Posted on

P&G Worked With China Trade Group To Sidestep Apple Privacy Rules

Procter & Gamble Co. helped develop a technique being tested in China to gather iPhone data for targeted ads, a step intended to give companies a way around Apple Inc.’s new privacy tools, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move is part of a broader effort by the consumer-goods giant to prepare for an era in which new rules and consumer preferences limit the amount of data available to marketers. P&G—among the world’s largest advertisers, with brands such as Gillette razors and Charmin toilet paper—is the biggest Western company involved in the effort, the people said.

The company has joined forces with dozens of Chinese trade groups and tech firms working with the state-backed China Advertising Association to develop the new technique, which would use technology called device fingerprinting, the people said. Dubbed CAID, the advertising method is being tested through apps and gathers iPhone user data. Through the use of an algorithm, it can track users for purposes of targeting ads in a way that Apple is seeking to prevent.

Apple is planning a software update in coming weeks that will require app users to choose whether they want their activity to be tracked across other companies’ apps and websites. Apple has touted the new software as an important step for putting privacy controls in users’ hands. Device fingerprinting runs afoul of Apple’s rules, and the tech company has said it would ban any app that violates its policies.

“The App Store terms and guidelines apply equally to all developers around the world, including Apple,” an Apple spokesman said. “We believe strongly that users should be asked for their permission before being tracked. Apps that are found to disregard the user’s choice will be rejected.”

Facebook Inc. and ad-tech firms have been vocal critics of the Apple changes, fearing users won’t consent to being tracked. They say the flow of user data is critical to providing more tailored digital advertising that better resonates with consumers.

P&G, whose involvement hasn’t been previously reported, said in a statement that it is providing input to the trade group consistent with the company’s goal of finding ways to “deliver useful content consumers want in a way that prioritizes data privacy, transparency and consent. That means partnering with platforms and publishers—both directly and through our advertising associations across the globe,” it said.

The company declined to provide additional details about the program, including whether it intends to use the technology.

P&G was involved in testing CAID, the people said. The testing has also involved ByteDance Ltd., the parent company of TikTok, and Tencent Holdings Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter. Those companies operate some of the most widely used apps in China.

Through apps, CAID collects user device data, such as the device start-up time, model, time zone, country, language and IP address. Based on China’s personal information security standards, most of those data aren’t counted as “personal information.” But a so-called device ID can be generated by algorithm based on these data. That device ID can achieve a similar tracking effect as the identifier that Apple is allowing users to block.

CAID can be used without having to obtain user consent. If in operation, it could track activity even if a user had opted out of tracking through a pop-up prompt Apple is using with the rollout of new privacy controls. Recently, Apple has issued warning letters to app developers who have used tools like CAID, asking for their removal within 14 days.

Also involved in the China-based effort are business units of accounting firms Deloitte LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers as well as ratings company Nielsen Holdings PLC, according to documents of the advertising association that were viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Representatives for PwC and Nielsen didn’t respond to requests for comment, and a spokeswoman for Deloitte declined to comment.

Apple’s changes are expected to most affect marketers, such as game makers, that aim to get apps installed on iPhones. Large advertisers such P&G, which can use their own data for advertising, will see less impact, said Aaron Shapiro, former chief executive and co-founder of Huge, a digital ad agency that has worked with P&G and McDonald’s and was acquired by Interpublic Group.

Still, P&G—which has spent years building a formidable data operation—has a lot at stake.

“Advertising effectiveness in digital is all about the data,” Mr. Shapiro said. “Even if this issue is not a problem, they might just be forward-thinking, which is they have to proactively put in place solutions for future clampdowns that are going to happen.”

Apple’s privacy changes are set to upend the digital ad industry and come after P&G has sought for years to carefully target digital ads at would-be buyers. The consumer-goods giant spent $7.3 billion on advertising in the past fiscal year and has long used its hefty ad budgets to push the tech industry for better ways to prove that digital ads reach their intended targets.

P&G marketing chief Marc Pritchard has advocated for a universal way to track users across platforms, including those run by Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, that protects privacy while also giving marketers information to better hone their messages.

