"Investors get daily home price fix"
http://www.smh.com.au/business/investors-get-daily-home-price-fix-20120301-1u4c0.html
In a world first, property-obsessed investors will be able to check house prices daily and trade on an index that tracks the ebbs and flows of dwelling prices across Australia.
The Australian Stock Exchange and property data providers today launched a capital city home value index tracking home prices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth that is designed to be tradeable on the stock market.
The index, backed by property group RP Data-Rismark, will ''impute'' the value of all dwellings in Australia's capital cities and include daily price updates from homes sales across the country.
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The index was developed to cater to the demand of investors - many of them overseas hedge funds - anxious to bet Australian house prices would eventually fall as they have elsewhere during the global financial crisis.
Although the indices are not tradeable yet, the Australian Securities Exchange is looking into products based on them, which would potentially allow local and overseas investors to profit - and lose - from bets on the where Australian home prices are going.
More information in the link above, and also at:
http://www.asx.com.au/asx/markets/propertyIndices.do
http://www.rpdata.com/research/rp_data_rismark_home_value_index_methodology.html
ASX Property Index Index Value for 01/03/2012
Gross Rental Yield for 01/03/2012
Australia All Dwellings 562.26 4.18%
Adelaide All Dwellings 424.90 4.29%
Brisbane All Dwellings 458.52 4.72%
Melbourne All Dwellings 599.93 3.63%
Perth All Dwellings 546.69 4.25%
Sydney All Dwellings 632.97 4.40%