Steve Keen may have lost his bet with Rory Robertson on house prices, but he’s still right on the fundamentals, he argues: the crisis would have occurred long ago and been far less severe if governments and central banks hadn’t attempted to rescue the system from its own follies.
Housing bubble
The real estate spinners who are artificially inflating prices
Despite its ubiquity, residential property remains one of the least transparent asset classes in Australia. Most buyers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an asset which they know very little about.
Keen on Keane: the great population overhang story
On Monday, Bernard Keane took economist Steve Keen to task over his call that property prices will fall next year. Today, Keen has his right of reply.
Making a bad situation worse
The RBA may have hiked up interest rates on the belief that the economy is returning to normal — but its view of “normal” is out of whack, says Debtwatch. Perhaps it’s time to take control of Australia’s monetary policy out of the RBA’s hands?
graph pr0n It’s about the housing shortage, stupid
Our biggest public policy problem is that we don’t have enough dwellings for people who live here, with an estimated shortage in 2008 of 34,000 dwellings. Plus, we’re importing people at a rate of knots.
Foreign buyers blow out the housing bubble
The causes of Australia’s ever-inflating housing bubble are many but one hasn’t received a lot of attention: the influence of overseas buyers since the government relaxed its foreign property investment rules.
The murky world of buyer’s advocates
The rise of buyer’s advocates has coincided with the continued inflation of Australia’s residential housing bubble. Why is this happening?
Building approvals boom amid “bubble” fears
The ABS released figures showing that building approvals bounced back strong in June after May’s one off plunge. Just don’t mention the housing bubble.
20-somethings could regret using the homebuyers’ grant
Is it a wise investment to use a $14,000 or $21,000 gift from the government to buy a property that many foirst home buyers probably can’t afford, wonders Adam Schwab.
Grants distort lending in the housing market
It appears that the Federal Government has not headed the lessons of the US sub-prime debacle, which saw government intervention distort lending practices, writes Adam Schwab.
First Home Buyer Grant working for whom?
The first home buyers grant has gone straight into higher house prices, writes David Ember.
Memo from the bright side: Sydney real estate is booming
Buyers are flooding back into the market in volumes greater than 2007 when the market peaked, writes Sydney estate agent Michael Chatfield.
Memo to a new PM: Some thoughts on managing risk
Governments are defined not only by ideas, but by events. You’ll never be thanked for dodging a bullet. Risk management alone can’t make your government a success but poor risk management will make it a failure.
