Weekend reads – Must read articles from the last week

There are more interesting articles, commentaries and analyst reports on the Web every week than anyone could read in a month.

Each Saturday morning I like to share some of the ones I’ve read during the week.

The weekend will be over before you know it, so enjoy some weekend reading…and please forward to your friends by clicking the social link buttons.

Australia’s housing market is cooling down, but there’s no sign it’s anything more sinister than that

It would seem that not a day goes by where we’re not bombarded by an ‘economic collapse’ headline.

But is it all really that gloomy?

An article from Business Insider looks at the what’s really going on in the Australian housing market – and puts some of those ‘dramatic’ headlines to rest.

Whether measured by auction clearance rates or price growth, Australia’s housing market is starting to slow down. 

But, as yet, it’s nothing more sinister than that.

According to data released by CoreLogic today, a preliminary clearance rate of 71.7% was recorded across Australia’s capital cities last week, marginally higher than the 70.5% preliminary reading reported one week earlier.

The preliminary reading points to the likelihood that the final clearance rate for the week, released on Thursday, will sit in the high 60% region, continuing the pattern seen since the start of June.

The final clearance rate for the week ending August 13 stood at 67.5%.

Source: CoreLogic

After recording its first sub-70% reading since July last year, Melbourne’s high-flying housing market returned to form last week with a preliminary clearance rate of 77.7%, the highest of all Australian capitals.

Sydney, at 70.8%, also put in a reasonable showing, although it still remains well below the levels seen at the start of 2017. 

Both cities recorded final clearance rates of 69.8% and 67.6% in the previous week.

Of the smaller capitals, clearance rates improved week-on-week in Brisbane, Perth and Hobart, but fell in Adelaide and Canberra.

CoreLogic said that auction volumes were almost unchanged from a week earlier, although they remained significantly higher than the same period a year earlier.

“There were 2,041 capital city auctions this week, virtually unchanged from last week’s 2,040 auctions as well as being higher than the 1,795 auctions held one year ago,” the group said, adding that “volumes continue to track higher than what was seen over the corresponding July-August period last year”.

In Melbourne and Sydney, Australia’s largest auction markets, volumes increased in Melbourne but fell in Sydney compared to a week earlier.

Read the full article here

Sydney economy back into pole position

It would seems that things a looking up for Sydney’s economy.

This Blog by Pete Wargent shows the statistics behind the results.

Sydney jobs surge

Sydney displaced Melbourne as the economy creating the most jobs over the year to July 2017, at more than +71,000.

Melbourne created +58,200 new jobs on a net basis, with Brisbane at a more moderate +19,000.

Sydney’s annual average unemployment rate continues to trend down, with the monthly unemployment rate in the harbour city well below 4.5 per cent in July.

Despite this there have been few signs of stronger wages growth in New South Wales to date, with annual wage price rising only by about +2 per cent across the state.

Read the full article here

Queensland tops mortgage applications for under-30s

When it comes to first home buyers – it’s no secret that times are a little tough.

So where are the younger generation buying?

According to an article on News.com.au all road seem to be pointing to Queensland for those wanting to get their food into the property market door.

THE great Australian dream is becoming the great Queensland dream. 

Young Aussies in the Sunshine State are more likely to own their own home than anywhere else, according to research by credit rating website CreditSimple.

The analysis of mortgage application data for the first six months of the year shows Queensland has the highest proportion of buyers under the age of 30 — 17 per cent, compared with the national average of 15 per cent.

Western Australia is close behind, with under-30s making up 16 per cent of all applications, followed by South Australia on 15 per cent, Victoria on 14 per cent, NSW on 13 per cent and the ACT on 12 per cent.

The Northern Territory came in last with just 11 per cent.

When broken down by postcode, Victoria took the two top spots for under-30s buyers, with suburbs including Truganina and Hoppers Crossing in first place. 

In Queensland, Toowoomba suburbs including Kearney’s Spring and Glenvale had the highest proportion of young buyers.

The median dwelling price in Brisbane was $490,000 in July, according to research firm CoreLogic, compared with $856,000 in Sydney and $655,000 in Melbourne.

“It’s really showing that Queensland is a more affordable place and Queenslanders under 30 are more active in the property market, particularly in regional areas like Toowoomba,” said CreditSimple spokeswoman Emily Price.

Ms Price said young people should be checking their credit score “to see where you are” and then “starting to leverage” that into better deals from banks including mortgages, loans and credit cards.

Click here for the full article

Getting personal: Designing homes to be ‘uniquely yours’

Like with most things – properties undergo many trends, particularly when it comes to design.

So what’s the latest housing trend?

This article from Domain.com.au looks the trends of ‘personalisation’ and why it’s become so popular.

Of all the trends to make a mark on interior design, personalisation is the most pervasive. 

It comes from an innate desire to stamp our individual style on our homes and make them uniquely ours.

Choosing the colours and textures that speak to personal tastes can really make a house a home.

The trick is ensuring what looks good is also functional and will suit your family’s lifestyle.

