The fall of Stuy Town is a warning for local home owners, writes Bernard Lagan in New York.

THE brackish towers of Stuy Town’s 11,000 apartments, sentries along Manhattan’s East River for more than 60 years, are far off but the tremors from their astonishing transition to the world’s biggest property investment failure are reaching the world over – including the worried scholars of Australia’s soaring property market.

The bullish argue that a property slump on the scale of America’s devastation couldn’t happen here. Today’s Australian property prices, they say, are buoyed by the housing demands churned by high immigration, a scarcity of new developments and a barrelling economy.

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Australian Broker reports:

Australian Broker can reveal that Australian Finance Group (AFG) will become a publicly listed company later this year and in the process be the first aggregator to have its shares traded on the ASX.

The move was announced by its managing director Brett McKeon. “AFG are definitely going to list,” he told AB.

“In the lead up to the next board meeting in late March, the management will be speaking to staff, brokers and planners about choice of underwriter and timing of the move,” McKeon said.

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A clean-up of the mortgage broking industry is still some way off.

It is almost five years since mortgage brokers first started calling for a single set of minimum standards across Australia. And it is more than three years since the NSW Consumer Credit Legal Centre released its landmark report, which highlighted the problems in the industry and recommended national regulation.

The report found some brokers were dishonest, maximised commissions by signing clients up for expensive loans and sometimes failed to disclose commissions.

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Homes are being sold for less than their official land value, as the bulk of recent valuations have continued to defy the trend of subdued property prices.

A house in East Gosford that fetched $266,000 at auction last year has been valued at $324,000 for the purposes of land tax and council rates.

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UK HOME seekers will soon have to show their FINGERPRINTS to take out a mortgage.

Banks and building societies will introduce the measure for first-time buyers to clamp down on identity fraud.

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