http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-3...ecades/4493418

Sure am glad I didn't buy my property at the peak or in fact at anytime in the last 5 years, lots of people are in for a rude shock when they find out they paid double what the place is actually worth.

Or.................................http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-...-house-prices/

done to death please, please move on

I know but it's still hilarious.

A houses is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, and that usually relates to the location as much as the building. When money is tight, people buy what they need rather than what they want, so the $1M house in the posh street gets passed over in favour of the $500k house in the less popular street two suburbs away.

Most of the people in trouble when house prices fall are the ones who mortgaged themselves up to the hilt to buy the "best" house they could, and now find that the house is worth less than they borrowed and the bank is on their backs to reduce their mortgage. Buy what you know you can afford, taking into account the regular price cycles, and you shouldn't have a problem.

(Said by someone who's house has been mortgage-free for years, who doesn't intend to move, and so to whom house prices are irrelevant!)

Anyone else noticing construction and engineering firms laying off staff of late? Usually the start of increasing unemployment and the first industry to go. Just saying.

Snap - I was thinking about the people who were conned into buying a 450k weatherboard dogbox and sucked in by the media hype, the government spin and the real estate agents bullshit about how house prices never go down and they better jump in quick and pay the 450k before its 600k and they have priced themselves out of the market, only to find (as you said) that now their palace is worth the 240k it always was and they are 200k+ upside down and stressing over the payments.

Or the people that bought 2 investment properties with delusions of grandeur thinking they could rent them out to some plebs for 500+ bucks a week and sit back doing sweet FA for the rest of their lives. who have now had that little capitalistic dream pulled right out from under them and are staring at the new saab parked in the driveway wondering how the hell they are going to make next months payment and how much they are going to miss swanning into their local trattoria 5 days a week for morning cafe lattes and bagels

My 3-bed weatherboard dogbox cost me $330k back in 2004, since then I've spent over $100k on it (new deck, new kitchen, both bathrooms renovated etc.) and my real estate agent friend reckons I could get $600+k for a quick sale and up to $700k if I waited for the right buyer - but since I owe nothing on it and have no intention of moving in the near future, who cares?

I work for an engineering firm (oil & gas) and our problem is finding enough suitably experienced engineers, not laying off the ones we have.

I think Australian houses are around 40% over-valued on average, and will crash to trend eventually - that is inevitable.

BUT.... eventually is a long time. House prices can only be brought down by high unemployment, rising interest rates or massive new lands releases. In terms of rates, Aus is on the way down to a near ZIRP, so I think you have a long time to wait.. sorry.

Yet house prices in capitals went up by 1.2 pct last month

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busi...-1226566639717

Rate cuts. It's an iron lung for a housing market that is floating on nothing but hot air. Aussie has a long way to go with the rate cuts and that's why I'm not expecting prices to go down any time soon.

Australia has some of the highest private debt on Earth, and that is largely because of mortgage debt. The Government is kept up at night thinking about what happens to the banks if that debt goes bad, so they cut rates over and over again like US and UK. It's irrelevant that this impoverishes pensioners and savers, as we have seen.

The fact that the commercial channels wheel shills out to tell people to get mortgages now before rates go up is a national scandal. They are going to lower rates, drip, drip, drip over the next few years.

I would have imagined that a lot of that private mortgage debt is in investment housing which buoys the rental market. I'm not sure what the implications of people being over exposed in that market.... What happens to the renters ? What effect do they have on the market if suddenly turned over. Surely the renters would enter the sellers market in large numbers at a certain point. With presumably large government incentives ?

It depends entirely on where you are. Our suburb seems to be holding it's value well and houses are still moving. Things slumped for a little while but in the last six months they seem to have picked up again. Old demolition job in our street had people lining up to buy if the sale fell through and putting their names down on the list to buy if anything else came up in the area - old dear across the road's house was on the market for less than two weeks and the sold sticker is up on the sign (I'm a bit miffed, didn't even get to check out the home open).

Your Real Estate friend .... that's quite funny ... knock $50-$100k off and your good to go.

pomikev failed to mention timelines in his post. Anything purchased more than 5 years ago is unlikely to see a loss. I think, I presume, I hope he's referring to property purchased in the last 5 years

ah Oil and Gas .... I did cast a pretty wide net over engineers. The business I work for a split up into different engineering divisions and Oil and Gas saw record growth last year. Our mining divisions are having a disaster and construction isn't far behind.