property market

[J o h n S m i t h]

I do get/understand your point, but being a history buff I know nothing lasts forever.

and you'll be dead from old age long before we get to that point.

Australia brings in far to many immigrants annually for demand on property to reduce significantly. Whilst demand is there, there will be no bubble burst. That doesn't mean there won't be adjustments, we have them periodically, but you won't be seeing any bubble burst.

And in 2008 "they" got it right as far as the US went.
Remember the GFC?

The USA is a very different kettle of fish. In the US, if you owe the bank $400k, and you put the house as security, once the bank repossesses that security they have no further legal claim on you. Once the bank sells the house at auction the debt is cleared fully.... even if the bank only sells the house for $100k and is still owed $300k. When the GFC hit, thousands of people walked away from the houses, which caused a influx of available property at a time of little to no demand and further exacerbated the effects of the GFC. It was like a never ending loop. Problem 1 caused problem 2 which made problem 1 worse which made problem 2 worse and so on. I recall in Phillidelphia there were even some instances of where you could buy a house for $1. The 'homeowner' didn't care because as long as it sold, irrespective of the amount, their debt was cleared. Whether the bank made their money back or not was not their problem.

In Australia if you owe $400k, you owe $400k regardless of any security. If the house doesn't cover it after it is repossessed the banks will still hound you to your grave for the remainder. There is no way people will abandon houses and cause a 'bubble burst' the way they did in the USA during the GFC. There is no 'gain' for anyone to do so.

In the current Australian context, it's a result of people - "running for the hills" - getting out of the cities to escape the confinement of Wuhan flu lockdowns. Property values in towns and regional cities now remind me of Sydney 20 odd years ago.

True ... but if you look at the big cities values have gone up at an even higher rate than in the regions. It's not slowing down at a time when I would have thought it would