A former company director has been hit with jail time after being found guilty of six counts of fraud... Auction market makes it three straight sub-70% weeks...
Company director behind bars over dodgy house and land deals
A former company director has been hit with jail time after being found guilty of six counts of fraud worth more than $200,000.
Stephen William hill was yesterday handed a two year and nine month prison sentence with a non-parole period of one year and nine months after he was found guilty earlier this year of six charges of fraudulent misappropriation worth $218,000 in March.
Hill faced the charges after an Australian Securities & Investment Commission investigation into his companies Hill Stephens & Associates Pty Ltd and International Finance Consortium (Aust) Pty Ltd.
The ASIC investigation found that between January 2006 to February 2007 Hill used Hill Stephens & Associates Pty Ltd and International Finance Consortium (Aust) Pty Ltd to induce various investors to pay approximately $618,000 to acquire interests in a 'house and land' property development in Queensland.
ASIC Commissioner Greg Tanzer said the sentence showed regulators were serious about cracking down on behaviour like Hills.
'Mr Hill's actions betrayed the trust of his investors and caused them significant financial harm. Today's sentence showed such behaviour will not be tolerated,” he said.
Auction market makes it three straight sub-70% weeks
Despite a week-on-week improvement, Australia’s auction market has continued it’s relatively subdued run.
According to CoreLogic RP Data’s figures, the preliminary clerarance rate from last week’s 1,667 auction currently sits at 68.6%.
That is higher than the 67.1% recorded during the previous week; however it marks the third consecutive week where the national clearance rate has not broken the 70% barrier.
The busiest market in the country las week was Melbourne, with the Victorian capital holding 882 auctions.
From that number Melbourne’s preliminary clearance rate currently sits at 71.7%, which is slightly lower than the previous week’s final result of 73.2%.
The Inner City was the busiest sub-region in Melbourne last week, where 170 homes went under the hammer for a preliminary clearance rate of 73.5%.
Sydney has recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 69.7% this week across 457 auctions, compared to a low of 67.1% last week and a substantial difference from 87.0% one year ago.
"We haven’t been doing any new marketing. Just providing good customer service and getting more customers to come back and get more finance from us.”
Roger Guo, Apple Home Loan, Top 10 Independent Brokerages 2015
Read more from leading brokers
