CBA: Household Spending Intentions To Fall
The bank is seeing a post-COVID normalisation of consumer spending patterns.
By Terry Christodoulou
Wed, May 11, 2022 2:11pm
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The CommBank Household Spending Intentions Index fell by 3.8% in April after reaching record-high levels in March.
The dip comes as Australians pull back on home buying, health and fitness, and transport spending while opting to put their hard-earned towards travel, entertainment and retail sectors.
The biggest drop came in home buying, with spending falling 21.5% after gains in February and March and is 13.1% lower than in April last year.
Further falls were seen in the health and fitness sectors, dropping 14% however spending is still up 2.9% on last year. Transport spending fell by 8.6% due to the reduction in the petrol excise but remain 13.5% up on the last year.
With international borders reopened, travel spending reached a new record high in April – exceeding its pre-COVID peak by gaining 10.6% during the month and 41% on April 2021.
Local households are spending more on entertainment, rising 6% in April led by increased activity in concerts and theatres alongside eating and drinking out, yet remains 1.8% down on last year.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia Senior Economist, Belinda Allen, said the seasonal volatility of April data due to additional public holidays meant that year on year movements better reflected the state of the economy,
“With an interest rate hiking cycle now underway the Australian economy is in a strong position. We are seeing a post COVID normalisation of consumer spending patterns, with lower spending on categories that increased during lockdowns like health & fitness, while higher travel and entertainment spending reflects more people being out and about,” said Ms Allen.
“Households have accrued a very high level of savings during COVID, the labour market remains tight and wages growth is accelerating. These factors will assist families with higher mortgage repayments over coming months,” Ms Allen said.
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The 390-acre property has 2 miles of frontage on the Rogue River
By LIBERTINA BRANDT
Tue, Sep 27, 2022 8:47am 2 min
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Former “Dallas” star Patrick Duffy is putting his roughly 390-acre Oregon ranch on the market for $14 million.
The property sits along the Rogue River outside the city of Medford in southern Oregon, according to Alan DeVries of Sotheby’s International Realty, who has the listing with colleague Matt Cook.
Mr. Duffy said he bought the first roughly 130 acres of the property in 1990 for roughly $1.5 million with his late wife, Carlyn Rosser. The couple spent roughly two decades and about $3 million buying surrounding properties when they went up for sale, said the actor, who has made the ranch his primary home since the early 2000s.
“My family always felt like we were stewards as opposed to owners,” said Mr. Duffy, 73. “We kept the boundaries sacred.”
Mr. Duffy said he first saw the property while fishing with a friend. The property contained a few structures, including what is now the main house, but was mostly wilderness, he said.
“It was pristine,” he said. “There was no paved road. There were some trails through the woods and about a mile—a little less than a mile—of river frontage.”
Mr. Duffy said he flew Ms. Rosser out to see the ranch, and they bought it. The main house has four bedrooms, and connects to a gallery where the couple displayed their art collection. They converted a caretaker’s cottage into a one-bedroom guesthouse with a loft. They also added a building that contains a hot tub overlooking the river, a structure for an indoor lap pool, and a wine cellar built into the side of a mountain, all within walking distance of each other.
As they purchased adjacent properties over the years, they acquired eight more houses and several pastures that are rented out to local ranchers. One of the homes was demolished, six are rented to tenants, and one is used as the ranch manager’s house, according to Mr. Duffy.
“We became a working ranch but not with our own animals,” he said. “It added the most beautiful, bucolic sense of the place.”
A homestead that dates back over 100 years still sits at the entrance to the property, he said. In it he found an old stove, which he restored and put in the main house. But the majority of the roughly 390 acres remains wilderness. The property now has approximately 2 miles of river frontage, according to Mr. DeVries.
For roughly a decade, Mr. Duffy and Ms. Rosser used the ranch as a family getaway from their primary home in Los Angeles. Then in the early 2000s, when their children went off to college, they decided to move there full time.
Ms. Rosser died in 2017, and Mr. Duffy said he plans to move full-time to either California or Colorado. He will keep a few parcels of land that aren’t attached to the main ranch, according to Mr. DeVries.
Mr. Duffy is well-known for his role as Bobby Ewing in the TV drama “Dallas,” which ran from 1978 to 1991. He also played Frank Lambert on the 1990s sitcom “Step By Step.” Today he runs an online sourdough business, called Duffy’s Dough, with his partner, Linda Purl.