Frustrated with what it saw as tech companies’ lack of transparency, P&G began building its own consumer database several years ago, seeking to generate detailed intelligence on consumer behavior without relying on data gathered by Facebook, Google and other platforms. The information is a combination of anonymous consumer IDs culled from devices and personal information that customers share willingly. The company said in 2019 that it had amassed 1.5 billion consumer identifications world-wide.

China, where Facebook and Google have a limited presence, is P&G’s most sophisticated market for using that database. The company funnels 80% of its digital-ad buying there through “programmatic ads” that let it target people with the highest propensity to buy without presenting them with irrelevant or excessive ads, P&G Chief Executive Officer David Taylor said at a conference last year.

“We are reinventing brand building, from wasteful mass marketing to mass one-to-one brand building fueled by data and technology,” he said. “This is driving growth while delivering savings and efficiencies.”

China is P&G’s second-largest market. The company said in 2017 that it would invest $100 million into its China digital innovation centre, in part to bolster its digital marketing.

Facebook has been among the most vocal opponents of Apple’s proposed changes, which could hurt its core ad business. If users opt out of sharing their info with the social-media giant, for example, the company would lose some of the data it uses to create profiles of individuals for ad targeting. Advertisers say they would also have a harder time measuring the return they get for their ads.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reiterated in recent weeks that the change could make it harder for small businesses to market to customers. He also said it might bolster his own company’s platform, making it a more appealing place to conduct transactions if online advertising in general isn’t as effective.

Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 8, 2021.

Posted on

Golf Courses Target Those Who Think 18 Holes Is Just Too Many

Golf has been a game of 18 holes ever since the ruling bodies of the sport decreed it so at the end of the 19th century. But now, some course operators—and even the U.S. Golf Association—are challenging the idea.

The idea is that less could be more, in terms of breathing much-needed new life into the game. When would-be golfers don’t play, the main reason given is the length of an 18-hole round—typically four hours or longer.

While pros and many serious players will continue to play 18 holes, the industry is looking at ways to shorten the game for others. Lots of courses are marketing nine-hole options, and some tout even fewer holes than that.

“The most common complaint we hear is that the game takes too long,” says Steve Skinner, chief executive of KemperSports, a Chicago-based owner and manager of more than 100 courses across the country. “We need to let them know golf does not have to be a four- or five-hour experience.”

The USGA has lent its stamp of approval to shorter games, beginning with its “Play 9” initiative, launched in 2014, consisting of TV ads, especially during the heavily watched U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open telecasts, and an effort to give owners marketing ideas to promote the nine-hole option at their courses. The association also permits scores from nine-hole games to be posted on its USGA Handicap Index.

“The nine-hole round, the two-hour experience, is much closer to the type of entertainment people usually have,” says Rand Jerris, senior managing director of public services for the USGA. “Going to a movie. Two hours. Going to dinner. Two hours. Two-hour windows seem to fit comfortably in the American lifestyle. For people like that, nine holes works.”

According to the National Golf Foundation, there are 3,777 nine-hole golf facilities in the U.S., or about 26% of the total number of courses.

For the millennial

The shorter game is particularly targeted at millennials, who currently are playing a lot less than their parents or grandparents did at a similar age, mainly due to the game’s length, says Mr. Skinner.

To Kevin Berliner, at 32 a millennial himself, the problem is the mercurial nature of his generation.

“It’s about perception. Millennials will wait 3½ hours for the best burger in town, but will say 3½ hours for golf is too long,” says Mr. Berliner, who is a medical-device salesman and participates in the Young Executives Program at Cantigny Golf, a public course in Wheaton, Ill.

Cantigny and other courses market nine holes as an option for all golfers. But, as Mr. Berliner says, the shorter round is particularly attractive for people in his age group, especially at the end of a working day.

“It’s not just the golf course that matters,” Mr. Berliner says. “If we can go to a place where you can play nine holes and then get a burger and a beer, that is very enticing to the younger generation.”

Indeed, many facilities are looking to pair shortened rounds of golf with food and drink. Various versions of “Nine-and-Dine” promotions are being marketed to couples and families, and some locations are cutting even more holes. A six-hole round of golf with an on-course happy hour after play is offered at Chambers Bay, a course managed by KemperSports just outside of Seattle and the site of the 2015 U.S. Open.

