If you look at the figures of the Overseas Search Report for October 2023, they state that interest from overseas property seekers is skyrocketing due to recent record migration. Their chart shows the annual change in buy and rent search volumes from overseas property seekers. I guess it’s no surprise that the biggest increase in buying interest was from China at 36.9%. Unsurprisingly, as the number of migrants increase, so does the number of people searching for a place to rent. The chart shows the number of permanent visa holders and student arrivals, which directly correlates with the number of rent searches. If you want to know why there’s a rental crisis, well, here’s one of the reasons. But for whatever reason, the Government refuse to reduce immigration. They obviously get some sort of economic benefit from it. If struggling Australians can’t afford a house or find a place to rent, “So what!”, they say, “Consequences be damned!”. “Australian homes are no longer for Australians”, “Chinese outrun other foreign buyers in dash for housing”, “‘Nuts’: Why millionaires are flooding into Oz”. It’s a good question. Here’s a map from Visual Capitalist. According to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2023, more than 13,000 millionaires are expected to have left China by the end of this year, the most of any country, and guess where they’re going? You guessed it, Australia! Australia has reclaimed the top position for net millionaire arrivals. Wealthy Chinese love Australia. According to realestate.com, “Australia now top destination for cashed-up Chinese homebuyers”. But why Australia? And where’s all this cash coming from? Well it all started over a decade ago. In 2009, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, made the somewhat shortsighted decision to allow temporary migrants to purchase established housing resulting in a subsequent boom in temporary migration boosting demand for Australian homes. Secondly, apparently Australia has one of the weakest anti-money laundering laws in the world, which has made Australian property a great way for laundering dirty money, no questions asked. There are talks of reforming this, and Australia did agree in 2003 to introduce global ‘Tranche 2’ anti-money laundering regulation, but federal governments from both sides repeatedly delayed its implementation. A report from Paris-based Financial Action Taskforce from 2015 warned that Australian residential property is a haven for international money laundering, particularly from China with billions of dollars laundered in Australian property. Of course, many real estate agents do not want these regulations, because that would end their lucrative gravy train. Peter Li, principal at Plus Agency, is a self-described property guru who mainly deals with Chinese buyers, said, “Foreign buyer inquires have quadrupled from last year, and sales have doubled. International buying will definitely increase during the next year. There is more activity in terms of flights, so it’s increasingly easier to get in and out of Australia.” No, this is not a Giorgio Armani fashion catalogue, this is luxury property developer PB&Co in the affluent suburb of Toorak in Melbourne. Buyer’s agent, Alex Bragilevsky, recently said, “I have facilitated $135 million of real estate deals in Toorak in the past six months with 90% of my clientele from China. They come to Melbourne on a private jet, and I’ll meet them at the airport with a nice car. Then we go out and look at real estate.” David Morrell, director of Morrell and Koren, a top-end real estate firm, described the foreign buyer situation as “nuts”. He said, “We are seeing jumps of $2-3 million dollars on properties. We have a market place that is disproportionately being sold to Chinese buyers, relative to the rest of the population. What’s happening in Toorak is only a look at what is happening under the blankets, across the country.” And lastly, there’s also a special type of visa that essentially facilitates money laundering in Australia, the so-called ‘golden ticket’ visa, the Significant Investor Visa, which was introduced by former Labor Treasurer Chris Bowen in 2012, and requires the applicant to invest $5 million in Australia. It has operated for more than 10 years with almost zero rejections with Chinese citizens making up around 90% of successful applicants. Noting that at the time of recording, “Direct investment in residential real estate is prohibited. Indirect investment in residential property through managed funds is strictly limited.” This visa is not permanent, lasting five years, but you can bring your family with you, and you can apply for a permanent visa at the end. Basically, if you’re rich, even if the source of your money is questionable, you can come to Australia and buy a house, pumping up the property market, pricing locals out of housing, with Australia remaining a global magnet and shelter for dirty laundered money. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efK1bnJhlMc

