BLOG: speculation

What a party; what a hangover!

Asset prices falls come straight off our personal equity, our savings, while liabilities – mainly the home mortgage – are payable in full with interest from after-tax incomes. Returning to – overshooting – the long-term land price average is going to be quite an experience for anyone with big borrowings.

A toxic mess: vested interests and the real estate industry

Young academic Philip Soos is an outspoken critic of those who seek to 'game' Australia's land market. This scathing indictment from The Conversation today. Conflicts of interest undermine the quality of advice and policy. It is critical to the functioning of markets...

A Walk in the Park

    The City of Boroondara craves more parkland. Council wants open space within 500 metres of all residents without crossing a major road. This is a worthy objective that will improve the health and wellbeing of all, and every local government should...

No more levers to pull

photo credit: Elsie esq. Australian property prices are so over-valued their return to the long term trend will make the painful bubble burst in the USA look like a child’s picnic. Government, major banks and property speculators used every tool in reach to keep alive...

“No Visible Means of Support”

photo credit: DrWurmA term employed in Vagrancy statutes to test whether an individual has any apparent ability to provide for himself or herself financially. The Law frowns upon people who make their living outside formal employment. Yet it bows deep before land and...

40,000 First Home Buyers On Strike

photo credit: Jakob E28 September 2011 MELBOURNE:- 40,000 young families turned away from a lifetime of heavy debt and bitter disappointment in the last year refusing to accept Australia’s grossly inflated house prices, according to a survey overnight by website...