The bias is on the pro side and outnumbers my voice by a 1000:1. But let me correct your interpretation of my perspective. I've never said don't invest. What I do say is that the landscape is far more challenging and complex than what it was a year or two ago. If you're going to wet your feet by all means do. I do not advocate a sudden stop in commerce simply because debt piles are potentially catastrophic. 

There are 2 types here on this forum. The small band of industry integrated pro investors who have a pecuniary interest in encouraging new investors and the wannabe's with a sprinkling of novice investors. I rarely see anyone warn the newbies of the risks inherent in the market place. That would go against the theme here that property is the key to wealth because it always go up.

Most Of my rhetoric is targeted at the dumb as chips novice who swallows the marketing hype hook line and sinker which is constantly reinforced by active players who are barely any more knowledgeable than the newbies or players with a industry interest and do nothing tangible to dampen the hype.

The only thing that sustains Australia is China printing $200+billion per month and the property ponzi that the banks and govt sustain because they have no other bullets for their gun. 50% of AU's exports go to China, Sth Korea and Japan. They're all printing as fast as their printers will go to hold this baby together. When they run out of ink its game over.

Debt piles of this magnitude have never been seen before but every preceding pile ended in tears. There is no evidence that this time will be any different.

SS you can argue the toss all you like but I don't know any top tier investor that is leveraging up. Every smart investor I know, know of or read about is deleveraging. That doesn't mean they're not active but they are far more judicious and conservative in their assessments and are reducing their gearing as they go. Most I know have been doing it for the last 2 years.

Your average leveraged to the gills Pi won't be able to re-gear when the proverbial hits the fan. 

Well that's funny.. I must have a comprehension problem then. When leading investors on this board, some with multi million dollar portfolios, say they are paying down debt I must be be misinterpreting their intentions. Pray tell what the hell are they doing then when standard investing mantra is to use leveraged to the gills strategies to grow a portfolio based on the belief that home prices always go up

The game of life is knowing when to join the game and when to take a spell on the sidelines however that is too simplistic. Many like yourself look at these things in black and white for the most part. I don't say don't invest or take risks. I've always said understand the risks and plan accordingly. For a newbie leveraging to the gills in a high risk environment is a risk I don't endorse.

The reality is we are already in the early stages of a crash. Most either don't recognise it or if they do then they choose to opt for cognitive dissonance and hope it all goes away. There are many out there in the game who understand the situation and are playing it for all it's worth. EG they're banking on govt's and CB's to hold economies up by printing, pushing the prices of assets up and then bailing when the this thing gets out of control. If they get their timing right they come back in and clean up the bankrupt players for pennies on the dollar.

I expect to see the AU property market get some protection from the Abbot govt. It's the only bubble they still have and they're milking it for everything it's worth while their deficits build and the economy tanks. But when they can't hold it together anymore the correction will hurt.

Get your timing right if you want to play in this game. If you need to take a more than 70% leveraged position to play in this game then your just fish food for the bigs guys.

Want to exit the market… better a day early then a year too late.

Simple logic. You can over complicate this thing but the reality is you can't grow debt faster than income indefinitely. China has been growing its debt at twice the rate of growth for a decade now. Its debt burden is twice its GDP and mostly held by corporations. In 5 years its banking sector grew to the same size as the US sector which took 100 years.

Debt is simply borrowing consumption from the future. To repay it you have to reduce consumption at somewhere on the timeline. When you reduce consumption you kill jobs and the economy. It's what you get when economies are predicated on continuous growth to survive.

If you look at historic native economies that lived on islands you can understand what a sustainable economy looks like. Growth in everything is miniscule. Population growth is near or at zero. The local resources (land & sea) are utilised in a sustainable way. Compare that to the Easter Is culture that destroyed itself by overpopulation and over utilisation of natural resources. Their economy and resource supply crashed and their population along with it. A realistic model of our own destiny if ever there was one.

Globally everything we do is unsustainable and the signs of an impending collapse are everywhere. People choose to not recognise it because as population growth continues we all have less on average so competition for more or to simply hold one's ground increases. You can't stop a starving man from eating his last bowl of corn seed to survive another day so he eats it and dies another day. That's the mentality we face as a civilization. You will never get everyone to collectively abstain from doing the things that will ultimately destroy us.

We are caught in a trap of our own making. Grow or die but ultimately we outgrow our resources and die anyway. The only difference is die today or die tomorrow. In order for the system to survive some must die for it to return to a sustainable state. The only problem there are no volunteers so a return to equilibrium will almost certainly be a catastrophic experience for many when it arrives.

At the end of the day its simple age old truism.. spend more than you earn and you go bust. No individual, entity or God is exempt from this rule.

So when you use debt to grow and you outpace your incomes ability to service that debt then there is only one conclusion.

The GFC woke me up and I started taking a lot more notice of what was going on. By 2010 I saw the writing was on the wall. I projected a timeline some years ago and made plans to make a dollar or two, sellup and hunker down. I tried to tell a few other the same thing. Most said, "no way…..China will run for 20 years". Those I told then are either under water, going broke or in receivership. 

There is no escaping the correction that is coming. The winners will be those with low levels of leverage and enough capacity to take a hit and carry on. The recovery will take decades if ever (think Japan).

If the newbies here get their head out of their guru training manuals for a minute and take a look around they'll find that just about every top tier property investor is deleveraging as fast as they can. The smart money is getting ready for the next crash and they will be the investors who will clean up after the dust settles. All those newbies heading into the markets over the last few years are just cannon fodder and largely kidding themselves into believing they have a foot on the gravy train. 

You can't. Even if you lived here and dealt face to face with the individuals you may be none the wiser.

You go with recommendations by fellow buyers who have had successful experiences in the past.

A friends son (a tradesman) has dealt with a major contracting firm for years. It had a very good reputation for decades until the son took over a few years back. Sub contractors are going broke and he owes 100's of 1000's around the place but could still afford to buy a $200k SUV. 

One negatively geared property is the typical property portfolio of the average (60%) Australian. The next 20% don't fair much better with only marginal profit at best. CG tends to be poor (around trend) in the 0-80% range. 

The next 10 -15% tend to have multiple properties (3-10) buy well and manage fairly aggressively. The top 5% of which 1-3% constitute the Guru class are the multi million portfolio's and participate within the industry on a high profile professional basis.

Studying's one thing learning's another. Listen to Jay. He's forgotten more than you'll ever know.

Currencies require 3 things;

1. acceptance (internationally recognised as valuable on a wide scale and legitimised by authorities)
2. integration (meshed in with other systems and legitimate currencies)
3. security (protected from loss while in the system)

Crypto currencies are a long way from meeting any of these requirements at this stage. Until they do buying into them is simply shooting dice at the casino.