The Julian Robertson interview sounded like a hoax and it was:
http://www.andongkim.com/articles/2005/07/cnbcstoryjrobertsonandongkim.htm

Anyone who thinks these tax breaks are better than lower tax rates needs their economic head read.
Hear Hear!

Amazing divergence of opinions on the effect of the removal of the vendor tax. Louis Christopher, head of research at APM reckons it will put a floor under prices, while Gittins and other economists predict it will trigger further falls…[Read more]

Fascinating post Terry W.

Its interesting to see the wildly different attitudes to property investing in different countries. Most of the Anglosphere (UK, USA, NZ, Aus etc) has gone property crazy in recent years, while most of continental Europe and Japan couldn’t be less interested.

In Australia, perhaps as much as 50% of our economic…[Read more]

Has anyone considered that abolishing the vendor tax will bring a flood of sellers into the market and who have been holding onto their IPs because of the vendor tax?

More sellers means lower prices.

So you think, WA will have 4-5 year growth?
No idea … depends when the resources boom ends. Bear in mind that prices (and demand) for resources are at record highs and no-one expects these prices to last forever.

Simple answer: Resources boom.

There’s a lot of money sloshing around WA at the moment, it has to go somewhere, and Aussies being Aussies will put it into houses before anything else.

Do the new Peugots have such engines? The fuel consumption on their mid size diesels are incredible. If they can run on bio-diesel I might be interested.
Any idea?

Peugeot makes good diesels, but I recently sold a late model Peugeot because it fell apart on me (literally).

I now own a 2.0L VW Golf turbo diesel. This car has the same torque…[Read more]

Agreed. I won’t start complaining until prices get above $2.50/l. I think reducing our reliance on oil would be a good idea, and higher costs at the pump will help. Anybody who struggles to afford $1.20/l is likely to be lacking financial nouse.

On a side note, today’s newspaper reports that Swiss scientists have developed a car using hydrogen…[Read more]

I went to an inner suburban auction Saturday, beautifully finished new townhouse. Bizarre auction … hardly anyone there. First two bids were vendor bids, then the auctioneer went for instructions and two sales people worked on the two interested parties (took about 30 minutes, while we stood around like stale bottles of beer – some people left…[Read more]

Patrick, this is a pretty representative thread about the state of the market:

https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forum/topic/17947.html

My view (in brief):
– Not all cities the same, east coast markets have slowed with prices slowly drifting down, while Perth continues to boom.
– Volumes down sharply in east coast markets
– Properties take…[Read more]

Interestingly very few economists/analysts are prediciting a house price crash in nominal terms, just about everyone expects a decade of stagnation.

Shane Oliver concludes:
In the absence of sharply higher interest rates or unemployment, both of which seem unlikely, Australian house prices are now in for a decade or so of stagnation as rents and…[Read more]

I can see your view point , however by taking that view point , you will not change the way the Australian Property market works.
No, the way the Australian Property market works has already changed. The bubble is deflating and we are very unlikely to see much real capital growth (i.e. above inflation) for the next 10 years. So your strategy of…[Read more]

Amused, people like you make me despair of this country. The great economic success stories of the past 60 years (Germany, Japan and now China) were not created by building houses, they were created with exports. You cannot create wealth by buying and selling houses, real wealth is created by selling something to the rest of the world.

I’ll…[Read more]

what r u doing about creating WEALTH for your future
I’m developing software and selling it to the world and fighting a losing battle to reduce our foreign debt. Someone has to!

As for investing I have no plans to invest in real estate for the next 3-5 years at least, apart from my PPOR. (I’m between houses ATM)

As for other investment…[Read more]

I just disagree that thumping the property industry is the way to achieve higher exports.

I’m not “thumping” the property industry. There is a place in any economy for property investment and development. I’m simply making the point that the property industry in Australia has grown out of all proportions and sucked in resources from other…[Read more]

For all those thinking lower interest rates mean a renewed property boom should realise that the only reason the RBA would lower rates is if the economy struck trouble. i.e. a slowdown (or recession) and higher unemployment. This is not an environment where property prices rise.

This is the most interesting comment in the BRW article:
The…[Read more]

resiwealth,

My main problem with the way Australia operates (and the kind of thinking that I find at this forum) is that we’ve become convinced as a nation that the one sure way to prosperity is not to work hard and save, but to borrow and invest in property. The obvious flaw in this thinking is that if all Australians did this we would rapidly…[Read more]

If you look at previous housing cycles in Australia a boom is followed by an extended period (5 years or longer) of flat or slowly declining prices. This is what happened after the housing booms in the early 80s and late 80s, and there is no reason to think that things will be different this time. Indeed, the “flat to down” period my be longer…[Read more]

I bought a property in 1994 that every body told me i was an idiot
So you bought 5 years after the peak and before the boom. You’re a genius! What about the poor buggers who were still in school/univesity in 1994? They’ve been waiting >10 years for sensible prices to return.

today i am rubbing it in their faces because of the profit i have…[Read more]

Dmichie we have reached concensus before on how to fix this – taxation reform.
It depends. If we do get a nasty recession, and the blame gets pinned on the taxation system for encouraging rampant speculation, we might yet be rid of negative gearing, CGT concessions etc.

The only time a politician of any flavour would have the courage to do this…[Read more]