Oh dear... socialists think that can manipulate the market

[Outlaw Yogi]

I've been looking at properties for most of this evening

Really? ... considering you've been here all day and all night and it's now almost 3 in the morning, that's quite a feat.

C'mon speed junky, surely you can come up with a more convincing story than that.

[Outlaw Yogi]

How about that? ... the dingbat troll just dropped offline.

[lisa jones]

Give us a bell Leftwinger when you're ready. I wanna show you the property reports I look at.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Must be good speed Lisa Junky.

[lisa jones]

PM me that is .. K? I'll send you a few property links which I use all the time.

[Outlaw Yogi]

PM me that is .. K? I'll send you a few property links which I use all the time.

Qld footy fans have an appropriate song for such fairytales, it goes like this ....

"Bull shit, bull shit, bull shit"

But then that's what junkies generally do, bull shit.

[Socky the Sock.]

So anyways... I predict that the housing market will worth significantly less than 3 to 5 years from now. Mortgage stress in on the increase and in this economic climate of over stretch... can only continue. The GFC mark II is just around the corner which will increase interbank lending rates which are then passed on to the consumer and inflation is on the up and up whilst job availability will be on the down and down. Also, and more significantly, people are starting to realise that assets are not normally money making devices... they tend to depreciate unless of course we are talking about art, precious stones etc... shelter, being a necessity and all, doesn't fit the criteria. Finally and most significantly is that price elasticity is stretch to beyond affordable given the cost of living (as opposed to the CPI).

The devaluation has already begun and will only continue it's downward move.

[Leftwinger]

The devaluation has already begun and will only continue it's downward move.

I think that's most likely correct socky. We can't be certain if it will collapse or not - about the only certainties in life are death and taxes - but I think what we'll probably see is a long, steady wind-down in prices over 5-6 years. There are a helluva lot of unknown factors in this: beginning effectively now, the baby boomers (who hold around 50% of Australia's investment properties) are beginning to retire and offload their properties which are meant to fund their retirement since they began work long before compulsary superannuation existed. Wave after wave of property is likely to hit the market for the next decade, placing further downward pressure on prices. Many of them will need to sell to fund a decent retirement but many of them can also afford to accept much lower prices than any investor who has bought in the past 5 years at least because they bought before the price bubble. This is just one of any number of things that could happen. My hope is that this winds down slowly so the economy has time to adjust - a sudden US-style price crash would be economically devastating.

Anyway, housing news just gets crappier. First off the rank we have Phil Chronican, one of the big cheeses from ANZ bank being next in a line of high level bank insiders declaring that the roaring boom in annual house price growth is over...

We're not likely to see house prices rise sharply for the foreseeable future, writes Phil Chronican.

As a nation, we hold a significant proportion of our wealth in property. Of total household wealth in Australia, we hold about 60 per cent in real estate, compared with 25 per cent in the US.

Rather a lot of wealth riding on the assumption that house prices will just grow strongly forever.

He doesn't think that the bubble will burst, rather that prices will now only grow at the same rate as broad income growth - so no more 7-10%+ growth per annum in most places. At least that's what he says publicly. If he thinks differently in private, there's no way he could say so in public, given who he is. He finishes with....

If we don't address the structural issues now, we could face a very different outcome in the face of the next downturn - we have seen in the US and Britain what can happen when demand falls sharply and excess supply becomes evident. Remember, the primary purpose of a house is as a place to live, not a speculative investment vehicle.

I agree with the highlighted quote 110% - but it's also pretty fucking hippocritical coming from one of the head honchos of an institution that has made billions over the last decade by financing that very same asset speculation! . I interpret the first line as saying that many households are now carrying so much mortgage debt, they are dangerously exposed to an economic shock and unlike my household, they would not be able to survive the loss of one partners job or even having their hours reduced.http://australianpropertyforum.com/topic/8748574/1/

Next we have the financial reveiw article on the bloodletting in real-estate agents jobs. Seems to have some anticopy software preventing copy and paste so I'll just link to it. 10 000 real estate agents gone in the last 12 monthshttp://afr.com/p/business/property/goin ... 89QsC7FYP.

And again, Chronican tries to let everyone down gently..

Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast mortgage arrears a cause for concern, not panic, says ANZ

http://www.news.com.au/money/property/s ... 6068422462

Sydney auction clearence rates had been slowly rising for 4 weeks (though still weak) RPData's latest shows this weekend just gone they slumped again back to around 50% according RPData, though a different data house has it somewhat higher. House price data is mostly collected by the industry itself - those with a vested interest in something that especially is so heavily driven by consumer sentiment should be much more strictly regulated to ensure accuracy of the figures and the accuracy of the data is constantly being called into question.

Anyway, it's blindingly obvious that Aussie real estate is pretty crook and getting crooker - how far it goes and wether or not the situation reverses itself is a wait and see.

[Ethnic]

While a housing crash is not desirable, some good news may be that our kids may still be able to buy a decent house.

[Jovial Monk]

That is the silver lining to this cloud, the deleveraging will make housing more affordable.