harry potter said..
More than anything else the prices can be attributed to a deep seeded Australian desire to own your own home.

more people in the market
more willing to sacrifice luxuries to own their own home means prices increase

its not unaffordable because people are paying these prices and theses are averages.

cisco said..
Our regional council wants to charge higher rates for properties that are rented out than those that are owner occupied.

The Laborites will love that one.

Mobydisc said..
In any case council rates should be calculated on the basis of what services the council provides so the land is usable and thus has some value. Just because the land goes up in value does not mean the service provided is more valuable too.

FormulaNova said..


I guess it becomes complex though. How do you work out what services are used by what residence?

I live in a house, and I am sure that rates for a house are more than for a unit, even if you compare places of equivalent value. How is it that a unit gets a discount compared to a house? If the same number of people live in each, then you would expect the resources used to be the same.

Boxer101 said..
Until restrictions are placed on negative gearing and foreign investment, property prices will continue to nowhere but up! In other words, get ready to take it in the proverbial, young people! Crazy, greedy world we have.

Mobydisc said..
Tonight on the ABC news Alan Khohler reported that it costs the tax payer around $4 billion a year to pay for negative gearing. However it has a payoff of around $200 billion of increased property prices according to Credit Swiss. Alan said that wasn't a bad return on investment.

Yeah Australia is an expensive place to live. Its not just property prices. The main reason its expensive is the utility prices. When we first moved to Sydney our water bill was about $110 a quarter. Seven years later its $170 a quarter. Is our water suddenly sparkling and the sewerage sweet smelling? I checked out some old electricity bills from 10 years ago. Electricity was 12 cents a kilowatt hour. Today they are over 25 cents a kilowatt hour. Has coal suddenly become more expensive? When we first moved to Sydney our council rates were $800 a year. Now they are over $1200 a year. Does the council suddenly provide better service?

Its pretty clear the government and their companies are trying to wring out every single dollar out of the citizen/consumer, they can get. Its a real rip off when the same authority, the government, is the same authority who decides whether price rises are warranted.

If we keep going down this track of taxation by another name it will get to the point that the people will demand a levelling of charges otherwise there will be demands for reform and competition. On the other hand its pretty clear improved technology will allow people to side step and avoid the rip offs that make Australia one of the most expensive places to live in the world. Australians are dying due to the rip offs happening here.

FormulaNova said..
Moby, I think I read somewhere yesterday that foreign investment, i.e. non residents I think, is restricted to only buying new properties, and not established properties. So, you should be seeing this crowd at new places and not existing.

None the less, it should push up the prices of the new places which will push up the prices of existing places as well.

FormulaNova said..
I hate to agree with PMac, but it has to stop somewhere. Who can afford these types of prices?

I think everyone thinks that it will just keep going, but I don't understand how that can happen unless everyone keeps ignoring reality.

evlPanda said..


Any stats you see on how many foreign investors there are are made up because there's no box when you buy a house that asks for your nationality. So how can anybody know or enforce the rules?

Also it was Labor that relaxed the rules about foreign ownership.