[QUOTE=Tableland;6998776]

http://www.news.com.au/business/mone...013951,00.html
The most disturbing aspect of the above is tiny number of auctions in Brisbane. An estate agents worst nightmare. On Perth that 2006 40% rise will probably be reversed.

And Bob "Prices-only-ever-go-up" Druitt says "we are in unchartered territory"

Speaking of Perth it was reported in todays Australian newspaper that this city(Perth) has had the largest drop ever recorded in house prices...Nothing in the local West Australian on the matter that i could find...funny that..in fact local real estate try to talk up market,but then of course we must always remain positive..must we not??

10 seconds of research found this:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/stor...02-951,00.html

That is the same story I quoted. I am not sure which part of the Murdoch empire it originated from but the same story seems to go across all the editions. You could say that if Murdoch press is predicting a fall then boom times are ahead

10% down in Perth is nothing. I'm not sure how far ahead in the cycle Britain is, but six months seems to be an accurate measure. Also, the UK seems to be about six months behind the US.

Anyway, six months ago, in May 2008, the bulk of the UK was still deeply in the denial phase. We had suffered something like 7% off average house prices and people still talked of a "blip". Now, the average house has lost more than 15% and dropping, thousands of people are being made redundant, car plants are closing for months at a time, the government is holding emergency sessions and getting desperate with VAT cuts, repossessions are climbing fast, and 1 in 5 houses on the market are now forced sales.

From this point, I think we can see that this only ends one way. Houses will continue to plummet in value, wage deflation will cause a drop in living standards and jobs will become much harder to find, especially in manufacturing and construction, etc. I got laughed at for predicting, a year ago, that houses would lose 30% of their value, but now this seems like the good scenario.

I appreciate the economies are different -in some cases importantly so - but the over-valuation of housing stock and average wage/average income ratios of UK and Australia are frighteningly similar. And with that in mind I reiterate my prediction that the $500,000 houses will cost $350,000 at most in a year's time.

what about the 300k houses will they only be worth 100k-200k?

[QUOTE=Tableland;6998776] dont believe every thing you read in papers houses are selling not at the rate they were but sales are improving .

24th November 2008, 11:00 WST
in the West Australian ..

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.as...ntentID=109727

Well, if a $300,000 property were to fall by the same percentage then it hit the bottom at $210,000. But really, who knows? I am waiting and watching.

"REIWA President Rob Druitt said he expected prices to recover"

It depends on how much that 300k house got inflated in the first place.

You don't seriously expect real estate agents or their reps to predict a fall in house prices????

They want everyone to think that prices are going to go back up very soon. Of course, the gullible may well believe them, but anyone buying a house will hopefully get some decent advice from someone who does not have a vested interest in ripping home buyers off.

[QUOTE=ABCDiamond;7003391]24th November 2008, 11:00 WST
in the West Australian ..


[url]http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&CYes, but a positive spin put on it compared to Australian article..naturally as Wests version has an industry quote