Good morning. Property prices are falling at rates comparable to the onset of the global financial crisis or the 1980s downturn as interest rate rises bite. Australia faces an “alarming” gas shortfall. And the swimmer Emma KcKeon is celebrating her 11th Commonwealth Games gold medal – a tally no other athlete has managed before her.
Five of Australia’s eight capitals are reporting falls in property prices, with Sydney down 2.2% and Melbourne retreating 1.5%, and prices in Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart also starting to slide. “We’re definitely seeing housing prices falling quite rapidly at the national level, on par with the GFC,” said Tim Lawless, research director of the property data firm CoreLogic. In Sydney, values are down 5.2% from January’s peak, or deeper than the 3.9% drop at the start of the GFC in 2008. “Even going back to the early 1980s, it wasn’t going down as rapidly as this,” he said.
