| Hope you can watch the full length of this video, it is quite long, as its mostly clips from youtube. House price inflation in Australia and Ireland are most definitely due to many different factors. One difference was the % of property price gains from 1995. In Ireland house prices peaked to some 500% of their original value, in Australia the % increase to date is around 130%. However Its the household debt that matters and in this way we are similar, an average 300k euro apartment equates to the average 400K AUD apartment. Yes countries are different, but the motivations of people, and a countries institutions are often very similar. The characters are the same. I finished with comments by Owen on rent control agreements. I agree with him that its a sensible and sustainable housing option, owned by pension funds, offering 'plain old grey' returns, but very much a sustainable stream of superannuation for the ageing population in Australia, especially considering the volatility in share markets. Of course this option would compete with the current turbo charged debt fuelled property speculation seen in Australia (and the world). Government and banks would obviously prefer to maintain the strangle hold on supply, and maintain the ransom that forces people in to such large debt. A greedy way of yielding high taxes (stamp duty etc) and greater debt expansion. It would take a true statesman to deny the banks the boom, but perhaps such a person may only be born from Australias ... |
