Is The Age suffering from split personality disorder?
On page 8 of The Sunday Age (18.4.10) we read that house shopping is a “nightmare”, the market is “out of control” and that we are heading toward being a rental society where only the rich can afford to own a house.
As Maris Beck points out on the same page “In 1955, $7,000 bought a house. Now, it’s not even a deposit on a dream“.
Yet in the real estate section of the same issue we read of the “good year ahead”, the booming market and how “impressive” the price increases are.
Personally, I agree with page 8 and wish the spruikers of this “boom” would get lost. Any trend that pushes houses beyond the means of average people is a huge step backwards.
The only groups who profit mightily from high housing prices are banks (who get to write bigger mortgages), real estate agents (who get bigger commissions) and land speculators.
It’s time to re-regulate the banking industry and alter the taxation system to bring house prices comfortably back within our means.
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Its a two speed economy- In other words its schzoid. Everything is hinged on low food prices, if climate change creates food inflation you will see Budgets and mortgages go bust, or private debt go up to feed the family. Not sustainable, even if IMF thinks so.?
Government administration for a two speed society
looks something like Poorlords for one half, where to get any help, one has too trade off ones Human rights for a benefit, and the other the Corp Industrial complex which are the true Feudal governing body, bidding for what it can sell off to transnationals.
We have off shored so much of what was once Australia,
we bid against international buyers for that same block of land you grew up near as a kid and played on