Striking this balance is especially challenging when building a new house from scratch.

As more homeowners opt to demolish their properties and rebuild rather than selling, personalisation has become increasingly essential.

Once upon a time, home builders offered little choice to their clients beyond a handful of stock standard facades and floor plans.

Tweaking these selections for an extra doorway here or a larger pantry there was simply not an option. 

Today, canny builders are starting to embrace the personalisation trend by offering designs that can be customised to a buyer’s every whim.

Full flexibility allows buyers to ultimately create a bespoke home, says Drew Glascott, Metricon’s Victorian sales manager.

“Most of the time builders will hand a brochure out with different plans and say, ‘What do you want? A single or double? How big do you want it?’ and they just sort of come up with a home,” he says.

“But people who go through volume builders still want a design that’s not like other people have purchased before, so it’s uniquely their home.”

Metricon’s Signature service gives customers the freedom to alter existing floor plans so it suits their needs – an experience that would otherwise be much more expensive. 

“Signature experience is all about working with the clients on what their lifestyle is, what their needs are, finding out all about them  … then going to what home design would suit,” Glascott says.

“For example, with a family with five kids who play football on the weekend we’d recommend a mudroom, because when they get home on a Sunday from football they want a mudroom off the garage where all the footy boots can be left.

“It’s all about finding out about people’s lifestyles and finding a home for that lifestyle.”

Close consultation between the builder and the buyer – on everything from the window sizes to the paint colours, the size of the island bench to the locations of power points – is the key to getting it right.

Click here for the full article

7 Lessons In Leadership I’ve Learned From My Dog

The say a dog is man’s best friend – but can a dog also be man’s best teacher?

An article in the Huffington Post looks at the best leadership lessons a dog can teach.

I think dogs are great teachers.  

Admittedly I’m an exceptionally proud, possibly obsessive dog-mum, but it’s hard to deny our four-legged friends teach us about friendship, fearlessness, and fun for a start.

I’ve already paid tribute to the life lessons I’ve learned about doggy bed-sharing, road-tripping, gardening and celebrations.

Recently, while on leave with my prodigious pooch, I realised there’s a lot of parallels between being a good dog owner and growing a dynamic team at work. A mutt-ly take on pack leadership if you like

Everyone needs time to play.

Being the dog can’t be all about guard-dog duty, yelling at the postie, protecting your person and counting kibble.

And work can’t be all serious either or everyone gets stressed and disengaged.

If you want your team to give their best when you do need them to be serious, give them time and space to have fun and be creative.  

We all need to eat well and exercise.

You can’t lock a dog up all day and expect it to thrive, we all need balance.

All work and no play does not make happy workers.

As a boss, it doesn’t impress me either.

It makes me wonder what people are doing with their day, why they haven’t spoken up about their workload, or what they’re trying to prove.

We all need time for the gym, family, hobbies, interests outside of work — even just to get home on time to cook a healthy meal.

It makes better and more rounded employees, so don’t shirk, but stop apologising for being human, too.

Some pups take longer than others to train…

Some dogs ace agility training and fly-ball on the first attempt, have a range of tricks, and walk nicely on a lead.

Others need a little more help.

That’s perfectly okay.

That’s why we have leaders and mentors.

With patience and persistence most people can master a skill, but they’re all going to take different approaches.

Like training a dog, with leadership it’s not one-size-fits-all.

Some dogs are toy-motivated, others are food-motivated.

Identify your employee’s motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) and work with it, not against it.

…And they all have different skills.

Try as I might, I can’t get Woofa to bring the ball back when I throw it.

But, he has a gentlemanly paw-shake and is great at emptying treats from his puzzle-ball.

In the office, some folk are good details people, some are big-picture thinkers, some are the team motivators, some are quiet achievers.

Find your people’s strengths and make the most of them.

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

It makes me sad to see old dogs looked over for young pups.

They may not have the years of enthusiastic, in-your-face energy of younger dogs (or staff), but they have a lot of wisdom and ignoring them deprives everyone of a great experience.

They’ll bring a loyalty and steadiness to your home or team.

Pay attention, honour their expertise, and you’ll likely enlist their enthusiasm.

Everyone has an accident on the rug occasionally.

Sometimes it’s a training accident, sometimes it’s over-enthusiasm.

Not everyone is going to get everything right all the time.

For me, it’s very important for my team to feel like they have a safe place to fail.

That’s how we learn and grow.

And we all have bad days, even the ‘Pack Leader’.

Some dogs are just naughty… but identifying the underlying reasons is usually key to success.

Sadly, like humans, some dogs will just stare you in the eye while they pee on the rug.

But this is where you need to dig deeper.

Maybe they’ve had a bad experience in the past that’s made them defiant or scared.

It could be fear of failing or feedback. Maybe they were just not trained to do better before now.

Click here for the full article

Weekend video: The Real Story Behind Donald Trump’s Wealth

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from Property UpdateProperty Update https://propertyupdate.com.au/weekend-reads-must-read-articles-from-the-last-week-24/