Urban setting

Skyway Golf Course in Jersey City, N.J., offers another possible alternative—a shortened game, and beautiful greens, in a more urban setting. Built in 2015, this upscale, public, nine-hole course features challenging holes with dunes and a view of the Manhattan skyline. TJ Wydner, who oversees the facility, says Skyway did more than 40,000 rounds last year despite being closed for six weeks because of Covid. He says the course is more accessible and popular with time-compressed serious golfers who want to squeeze in a quality two-hour round.

Golf-course owners, especially in expensive urban areas, may find another benefit of fewer holes: cost. “We know that land is expensive and that it is expensive to maintain 18 holes,” Mr. Jerris says. “We know for the game to be sustained, it has to be on a smaller footprint.”

Covid surprise

The timing for a shift to shorter games and courses seems favourable. The big story in the early 2000s had been the closing of many golf courses as a result of overbuilding for a big boon that never came. When Covid hit, operators prepared for the worst last summer.

Instead, the opposite occurred. With many entertainment options closed, people flocked to golf courses seeking to be outdoors, and to find a sense of normalcy. According to the National Golf Foundation, golf in the U.S. last year experienced a 14% increase in rounds from 2019, and that figure would have been much higher if virtually every course hadn’t been shut in the spring. More telling was the volume from June through year’s end: Packed courses had approximately 75 million more rounds nationally than in the same stretch in 2019.

Another dynamic also came into play. With people working more at home, thus eliminating their commutes in many cases, many found time to play golf, perhaps by sneaking out for an early-morning nine or shutting down the computer for a late afternoon round. In previous years, typical tee sheets often had plenty of vacancies from 2 to 5 p.m., Mr. Skinner says. Not last year.

“Those times were full every day,” Mr. Skinner says. The pandemic “completely flipped the tee sheet.”

Mr. Skinner does not think it was a one-year trend either. With expectations that many people will continue to work remotely once things return to normal, that means they will again have more time to play golf.

Mr. Jerris believes it is incumbent for operators to be creative, giving golfers more alternatives than just playing 18 holes. He notes that some courses are experimenting with fees based on the numbers of holes played or by the hour.

“Golf operators have to understand they have a lot of unused inventory on their tee sheets,” Mr. Jerris says. “Perhaps they can send players off the back nine when it is empty in the early morning. They can look at sending people out to play a few holes when there isn’t much daylight left. Those kinds of things are found revenue at no additional expense.”

Ultimately, it is about getting and keeping people engaged in the game, Mr. Skinner says. He speaks from personal experience. Even though he is a leading golf-industry executive, his children never got into the game before last year. During the pandemic, he often played late afternoon, nine-hole family rounds. Those outings led to his 23-year old son, Jack, getting the bug, as he played more than 30 rounds last year. Mr. Skinner now describes his son as “being addicted” to golf.

That is exactly the aim of the Play 9 campaign and other initiatives to get people out to the course. The idea is for them to become returning golfers, no matter how many holes they play.

“Golf is an addictive game,” Mr. Skinner says. “But first we’ve got to get people out to experience it. Once they do, hopefully they keep coming back for more.”

 

Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 7, 2021.

Posted on

Are Low Interest Rates A Risk to the Property Market and Economy?

OPINION

It is to the astonishment of most economists, politicians and property experts that we are experiencing an extraordinary V shape recovery.

This week’s fundamental economic good news is that the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.8%, smashing expectations. The property market seems to be booming, job adverts are increasing and consumers are now freely going back to pre-Covid-19 spending levels. Millennials are once again ordering smashed avocados whilst leisurely completing their online home loan applications in order to begin the hunt for their first property purchase. That debut purchase, mind you, is now mostly sponsored by the government’s extraordinarily generous schemes, such as ‘home builder’ ($2billion worth) and other various grants (providing up to $50,000 per person).

This is a far cry from expectations a year ago, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison sternly prepared Australians for a 6-month hibernation, followed by a high unemployment rate and a long and hard economic recovery.

Despite current positive economic euphoria, there are some very respected and seasoned investors, politicians and economists who are extremely worried — of the view that the economic recovery, both locally and internationally, is founded on fragile thin ice.

