Same here

We came to the UK in July 2001, and the job market was booming, and the housing was just afordable.
Then came 9/11 and the IT jobs died. December I got a job in an ISP just as DSL became mainstream.

**Ring Ring** Hello..oh your dsl has stopped working..error 721?...ok, I'll send it off to BT to fix..no..that part of the DSL is owned by BT, and they have to fix it...no we won't send someone out to your house right now..thanks bye.. *scream*

Three years of that, on minimum wage and then a better ISP, and then some small startups run by managers who will make sure they stay small. Now a big ISP...

So now it's time to come home to Oz, and I have a flat that's not selling.

But hey...I could have stayed in Oz in my little regional town, but on a decent wage, and thinking this culture stuff..id be good init

Oh well lots of things to see and do in London.

House prices suck universally in Oz these days. Caught onto 'chasing the almighty dollar' have the Aussies.

On the plus side living in Perth you can catch Tiger Airline out Oz for peanuts compared to the rest of Oz and once outta Oz book locally for the singapore UK flight

I think it's the double wammy of Cost-Push inflation, due to the cost of materials going up, and Demand-Pull inflation as the amount of houses being built aren't keeping up with demand.

Everyone and their goanna know the prices are to high, but noone really wants them to crash.

Something needs to be done cos house just aren't affordable here any more full stop. Age old case of the rich getting richer.

Demand does not make a $150K house worth 3 times that no matter what anyone says. All it is are development companies raping Aussies of their hard earned and CEO buying a new yacht. I've nowt against shares doing well as that every aussies retirement fund there but this government are gutless self satisfying dimwits, and thats being polite

Do you seriously think it is only the rich that own houses? I know plenty of people who are not rich but own their own house.


I gather that prices have risen a lot in recent years from what I have read on BE, but I still think houses are far more affordable in Australia than in South East England so as a recent arrival, I don't feel particularly aggrieved myself.

As long as teh baby boomers have a monoply on the market prices here will alays be high. Add to the fact that everyone in the world is migrating here and prices will remain higher still. most of my parents friends own between 5-10 houses here in Perth. thats one of the fundamental things about housing people fail to understand about Australia

Its not going down anytime soon.

And thats the thing. This generation are going to struggle with mortgages on a single house let alone an investment one. I saw my in-laws road of property lots go from $80k to 200K+ in less than 5 years. Now thats just wrong

5-10 houses? Great if they own them outright, but I am guessing there's debt involved. A lot of debt, possibly. One wonders if they are making money on these investments, if you compare rentals to purchase prices.

Plenty of people in Ireland got stung by being greedy and buying 4 or 5 cheap houses during the boom and renting them out to Eastern Europeans, once unemployment started shooting up all the immigrants left and with no one to pay rent and the mortgages all these people defaulted and so the whole deck of cards collapsed.

Funny, these people all though the same thing too - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7040061.stm - coming soon, to a street near you...

P.S. "everyone in the world" is not migrating here and the baby boomers are turning into retiree's, who traditionally tend to cash in their investments to fund their retirements. Perth especially looks like a ticking timebomb in some areas.

That could apply here too for sure.

In the UK it was called BTL, here its "Property Investment", and it works until it doesn't - remeber Anthea Turner who was raking it in on her "Property Investments", but the thing with borrowing to invest is the debt remains if the investment goes down - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...it-crunch.html

80-200k in 5 years is roughly the same our UK property increased way back between 1983 and 88, so it's not just Oz. I think Oz has just caught up with the rest of the world probably due to so many people migrating here and an increase in the number of Aussies too.

You don't have to be rich here to own a property portfolio, I know and read of several people with "ordinary jobs" owing 5 plus properties although I don't think it's so easy now because prices to buy have gone up so much. Used to be rent was 10% of property value but now that has got out of line so you need the old negative gearing and other tax breaks to make it worth while and of course property values to continue to increase! Oz property would be in dire trouble if that was taken away!

It is now 2010, how can a family house in an area people want to live be worth AU $150,000.

That is probably a minimum figure to build something acceptable and then it has to sit on a serviced block of land with all that that entails and then the builder has to make a profit just like anyone else. Surely a new family house has to cost around $340,000 minimum to produce.