Auctions worse than COVID; Spotify hit with AI music flood; Excel ‘Olympics’
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Fear and Greed, business news you can use today. The national housing market is now at its weakest in eight years, even worse than COVID. China is set to launch a mega AI model taking on the US market leaders and an Irishman wins the equivalent of the Excel Olympics. Plus, the local IPO market falters and Spotify gets hit with a wash of AI-generated music. It is Monday, the 20th of July, 2026. I'm Michael Thompson and good morning, Sean Aylmer. Good morning, Michael. Sean, the main story this morning, the preliminary auction clearance rate across the country has fallen back to 50% for the past week, although there was a lower withdrawal rate, meaning that fewer people pulled their homes off the market ahead of auction day.
How bad is Australia's housing market compared with COVID-era lows?
That is probably really the only silver lining in an otherwise relatively cloudy outlook for the housing market, I'd say, Sean.
Yes, it's not getting any better. A week ago, the preliminary clearance rate was 55% and the final rate was 48.5%. So on that basis, there are a number of homes not sold over the past week. is probably getting close to three out of every five. These, of course, are based on cotality figures. The last time there's been such a weak run of low clearance rates was 2018. Now, back then, the banking regulator tightened lending standards so people couldn't get a loan. The market now, I mean, it's at that level now. It's actually worse than during COVID. Combination of things going on here, tax changes, negative gearing particularly, higher interest rates, unaffordability, that's culling the lending market.
It's just looking quite dire. Now Melbourne was the busiest market over the past week. Its preliminary clearance rate was 56.5%, which was steady. So it looks like it's going okay, though in Melbourne, prices certainly have been falling. I mean, this isn't just a thing this year, but really for a couple of years, Melbourne has not kept up with the rest of the market. Sydney, over the weekend, back to nearly 47%. Brisbane, just 36%. Ouch.
Yeah, and you mentioned something there I think that is key to this, Sean, that this is all happening in markets where house prices are already falling, really notably Sydney and Melbourne where it is most pronounced. Prices are already down in the 2% to 3% range. Look, this is the one thing that pretty much everyone in Australia is going to have an opinion on, right? Everyone is qualified to talk about what they think is happening with the property market, but will it continue? What do the experts think will happen, Sean?
Well, as far as I can tell, no one is calling for a mega slump. So that's probably the good news. But plenty expect prices to fall further. AMP's Shane Oliver is forecasting another 6% drop over the next 12 months as a result of poor affordability. RBA rate hikes are reduced investor demand from that winding back of negative gearing and capital gains tax. Also poor confidence. Most of the major banks are forecasting flat to downward prices. You would imagine that they should know best, the major banks. It isn't actually a bad thing though, Michael. Over the past 12 years, the median house price across the country has gone from kind of under $500,000 to more than $1.1 million. And affordability is a real problem.
People can't afford to buy homes. So actually, it might just be time for house price rises to take a break.
That is something that, look, depending on who you ask, there are going to be many, many responses to that particular opinion. But for first home buyers in particular, I think you'll find a lot of people in agreement with you on that, Sean. I think so. Let's talk AI because global AI stocks are teetering on the edge of a major sell-off after a Chinese artificial intelligence company, Moonshot, great name, unveiled a new model, the Kimi K3. Not such a great name. No, it's less kind of exotic, but Moonshot.
It's kind of like Kath and Kim meets James Bond. Moonshot unveils Kimi K3.
Kimi K3, which means that it's probably the third version of Kimi. So they've been working on this thing for a while, right?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:06–0:53
2
How bad is Australia's housing market compared with COVID-era lows?
0:53–5:16
3
Which factors are driving the recent fall in auction clearance rates?
5:16–13:40
4
What do experts predict for house prices and affordability over the next 12 months?
13:40–18:05
5
How could China's new open-source 2.8 trillion-parameter AI model challenge US firms?
18:05–18:07
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from FEAR & GREED | Business News
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