There is a high risk that both our local economy and international economies may generate inflation past the prescribed target of the 2%-3% tolerance of central bankers around the world. This would place the RBA Governor, Philip Lowe, under significant pressure to increase interest rates, despite his assertions that rates will stay put for at least 3 years.

Lowe’s motivations would be to avoid the undesirable economic and social impacts of hyperinflation, akin to past historical experiences that lead to the Great Depression of the ‘30s, the late ’70s oil crisis and the ’80s, where many people can remember living through official interests of 18.5%.

During the past few weeks we’ve seen a number of global central bankers — notably as those from Russia, Brazil and Turkey, among others — increase their official interest rates as their economies simply do not have the financial capacity to continue printing money as freely as our economy.

Increase in interest rates would put downward pressure on asset classes such as property and shares, whilst undermining consumer confidence — resulting in lower spending and impeding a full economic recovery.

The current unemployment trend would very quickly change from positive to negative. The most alarming comment is that both monetary and fiscal policies have pretty much been exhausted during the pandemic. Worse still, if the Government was unable to support the market, it could lead to a market collapse like the crashes of 1987 and 2004 and the various property market corrections we have experienced in the past.

The rationale for such divergence of economic opinion is fundamentally based on the fact that we’re living through an economic experiment. The combination of monetary and fiscal policy employed by the Government and RBA has never before been tested — think zero interest rates, Quantitative Easing, Job Keeper, Job Seeker and mortgage payments deferrals to name but a few.

Another way to appreciate this is via the below graph prepared by AMP. It demonstrates the hypothetical green line if Covid-19 had not happened. The blue line depicts actual GDP figures.

Despite Australia’s GDP being in excess of 3% for the past two quarters (for the first time ever), we remain 2.4% below than what we would have been if Covid-19 never arrived. Our unemployment was mid 4% pre-Covid, with wage growth peaking at a mere 1.4%p.a., whereas today unemployment sits 5.8%.

It is the RBA’s fundamental economic assumption that in order for inflation to shoot past 3% maximum traditional target, interest rates must be kept low and we require the unemployment rate to fall to 3%. This is because in the current economic situation, wage inflation is the key element to push overall inflation. According to many economists, it  could take years for unemployment to reach a rate below 4% and which therefore supports the RBA’s expectation.

The estimated financial cost to future tax payers to ensure we have this V shape recovery is estimated to be circa $350b, roughly 17% of our GDP. This is 5 times larger than any stimulus that was provided during the GFC.

And so, despite the surging asset values, it is unlikely for the economy to suddenly overshoot the green line while a number of industries, such as tourism and international students, remain subdued (and let’s not forget those industries being targeted in our ongoing trade war).

The true economic recovery picture will be seen in the next two quarters of GDP figures, where either the fear of inflation will abate or crystallise into reality.

Paul Miron has more than 20 years experience in banking and commercial finance. After rising to senior positions for various Big Four banks, he started his own financial services business in 2004.

msqcapital.com

Posted on

Meet The Chatbots That Might Manage Your Money One Day

When it comes to banking and finance, chatbots are everywhere. In the future, they’ll be doing more than answering your questions and providing phone numbers, according to people who work in artificial intelligence.

Chatbots will be more proactive, says Zor Gorelov, chief executive of Kasisto, a company creating conversational AI for banking and finance clients. They’ll be able to anticipate individuals’ needs and offer advice before users even ask a question, though there is still a long way to go before many of these features become a reality.

Instead of pointing you to a resource such as a phone line or FAQ page, chatbots could one day be resources themselves, able to offer highly personalised responses to individual questions and scenarios.

Daria Zabój, product marketer at ChatBot, an AI software developer, says chatbots will be able to analyze investment questions, such as whether to invest in gold or bitcoin, in real time. At Chatbot, products like Cleo and the Covid-19 Risk Assessment Chatbot already take questions and process them to offer limited advice, but Ms. Zabój says that tools like this need more years of practice and thousands more conversations to improve their personalized instruction.

Fidelity Investments imagines a world of virtual assistants that will greatly reduce the need for clients to call and speak to a person. Decades from now—or years, depending on how quickly the tech advances—a bot like this could evaluate itself on task completion by better perceiving what an individual wants from an interaction.

