Here we go again........ASIC spouting more idle words and issuing more idle threats......banks
gearing up for another big clean-up...
'Dodgy' property spruikers running get-rich-quick seminars targeted in national campaign
By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge
22 May 2016 Updated
Consumer regulators across Australia are launching a national campaign against spruikers, who run get-rich-quick seminars.
Key points:
- Consumer advocates are concerned people are being pressured into dodgy deals
- The spruikers being targeted often push rent-to-buy housing schemes
- The campaign warns people about the spruikers offering free seminars
Consumer Protection WA is leading the national campaign, amid concerns people are attending free seminars only to be pressured in to paying thousands of dollars for dodgy deals. Consumer Protection WA's Director of Property Industries Stephen Meahger said spruikers must comply with Australian consumer law.
"We always are concerned in any spruiking when you see a big, glossy ad or a full page ad in the paper that says that it's a free seminar," Mr Meahger told the ABC. "There's nothing that's free, and clearly if you're running ads that size you must be getting money some way."
Spruikers often teach their students how to set up rent-to-buy housing deals, which offers people who do not have a home deposit the option of purchasing a home after paying above-market rent for a set period of time.
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However rent-to-buy schemes have come under sharp criticism from consumer advocates, who say the legal standing of the deals is questionable and leaves vulnerable people exposed. Carolyn Bond has worked with consumers whose rent-to-buy schemes have failed, leaving them with nothing.
Ms Bond is the former chief executive of the Consumer Action Law Centre, and said spruikers were teaching people how to make money out of desperate buyers and sellers. "Desperate buyers who enter into an agreement to pay off a home and they nearly always fall over, we see people who are desperate to sell their home and end up in a deal they don't expect that they get a bad deal out of," she said.
"With these rent-to-buy or vendor finance deals, the buyers and sellers are really exposed. "They're often very vulnerable, there's a lot of risks and they're often not really protected by the law." Miles Larbey from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said unscrupulous operators had been put on notice.
"ASIC assesses every report of misconduct it receives about such operators and there are serious consequences for property spruikers who break the law by providing unlicensed financial or credit advice," he said. "ASIC strongly supports the campaign warning investors about property spruikers."
Executive rents tumble: Tamarama leads nation with 40pc annual fall
19 May 2016
Prestige rents are under pressure in a number of blue-chip suburbs across the capital city markets, according to figures compiled by CoreLogic RP Data. Beach and harbourside Sydney suburbs like Tamarama, Dover Heights and McMahons Point all recorded falls of more than 20 per cent in median asking house rent, while in Point Piper, unit rents fell 13 per cent to $950 a week. In Melbourne, the inner eastern suburb of Kew recorded a 11 per cent fall in asking rents to $720 a week, while in Perth's most prestigious suburb of Peppermint Grove, asking rents for houses fell 33 per cent over the past year to $1250 a week.
CoreLogic research analyst Cameron Kusher said in some suburbs like Tamarama and McMahons Point the sample sizes used were small and rents may have been impacted by the quality of stock available for lease, compared with a year ago."What is clear is that demand for rental houses is easing and in a number of suburbs rental prices have fallen dramatically," he said.
Louis Christopher from SQM Research said his figures showed a steady increase in rents in places like Tamarama. "I find the CoreLogic figures hard to believe. There are very few rentals in these markets and prices tend to jump and down depending on what's being advertised," he said.
Jellis Craig's head of property management, Sam Nokes, said its figures showed house rents down more than 8 per cent in Melbourne suburbs like Armadale and Abottsford over the past six months, but up in others. "We have a lot of tenants exit the rental market and buy, so that's impacted on demand. But overall rents are unchanged or marginally up," he said.
In Peppermint Grove, Joseph Rooney, property manager at William Porteous Properties International, said rents were down 15-20 per cent due to a drop in demand from foreign expats following retrenchments at companies like Shell and Chevron. "A lot of people are not moving and instead hammering down their rental price. We're advising clients to accept a lower rent rather than face the possibility of a property sitting vacant for two months," he said.