Australian house prices continued to slide last month, May 2019. Darwin and Perth suffered the biggest falls at 1.6% and 1% respectively. Brisbane and Sydney came in next with falls of 0.5% each. Hobart fell 0.4%; Melbourne 0.3%; and Canberra 0.2%. Adelaide was the only capital city to show any price growth at 0.2%. Overall, this represents a national price decline of 0.4%. If we look at how prices have fallen since the peak of the housing market, we can see that Darwin, Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne have all suffered prices declines of over 10%. In Darwin’s case, it’s market has declined almost 30% since peak, with Perth fast approaching 20% declines! All in all, the capital cities have declined 10.1% since peak. If we include regional centres, Australian housing has fallen 8.2% on average. Cameron Kusher, Head of Research at CoreLogic, has somewhat taken an optimistic view of the market. He said, “We have been seeing the rate of decline on a monthly basis slow. That 0.5% fall in Sydney was actually the slowest monthly rate of decline since March of last year and, similarly, in Melbourne we saw a 0.3% fall over the month, which was the slowest rate of monthly decline since April last year.” But does this mean that the price falls are near their end? Chief Economist at CommSec, Craig James, has also taken a positive outlook. He said, “Clearly Australia is a different place since the surprise return of the Coalition Government at the May 18th election. But even before the election, home prices were showing signs of flattening, with national dwelling prices recording the smallest decline in a year.” Mr Kusher commented that even though the rate of falls seems to be slowing, he’s not expecting a quick recovery. He said, “We expect that there's going to continue being some monthly declines over the coming months and then the market will probably bottom late this year. We still think it's going to be a very slow recovery and the main reason for that is we have seen the prospect of changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax now gone. We see that APRA is now talking about changing some of the serviceability limits, and that's positive for the market. And then we also potentially get an interest rate cut tomorrow or in the coming months, and those three factors are positive for the market. But it's still going to be a lot more difficult to get a mortgage than it was before 2014.” Anyway, that’s my quick update of the Australian housing market. Experts seem to think that the market is bottoming out — at least, that’s how they interpret the figures. What are your thoughts? Are housing prices near the bottom? Is now the time to start investing in property? Or is property just one big Ponzi scheme which should be avoided ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RidwFxVZJo

As a kid, I loved Doctor Who, the British science fiction TV series broadcast by the BBC. As a bit of a nerd myself, Doctor Who felt a bit like a haven for the nerdy created by science geeks with authentic quirks and creativity. It was both funny at times, as well as a little bit scary, but ultimately, it was entertaining. The original writers’ genuine weirdness, wit, and sci-fi creativity have in many people’s opinion, been replaced by hollow gloss, focus-group keywords, forced inclusiveness and political correctness, which come off as disingenuous, reducing once rich characters to meagre stereotypes distracting from what could be, and should be, compelling storytelling. The Doctors I most remember were Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy, probably just because they were around when I was growing up. I also have some memory of the earlier Doctors, I guess because they probably showed a lot of reruns on TV. Doctor Who took a bit of a hiatus in the early 1990s, but there was a Doctor Who television movie in 1996, which I never watched, I think I was too busy with high school. But then in 2005, there was a revival of sorts with four more doctors taking on the role. I only ever watched a couple of episodes – I guess I had grown out of it a bit – but my friends and colleagues who were keen Whovians, generally liked this era of Doctor Who. I believe these four Doctors were typically highly regarded among fans of the show. But of course, all good things must come to an end. In 2017, the BBC noticed something a little bit unusual about the casting of these Doctors over the last 36 seasons or so, and I think you can guess what… They were all men! This clear favouritism and inequity couldn’t be allowed to go on any longer! The BBC correctly pointed out, “Ladies can be Doctors too”, don’t you know? So this brings us to our thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, who