I had a letter published in The Sunday Age on the 25th of May.
Real estate agents and their constant spruiking of the “boom” had finally gotten up my nose. They go around crowing about the rising prices while ordinary Australians get priced out of the market.
When you really think about it who benefits from high real estate prices? Certainly not people wanting to buy a house to live in. They end up lumbered with a huge mortgage. The people who benefit are real estate agents (who get bigger commissions), banks (who get to write bigger mortgages) and property “investors”.
The letter ran:
Is the Sunday Age suffering from split personality disorder?
On page five we read that house shopping is a “nightmare”, the market is “out of control” and that we are heading towards being a rental society where only the rich can afford to own a house. Yet in the real estate section we read of “the good year ahead”, the booming market and how “impressive” the price increases are.
Personally, I agree with page five and wish the spruikers of the “boom” would get lost. Any trend that pushes houses beyond the means of average people is a huge step backwards. Maybe it’s time to re-regulate the banking industry and alter the taxation system to bring house prices comfortably back within our means.
April 26th, 2010 at 11:11 am
This looks awfully familiar…Oh yea that’s because the U.S. went through this same terrible thing in 2007.
April 28th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Australia is just Greece with a very big mine out the back, we consume heaps made by other, without the commodities boom, we are nothing, but suburban Locusts These Spruikers are selling an unsustainable lie and they know it, they live for delusion and distortion, if people are living beyond their means, they get nods of approval for ‘whatever growth’ no matter its social consequences and have to justify themselves by filling up advertising space in Saturdays papers to look terrific to rationalize their budgets, much like what some have termed a top heavy Greek government department, just to keep justifying that they are busy. Perhaps the glib smiles will be wiped from their faces, once the social demographic distortion gridlocks the economy, and they are pulled in front of a please explain panel.