Chatbots may become more lifelike by incorporating audio and humanlike forms. As augmented reality grows in popularity, users may want to invite the chatbots into their physical environments. This way, individuals could try out consumer products or ask for advice from a chatbot that answers their questions via voice assistant or computer-designed avatars.

As these chatbot experiments go mainstream, however, Ms. Zabój predicts some users will want companies to ask for their input on what feels too lifelike.

More people have to use chatbots to build better databases of chats and improve the bots, says Szymon Klimczak, chief marketing officer of LiveChat, ChatBot’s parent company. “As of now, all these scenarios are still very basic because the industry is still very young,” he says.

 

Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 7, 2021

Posted on

First Home Buyers Need A Decade For Deposit

Deposit saving Property

Just over one in 10 (11%) of first home buyers now need to save for more than 10 years before breaking into the housing market.

A poll of 1028 first home buyers by comparison website Finder.com indicated that would-be buyers are taking longer to reach the 20% deposit threshold as the average deposit reaches six figures amid booming property prices.

One in four need between five and 10 years, nearly two in five (38%) need between two and five years, while only 7% manager to save the deposit within a year.

According to Finder, the required deposit for an average loan had risen by 16 per cent nationally in just two years, reversing any deposit affordability gains and taking the national average deposit price to $106,743.

First home buyers in NSW require $128,469 and $113,092 in Victoria. The average deposit in Tasmania has climbed to $81,438, to $85,710 in South Australia, to $95,784 in Queensland and to $92,784 in Western Australia.

“While low interest rates mean the cost of paying your mortgage each month has come down, rising property prices are lengthening the amount of time required to save for a deposit,” Finder spokeswoman Sarah Meggison said.

Further, more than half of first home buyers (53%) indicated they are spending more than 30 per cent of their income on their mortgage repayments, a sign of mortgage stress.

Posted on

Property Of The Week: 4/5 Alfred Street, Lilyfield, NSW

Step inside this bright, modern, boutique townhouse-style residence and be welcomed by a swathe of contemporary upgrades.

The 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2-car garage residence boasts a spacious floorplan spread across three levels, totalling approx. 298sqm.

The open plan living and dining area hosts a recently refitted kitchen – complete with Miele appliances, gas cooktops and a marble splashback – alongside sliding doors that guide you to the outdoor entertaining area.

Here, a beautiful north rear garden is ideal for dinner parties, complete with verdant hedging for privacy and timber decking. The home is further enhanced by a quiet street setting and its own private entrance.

Further, the three bedrooms are split over two levels, with the main arriving with a walk-in-robe and ensuite. The second bedroom offers an incredible amount of robe space.

Elsewhere, the bathroom, ensuite and powder room has all been recently renovated with contemporary tiling and fixtures presented.

The home arrives with plenty of storage, including a range of options for under-roof storage on the 2nd level, and a storage room or cellar offered in the basement.

Nearby to Leichhardt’s Norton street eateries, city buses and the light rail, the property is headed to auction on Saturday, April 10. Price guide, $2 million; pilcher-residential.com

Posted on

How To Spiff Up Your Outdoor Area With Art

You might be eyeing your outdoor area, wishing it were a bit more remarkable, a bit less overfamiliar. Festive, even.

One answer, say interior designers, is art, a therapeutic fix for spaces we’ve spent too much time in. Emily B. Collins, director of the New York Design Center’s Gallery at 200 Lex, has noticed intense interest in “items that contribute to a beautiful, functional setting outdoors.”

Homeowners and design pros are discovering that outdoor spaces are loaded with blank walls waiting to be decked out with paintings, mirrors, sculpture, decorative tiles—the same arsenal of art you’d use inside.

To liven up her outdoor’s seating area, Liz Lidgett, a gallery owner in Des Moines, Iowa, hung a painting on a nearby exterior white-brick wall with screws and wire. The glassless, wood-framed painting of pink and blue florals (above) was a $10 secondhand-store score, preserved with a coat of Rust-Oleum’s water-repelling NeverWet to withstand the weather. Guests, she said, seem to enjoy the unexpected element.