starred in three seasons and a few specials between 2018 and 2022. From what I’ve heard, she’s a fine actor, but there was obviously some backlash casting a female Doctor Who. According to the ratings database, IMDb, of the 13 series since the 2005 revival, the three lowest ranked seasons were the three Jodie Whittaker seasons. It was towards the end of Jodie Whittaker’s stint as the Doctor that the BBC signed a deal with Disney meaning all new seasons of the show will stream exclusively on Disney+ outside the UK and Ireland ending the 50-year partnership between the BBC and the public broadcaster in Australia, the ABC. This means Whovians outside of the UK would have to fork out a subscription fee to watch the show from 2023 onwards. The tenth Doctor, David Tennant, reprised the role and became the fourteenth Doctor in 2023 starring in three specials to celebrate the program’s 60th anniversary with disability, sexuality, and gender all covered. The character of Davros, a major enemy of the Doctor, used to be wheelchair bound in the original series, albeit, a very futuristic looking wheelchair, but in the most recent incarnation, he is able-bodied. But why? Executive producer Russell T. Davies, who describes himself as “absolutely happily left wing”, said it was to avoid contributing to harmful tropes of disabled villains in media. But this year being the year of super-diversity and uber-inclusion. the pièce de résistance, as I kind of hinted at the start, is the next incarnation of the Doctor who turns out to be a different ethnicity, and perhaps, a different sexuality, with Rwandan-Scottish queer actor (his words, not mine), Ncuti Gatwa, taking on the role of the fifteenth Doctor. Look, I’m sure he’s a good actor, but is this what Doctor Who fans want, or is this what Disney and the BBC want? I don’t know. The series contains a villain by the name of Maestro played by real-life American drag queen Jinkx Monsoon, who has been described by showrunner Russell T. Davies as “the Doctor’s most powerful enemy yet.” I know, it sounds like I’m making all this up, but I’m not. Look, I think there’s only one of two ways this can go. Either I’m completely wrong, and actually hardcore fans, as well as new fans of the show, love the new super-diversity and uber-inclusion path that the Doctor is taking, or, this season sounds the death knell for Doctor Who as we know it. My feeling is that the once-loved Doctor has been ruined by the BBC’s self-righteous pandering and incessant moralising. Gone are the days where we could enjoy Doctor Who as an innocent adventure series. Now they desperately try to please everyone and avoid offence at all cost. Its preachy woke agenda is just resulting in losing viewers and credibility in the process. Unless something drastically changes, Doctor Who is destined for the same fate as other Disneyfied projects – forgotten and axed. Rest in peace Doctor Who. You were once great, but the BBC has utterly destroyed you. MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vJjsIyB24Y

When I was in grade 4, I remember sitting on the classroom stairs with a couple of friends during the lunch break. They were talking about something silly, like, what if they were ninjas who could climb buildings and jump over walls. As I listened to their conversation, I remember feeling that what they were saying was just a dream. It was a strange feeling. For that moment, I felt that I was just listening to an automated script and that I had no idea what was real and what was not. That feeling stayed with me for a long time and it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I was able to put a name to it, Solipsism. Solipsism is the idea that the only thing that is sure to exist is my own mind. That is, there is no way I know for a fact that another person is real. It could all be a figment of my imagination. Consequently, there is no way that another person can prove to me that they are real as what they are saying or doing could equally be a figment of my imagination, too. During my life so far, I have mostly felt that everything around me is real. That is, other people are just like me, living their lives and having their own experiences. But just occasionally, something happens that makes me feel that others are not real, or more specifically, I can’t prove that they are real and nor can they prove to me that they are real. Or, I get the feeling that everything around me is being controlled in some way, and not playing out in a natural way. In this video, I talk about a number of possible hypotheses that I’ve come up with over the years that explain this strange feeling. MY GEAR Samson Meteor USB Microphone: https://amzn.to/2LJVbtN FIND US ON FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/DailyRantAustralia/ #solipsism #solipsist ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvn_sePdKk