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You should work for the Australian NAR. It’s obvious you didn’t read anything else in this thread
No oak, their boom is much more real. The one great thing about the Aus RE market, is the brokers were busted for fabricating multiple offers. As a result, REA can lose everything if they screw up. We need similar laws in the US.
Agents to face $1m fines for fake bids MARK RUSSELL July 19, 2009
THE Australian consumer watchdog says real estate agencies involved in under-quoting and dummy bidding will be hit with fines of up to $1.1 million from January 1.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel said a new Australian Consumer Law is aimed at any businesses involved in misleading and deceptive conduct, including real estate agents.
Maximum penalties will be fines of up to $1.1 million for businesses and $220,000 for individuals convicted of dishonest behaviour under the bill, which is now before the Senate.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/agents-to-face-1m-fines-for-fake-bids-20090719-dp5i.html
If we had such laws and processes in the US markets, you would see the mother of all corrections.
You should work for the Australian NAR. It’s obvious you didn’t read anything else in this thread
No oak, their boom is much more real. The one great thing about the Aus RE market, is the brokers were busted for fabricating multiple offers. As a result, REA can lose everything if they screw up. We need similar laws in the US.
Agents to face $1m fines for fake bids MARK RUSSELL July 19, 2009
THE Australian consumer watchdog says real estate agencies involved in under-quoting and dummy bidding will be hit with fines of up to $1.1 million from January 1.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel said a new Australian Consumer Law is aimed at any businesses involved in misleading and deceptive conduct, including real estate agents.
Maximum penalties will be fines of up to $1.1 million for businesses and $220,000 for individuals convicted of dishonest behaviour under the bill, which is now before the Senate.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/agents-to-face-1m-fines-for-fake-bids-20090719-dp5i.htmlIf we had such laws and processes in the US markets, you would see the mother of all corrections.
uh huh. I'll let time vindicate me on this one. Prices are already spiking down.
uh huh. I’ll let time vindicate me on this one. Prices are already spiking down.
Look, they have a much more healthy economy compared to the US markets. Equally true today, Aus RE markets have much more transparency in the buy-sell process than the US.
They did not have easy lending and teaser rate financing. But they did have lots of RE fruad,
thus a bubble. Put in place heavy fines on fake multiple offers and continue with auction style sales will only create more stable prices. Yes prices will fall, that is true, but thats entirely to removing the potential fraud out of the picture.
We have it both ways. Toxic loans and RE fraud with fake multiple offers. It will take a long while until we get to a bottom in the US.
I’m not sure about Canada, but if you ask me, I’d say the Australian’s look poised for a big time crash.
This graph of Canadian prices does indicate that it is possible to reverse the price direction of home prices, which you’ve been arguing for the past year
Same issue, RE fruad uncovered in Canada.
The secret's out on phantom bids
September 15, 2007
Tony Wong
The incoming head of the Toronto Real Estate Board has come out swinging against phantom bidding tactics after denying they even existed when she ran for the job three months ago.
"It's dirty realty, it really is," Maureen O'Neill said of agents who fabricate offers during bidding wars. She is now calling on the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) to yank the licences of agents convicted of using phony bids.
"Boot them out, we don't need them in the business," O'Neill said. "I don't think these people should be allowed to sell real estate."
Phantom bids can be used by selling agents to spark extra rounds of bidding or to spook potential buyers into rushing or raising offers. The practice is considered a breach of ethics under the Real Estate and Business Brokers' Act of Ontario – administered by the Ontario council – and realtors who are caught can face hefty fines.
There are more than 52,000 real estate agents in Ontario (26,000 in Toronto) and last year they sold 194,793 existing homes in Ontario (84,872 in the Toronto market).
An informal poll of 30 Toronto-area agents taken yesterday by the Star suggests that virtually all believe that some form of phantom bidding exists in the market. More than two-thirds said some kind of structural reform in the way bids were handled was needed to address the problem.
However, more than half the agents said the problem is being caused by "a few bad apples."
One prominent broker, who handles one of the city's largest brokerages, calls the problem "rampant."
"This is a major problem and it's causing a black eye for the real estate community," said the broker, who did not wish to be named. "You end up with one man at an auction bidding against himself – it's plain fraudulent." The broker says he gets an average of one complaint per day from his agents about potential phantom bidding.
He said he has complained for three years to directors at the Toronto Real Estate Board who "really don't have the stomach for this. They don't want to deal with the issue."
O'Neill made her comments after learning the Star had received documents proving the Real Estate Council of Ontario has been called upon to deal with complaints about bidding war tactics.
Until this week, she steadfastly refused to acknowledge made-up bids occur, saying the Ontario council's CEO Tom Wright and registrar Allan Johnson assured the Toronto body's 18-member board on July 19 that no complaints had ever been received.
But the Ontario council's spokesperson Sandra Gibney said yesterday that Wright and Johnson made no such statements and "RECO does not know why Maureen O'Neill is claiming otherwise.
"If Ms O'Neill had contacted RECO prior to responding to questions about RECO's complaints statistics, RECO would have provided the same information that you received," Gibney added in an emailed statement.
In response, an angry O'Neill said she "will certainly be calling (RECO) and asking what the hell is the problem. Certainly they have strained this relationship."
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Looks like Australia successfully blew their bubble up even more. The crash didn't come and they stimulated their way out of it.
http://www.bnet.com/article/how-australia-ducked-the-crisis/352693
 And while GDP and housing markets held up remarkably well, both received assistance from government stimulus programs. Australia has its equivalent of the U.S.'s first-time home buyers credit, with an AU$14,000 grant for rookie home buyers, which could go as high as AU$21,000 for brand-new homes. The OECD estimates that the home buyer's grant and other stimulus goodies, including a big infrastructure project called the Nation Building program, saved 150,000 to 200,000 jobs that might otherwise have been lost.
#housing