In Palm Springs, Tamara Hill, who rents her midcentury home on Airbnb, saw a blank canvas in the cement bottom of her kidney-shaped pool. She commissioned Brooklyn artist and designer Alexandra Proba to paint her trademark madcap—and suitably biomorphic—designs under the waterline. “It’s magical,” said Ms. Hill. “It brings the whole style of my home together far more than I imagined.”

Don’t have the coin to fly in an artist to paint a mural on a wall, fence or pool bottom? You can search for experienced artists near you on sites such as thumbtack.com. Plug in your postcode, view past projects, read client reviews and get in touch.

PHOTO: RACHEL MUMMEY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Wall sculptures of metal, wood or fired clay can dress up naked swaths of siding and fences. For a home in Los Angeles, New York designer Miles Redd invited ceramic sculpture artist Carlos Otero to reimagine a blank courtyard wall. “It called for something spectacular,” said Mr. Redd. The artist delivered a cream-coloured conglomeration of textures that evokes the surface of the moon, inspired by bas-relief panels of the 1960s architecture in Buenos Aires, Mr. Otero’s childhood home.

“Ceramics can live safely outdoors in most climates given some degree of protection,” said Juliet Burrows of New York’s Hostler Burrows Gallery, which represents Mr. Otero. History is full of examples of ceramics-ornamented architecture, she noted.

Dallas designer Jean Liu likes the midcentury modern metalwork of American duo Curtis Jere, which she installed in the lounge space of a client’s covered outdoor area. These cost thousands, but more than passably chic vintage wall sculptures can be found on sites like Etsy and eBay for less than $300.

Bryan McKenzie, a landscape designer in Jacksonville, Fla., is a fan of tiles and “exquisitely patterned walls.” He dolls up vertical surfaces with disks, squares and other polygons from G. Vega Cerámica, in Marbella, Spain. Against whitewashed surfaces, he hangs the Moroccan-style tiles glazed in shades of blue and green.

Another pro move is to hang a tapestry or fibre art in an alfresco space. Occasionally, on a side patch of her Fairfield, Conn., yard that’s visible from the street, Pam Poling exhibits one of her handmade quilts, which dangle from a stand she Macgyvered using photo equipment. The fair-weather exhibition started as a way to inspect her sewing in a natural light and snap a clean photo to share. Now, she says, neighbours look forward to the rotating show of coverlets, whose geometry and bold colours vibrate against her verdant landscaping.

In the front yard of her Phoenix, home, artist Kyllan Maney draped a tree with a necklace of solar lanterns she hand painted with whimsical stripes and dots. “Some of my neighbours have had visitors ask if we are having a party.”

Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 7, 2021.

 

Posted on

Vin Tech: Smart Storage Options for Your Wine

Wine, like nearly every culinary art, is no stranger to smart technology.

With precise temperature requirements, collector preferences and security concerns, wine—and more specifically, wine storage—has been fruitful ground for connected devices.

Here are some of our top picks for smartly storing your vino.

Plum

Plum

Plum is perfect for the collector who is big on wine but short on space. Once a bottle is inserted into this countertop contraption, it automatically identifies the varietal, region, winery and wine, and prepares the drink exactly as the creator intended—precisely puncturing the cork (or alternate top) and bringing it to the optimal temperature identified by the winemaker. Essentially, Plum provides a speedy, sommelier-curated wine cave for those bottles you’ve been keeping in your kitchen cabinet. And Plum’s dual chambers, which can hold bottles at their ideal temperature for up to 90 days, means you can provide your guests (or yourself) with a little vino variety.

Plum is available for approx. $3260.

Café Wine Center

Cafe

For the moderate collector with a mind for display, Café offers a 46-bottle wine fridge with a LED light wall that spans the entire back panel, providing a stylish lighting solution for selecting and showing your collection. Owners can control this lighting feature on the Wi-Fi-enabled Wine Center via SmartHQ app, dimming and illuminating their wine storage with the swipe of a finger. In addition to being chic, the Wine Center covers the practical, with a dual zone chiller—store your reds and whites at different temperatures—which, again, can be entirely controlled by the accompanying app.

The Café Wine Center is available for approx. $3260.

