector

- The return of ex-pat Australians in large numbers

- The belated entry of investors to compete with owner-occupiers

-Perceptions about the safety and solidity of bricks &amp; mortar in times of uncertainty

-The growing prevalence of e-commerce and its impact on industrial property, which has repercussions for residential demand

- Access to low-cost finance

And you’ll notice that I mention low interest rates as just one of 16 different factors – and I mention it last and definitely least.

Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au

ryder@hotspotting.com.au

twitter.com/hotspotting
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The nation’s gaggle of chattering economists has been compelled to admit they got it wrong in 2020

Joel Robinson

Economists got real estate wrong in 2020: Hotspotting's Terry Ryder

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Stephen Koukoulas, the research fellow at Per Capita, a progressive thinktank, was forecasting the need for rate cuts as early as August last year.
He was the only one from a Bloomberg Survey in August 2018 who predicted a rate cut of any kind out of 21 economic groups/economists surveyed.
Koukoulas' forecast for Market Economics (pictured below) was remarkably accurate for where he foresaw rates as we got into the third quarter of 2019.
Even earlier, in June of 2018 he outlined "<a href="https://thekouk.com/item/612-the-remarkably-simple-case-for-an-rba-rate-cut" target="_blank">The remarkably simple case for an RBA rate cut</a>" in a blog on his website.
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2019/7/3/Koukoulas%20table.JPG" alt="">
In a series of tweets yesterday Stephen Koukoulas suggested "that may well be the last interest rate cut we'll see for a while"
"Is an interest rate cut a good sign or not? Well, like an ambulance at a car crash, it is good that it's there, but it's there for bad reasons"
"If only the RBA had taken this action a year ago and not been blindsided by house prices, finical stability, household debt and rose coloured glasses #RBAfail" 
In an article for the The Guardian, Mr Koukoulas said the RBA was "starry-eyed" about the economic outlook.
He suggested errors and misjudgments had cost tens of thousands of jobs, with the unemployment rate rising, underlying inflation hitting record lows and annual wages growth stalling at a little above 2%.
"The RBA is now playing catch up," he wrote.
"Whether the RBA has done enough with a 1% cash rate to kickstart the economy to the point where wages growth and inflation pick up to more comfortable levels is not yet clear."
No other forecaster surveyed suggested there would be rate cuts coming, with several suggesting there were hikes on the horizon.
They included ANZ, CBA, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and NAB.
Laminar Capital were the group with the highest forecast by this quarter, predicting a cash rate of 2.25%.
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Economist Stephen Koukoulas' spot on rate call was months ahead of "starry-eyed" RBA

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AMP Capital’s Shane Oliver has emerged as the nation’s highest-profile economist.
A survey found he had more than twice as many media mentions across print and online news sites over the past year than any other economist.
Oliver had 2507 mentions in major print and online publications in 12 months, according to figures compiled by media monitoring provider Streem, who did not include radio and TV.
The tally included numerous references to his <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/news/97585-shane-oliver-pushs-cash-rate-cuts-forecast-back-too-later-this-year" target="_blank">RBA cash rate forecasts</a>.
Craig James, the chief economist at CBA’s stockbroking business CommSec, was the only economist from a major bank to make the top five of the list, according to the figures.
Dr Oliver’s tally, which works out to nearly seven news stories a day, was more than double that of James (1041).
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2019/5/7/Top%20referenced%20Economists.JPG" alt="">
The <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/expert-insights/buying/97052-housing-affordability-reaches-13-month-high-finder-rba-survey" target="_blank">property-focused economist Nerida Conisbee</a>, from REA Group, was third, having appeared in 959 media items over the year, as she moved to replace the gap vacated by Domain's Dr Andrew Wilson.
Dr Oliver, the chief economist is also head of investment strategy for the $187 billion AMP Capital fund. His contributions regularly appear on Property Observer.
The figures examined mentions of economists in metropolitan print and online news stories for the 12 months from April 2018 to March 2019.
Streem’s partnerships lead, Conal Hanna, said some economists were favoured by particular news outlets but Dr Oliver was “simply everywhere” with 2507 mentions over the past year.
Currently holidaying in Sydney, Chris Richardson, of Deloitte Access Economics, often a favourite of political journalists, came in fourth with 877 mentions.
The fifth most quoted was former Grattan Institute director Saul Eslake, the vice-chancellor’s fellow with the University of Tasmania.
Also on the top 10 list of economists are Alan Oster of NAB, Bill Evans of Westpac and David Plank of ANZ, The Australian reported.
The data had been restricted to people who were quoted in news stories as “economists”. The figures don’t include opinion page contributions.
Dr Oliver was among several market economists that had tipped the RBA to cut rates at today’s meeting.
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

Shane Oliver ranked as Australia's highest-profile economist

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The apartment boom is over but it’s not a disaster, according to realestate.com.au economist Nerida Conisbee.
Despite some experts predicting a ‘bloodbath’ resulting from an oversupply of apartments in Melbourne and Brisbane, Conisbee suggests the reality is that there has been minimal fall out from the declining levels of construction.
"Building approvals are now trending downwards and although some apartments have lost value, the state of the market is pretty stable," she said.
Conisbee added that the level of building approvals for apartments will continue to decline in 2018 mainly because there are fewer investors in the market, but also because offshore developers, particularly from China, will be less active.
She tweeted a graph (below), highlighting the investor pullback.
She wrote "Investors are pulling back and this started to hit apartment demand in Sydney late last year. It is now extending to Adelaide. Meanwhile Perth seems to have turned a corner <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/housing?src=hash" data-query-source="hashtag_click">#housing</a><a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/demand?src=hash" data-query-source="hashtag_click">#demand</a><a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/property?src=hash" data-query-source="hashtag_click">#property</a>."
Click here <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2018/1/9/rea.jpg" target="_blank">to enlarge.</a>
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/po.images/2018/1/9/rea.jpg" alt="">
Envisaging a quieter housing market in 2018, there were four other key forecasts made by Conisbee.
1. US rate rises will make Australian mortgages more expensive, although the Reserve Bank of Australia is unlikely to budge on rates any time soon.
2. Sydney’s excessive housing price growth may soon be a thing of the past with demand decreasing and prices finally slowing down.
"In 2018 it’s unlikely we will see a big drop in prices in Sydney, but cooling demand will continue to affect house prices which are likely to be flat this year."
3. Look for the Hobart market to continue to rise in 2018. 4. Regional areas within commuting distance of Melbourne and Sydney have seen increasing buyer demand over the past 12 months on realestate.com.au. The most active have been Central Coast and Wollongong, with many suburbs appealing to Sydney buyers on the basis of affordability if they’re prepared to do a big commute.
In Melbourne, Geelong has been the big winner of price pressures in Melbourne, however suburbs of Ballarat are now starting to appeal to first-home buyers from Melbourne as well.
This year, these areas will continue to see buyer demand grow as they offer not just affordable homes but also the lifestyle that people want.
 
 
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