[booboo]

Just a small correction - RP Data and Rismark are two completely separate and different companies - RP Data is now owned by a US company, and Rismark is largely owned by Macqaurie Group (and probably a few others). Rismark definitely has a conflict of interest with rising house prices due to their EFM vehicles, which is why I explicitly said "RP Data only" above. Hence why Chris Joye, director of Rismark, is very much a vested interest and will always be talking up the market.

[zaph]

Smart Money, on 04 January 2012 - 12:29 AM, said:

Oops I was waffling. My key point is that it is in the best interests of RP Data and Rismark International to talk up the market, encourage property buying, encourage property price increase and talk down affordability issues. RP Data/Rismark is strongly positioned to influence market sentiment and encourage property purchase, even if the property information is inaccurate or unreliable and therefore misleading and deceptive.

As discussed one major commercial financial interest is the RISMARK/ADELAIDE BANK Equity Finance Mortgage (EFM). See the Choice article slamming this product. RP Data/Rismark have multiple other commercial financial interests and that includes their major clients banks/lenders. Of course banks want to encourage property buying.

RP Data can publish any report or index with limited fear of legal accountability or financial penalty. Without regulation or licensing requirements in place RP Data can manage and manipulate their data as they see fit. Consumer protection legislation does not directly extend to property data resellers and property data management.

There is a distinct commercial "conflict of interest" as above, yet RP Data can get away with this, without legislation in place.

the EFM is certainly a conflict of interest.

however as far as their price data and indexes go - Consistent manipulation of the data in an upwards direction would mean that within not too long they would be way different from the other data providers. this would render their data useless and no one would buy it. they can fiddle at the edges but not really do major dodges without risking their income. a good trick is to deliberately overestimate indicative figures and then revise them the next month or two without the media attention (talking up the market so to speak).

[zaph]

booboo, on 04 January 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

Just a small correction - RP Data and Rismark are two completely separate and different companies - RP Data is now owned by a US company, and Rismark is largely owned by Macqaurie Group (and probably a few others). Rismark definitely has a conflict of interest with rising house prices due to their EFM vehicles, which is why I explicitly said "RP Data only" above. Hence why Chris Joye, director of Rismark, is very much a vested interest and will always be talking up the market.

booboo you seem to have a fairly good grasp of stats (i couldn't wait to finish the stats part of my commerce degree!). perhaps you comment on........

is it appropriate to report fall from peak in SA terms?<br style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; "><br style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; ">in Novembers report the fall from peak was 9.5%, this report it's 9%, yet there was a monthly fall of 0.7%.


am i missing something. to my thinking you can't seasonally adjust a peak to trough measure.

[Smart Money]

booboo, on 04 January 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

Just a small correction - RP Data and Rismark are two completely separate and different companies - RP Data is now owned by a US company, and Rismark is largely owned by Macqaurie Group (and probably a few others). Rismark definitely has a conflict of interest with rising house prices due to their EFM vehicles, which is why I explicitly said "RP Data only" above. Hence why Chris Joye, director of Rismark, is very much a vested interest and will always be talking up the market.

hi Booboo thanks

You may find that RP Data and Rismark International have combined to launch an indice known as the "RP Data-Rismark Indices".
See http://www.rpdata.co...ses/Page_1.html

Yes in 2010, the Macquarie Funds Group acquired a 53% stake in Rismark
Yes RP Data is 100% owned by CoreLogic

However Rismark use the RP Data system and database and the indices is called the 'RP Data-Rismark Indices'. There is a business partnership.

cheers

[Smart Money]

zaph, on 04 January 2012 - 02:54 AM, said:

the EFM is certainly a conflict of interest.

Many thanks Zaph I agree the EFM product does create a conflict of interest as Rismark International is a finance company

In 2009, Rismark was awarded the AustralianBusiness Award for Innovation. In February 2008 and 2009 the Mortgage &Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) presented Rismark with the “Non-Bank Lender or MortgageManager of the Year” award at the MFAA’s annual Excellence Awards. InDecember 2007 Australian Banking & Finance Magazine selected Rismark asAustralia's "BestFinancial Start-Up in 2007".

In March 2007 Rismark launched via Adelaide Bank the first "shared equitymortgage" to ever be made available by a private lender in Australia'shistory.

Rismark's revolutionary Equity Finance Mortgage® ("EFM") has receivedwide industry acclaim. Your Mortgage Magazine selected the EFM as "Best New Product of the Yearin 2007" while Money Magazine selected it as "Best New Product of the Yearin 2008". Leading consumer information company InfoChoice hasdescribed the EFM as "the most innovative lending product in 15years". For more detail on EFMs please visit the website www.efm.info

There is no denying that Rismark is a finance company. I assume that Rismark must hold a financial services license and is subject to the new ASIC legislation

Therefore does the " ASIC Financial Services License and Conflict of Interest regulation" apply see http://www.asic.gov....$file/ps181.pdf

Rismark may provide property investment information, data and reports that are biased, inaccurate, unreliable and could be overstating the finance and investment opportunity.

What do you think?

Should a finance company be allowed to spruik the property market and sell finance at the same time?


cheers

[recession we had to have]

ASIC linky
Auditor of FSR Licensee KPMG

ASIC Linket

Conditions start date time 05/11/2008

more details on the conditions in the link (didn't format properly)

This post has been edited by recession we had to have: 04 January 2012 - 08:45 PM

[booboo]

zaph, on 04 January 2012 - 03:01 AM, said:

booboo you seem to have a fairly good grasp of stats (i couldn't wait to finish the stats part of my commerce degree!). perhaps you comment on........

is it appropriate to report fall from peak in SA terms? in Novembers report the fall from peak was 9.5%, this report it's 9%, yet there was a monthly fall of 0.7%.

am i missing something. to my thinking you can't seasonally adjust a peak to trough measure.

To be honest, I haven't done much stats like that since uni (apart from stuff that's work related, but that's mainly probability related, e.g. Bayesian, or finding similarity between, say, hitograms, etc).

But my guess would be, depends on how seasonal the data is. For house prices, I wouldn't have thought using SA for peak to trough was appropriate unless there were significant seasonal fluctuations, which I don't think there are. Additionally, when there is non-seasonal behaviour being exhibited (such as the current slow melt) then there is a good argument for concentrating on raw numbers only, which is what I like to do. It is a bit of an annoyance to me too how some of the data chances from raw to SA back to raw again in RP Data releases.

edit: Wikipedia is great for lots of things. Their entry on seasonal adjustment is rather lacking, but it explains a bit to anyone wondering, in case anyone here was wondering about the SA numbers (which is probably not the case, now I think about it).

This post has been edited by booboo: 05 January 2012 - 02:53 AM