March Interest Rate and Australian Economy

At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 3.0 per cent.

Well, so far the nothing adverse has happened in the Real estate market to upset predictions of improvements this year.

Whilst there have been no outstanding improvements in property values there has been some positive signs. Melbourne has been recording some excellent auction results with up to 70% of properties selling under the hammer.

The boom in the mining towns is starting to ease with more of the new mines relying on fly-in fly-out workers.

This is more predominant in Western Australia where there are very few populated areas near the mining regions. This makes FIFO the only viable option.

Queensland on the other hand has population centres within a reasonable distance from most of the mines.

However most of these centres are not capable of handling the residential needs of those miners. This is not just housing but the other entire infrastructure that goes with the extra population.

The extra strain on those small local towns has led to mining companies in Queensland also opting for FIFO workers.

This has led to a class of investor which is the cashed up mining workers looking to invest in properties in their home towns.

There was some concern at the start of the year regarding the downturn in the Chinese economy,. That has now levelled out, and whilst it is still at a high level, it is at a level which is sustainable and less damaging to other economies around the world.