LG Wine Cellar Refrigerator

LG

You can’t talk about high-tech fridges without mentioning LG, and the Wine Cellar Refrigerator doesn’t disappoint. This 65-bottle wine storage solution is Wi-Fi-equipped, meaning users can exercise control over its three temperature zones with the accompanying ThinQ app—but they don’t even need to trouble themselves. Built with LG’s Optimal Preservation Technology, the Wine Cellar Refrigerator automatically works to reduce temperature fluctuations, light exposure and vibrations, while also locking in humidity. And the convenient features don’t stop there. The Wine Cellar Refrigerator includes a smart sensor at the bottom that lets users open the door with a wave of their foot—or with the sound of their voice, as the clever cooler also works with Alexa and Google Assistant. But why open the fridge at all if you don’t need to? The Wine Cellar Refrigerator also includes LG’s InstaView tech, which allows users to simply knock twice on the front glass of the fridge, instantly turning it from opaque to transparent.

LG Wine Cellar Refrigerator is available for approx. $9130.

Sub-Zero Designer Wine Storage

Sub-Zero

A leading name in lowering temperatures, Sub-Zero offers oenophiles style, security and smart features with its Designer Wine Storage series. Holding 59, 86, or 102 bottles, depending on model size, the Wi-Fi-equipped Designer Series allows users to remotely control temperatures across two to four temperature zones, while dual evaporators maintain consistent humidity throughout. And because collections can often be priceless (sentimentally, if not financially), the Designer Series easily integrates with your home security system, ensuring that your beloved Beaujolais remain yours.

Sub-Zero Designer Wine Storage refrigerators are available for approx. $8195 to $12,060, depending on size.

Reprinted by permission of Mansion Global. Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 6, 2021

Posted on

RBA Makes April Cash Rate Decision

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has held the official cash rate at 0.10 per cent for April.

Despite pressure on RBA to cool rising house prices, the central bank has remained firm on its past assertions to hold the cash rate for at least three years.

RBA governor, Dr Philip Lowe said, “housing markets have strengthened further, with prices rising in most markets. Housing credit growth to owner-occupiers has picked up, with strong demand from first-home buyers.

“Given the environment of rising housing prices and low interest rates, the Bank will be monitoring trends in housing borrowing carefully and it is important that lending standards are maintained.”

On a global level, the rollout of vaccines is bringing a positive economic outlook – with global trade and commodity prices on the uptick – a trend that is echoed locally.

“The economic recovery in Australia is well under way and is stronger than had been expected. The unemployment rate fell to 5.8 per cent in February and the number of people with a job has returned to the pre-pandemic level,” said Dr Lowe.

While inflation remains low and below central bank targets – due largely to spare capacity and unemployment still being too high – it will take some time for the labour market to be tight enough to generate wage increases consistent with the inflation target.

Posted on

Expats Fuelling Sky-High Property Prices

The return of many expatriates from cities with more expensive property markets could be adding to the nation’s unprecedented rise in house prices according to the Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA).

PIPA Chairman Peter Koulizos said expats were returning home en-masse, often with stronger currencies than the Australian dollar, further supercharging their buying power.

“Expats from expensive cities like London, Hong Kong and New York often don’t consider our real estate prices unaffordable and are happy to pay what is necessary to secure a prestigious property in a desirable location,” he said.

In fact, according to CoreLogic’s March National Home Value Index it is the premium end of the market that is leading the acceleration in the rate of capital gains at present.

Across the combined capitals, the upper quartile of the market recorded a 3.7 per cent lift in values in March, according to CoreLogic.

“Indeed, some properties are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than what anyone – including experts – had predicted, which is leaving sellers very happy, but many buyers and property investment professionals scratching their heads somewhat,” added Mr Koulizos.

Real Estate Buyers Agent Association (REBAA) president Cate Bakos pointed to the impact of expats in Melbourne, with local buyers weren’t giving up without a fight.

“Cashed-up expats are certainly contributing to some of our silly runaway prices in Victoria, but we also have a lot of bottled-up energy from local buyers, too, particularly those who have managed to save during COVID,” Ms Bakos said.

She said the cost of borrowed money, combined with the government incentives in Victoria, had exacerbated the supply-demand imbalance, particularly in the $900,000 to $1 million price bracket.