While I'm no fan of the carbon tax or Lab for that matter I suggest not slitting one's wrist just yet. There is supposed to be a trade off with increased CT costs and tax reductions (increases to tax free thresholds) in other areas. It's also a tax deductible item I believe (because its not differentiated as part of your council rates bill).

Because your effectively a business for tax purposes you should be able to manage this without too much difficulty and very little cost if any over all.

The insurance thing is a result of insurance co's being literally smashed both here and in NZ ($5B+) with a series of major disasters that have cost them big. Their reinsurers have also taken big hits globally and many of the local insurers face significant increases in reinsurance premiums. Your risk will profile will certainly up your premium but even a low or unchanged risk profile will still see some of the risk burden distributed across the broader customer base.

There's also a change to flood cover and its definition after the debacle in Qld. Check to see what they're offering in that context. 

You can only shop around and do the best you can. Everyone will be in the same boat.

Well it must be coincidence then that your parroting the same economic theme as the Kouk (and others) then. It's one of the reason I challenge your posts Bardon. They often reflect MSM or industry hype with little supporting comment of your own. You then draw conclusion from this low grade information which rarely matches real world conditions.

• Some more good numbers out recently on the housing market, affordability, GDP, interest rates, population and rents.  The long term residential property investment fundamentals that were always there are hopefully a bit clearer to all now.

​affordability – affordability has improved in some sectors of the market only because the market has fallen or stagnated but not all sectors by a long shot

GDP​ – our GDP is out of wack with our trading partners and most of the western economies. That should ring alarm bells as to its makeup and accuracy. 

• Treasury admits GDP used inappropriately

  Shraysi Tandon  September 17, 2010     A senior Treasury official has admitted that his department has been guilty of overusing gross domestic product (GDP), after recognising that it is a flawed measure of economic wellbeing and social progress.

• another aspect of an out of wack GDP is the huge capital investment program in place within the resource sector. This currently contributes around 25% to GDP. Current GDP figures aren't likely to hold up given the likely down turn in resource expansion project

interest rates – interest rates are dropping because the economy is struggling. So why does an economy with a supposedly healthy GDP growth rate of 4.3% need to stimulate spending by dropping rates? Another warning bell.

population – I'm not 100% sure what your aiming at here but I'm guessing you're suggesting pop growth has a beneficial impact in RE price growth. I would consider that part of the picture if supply was an issue but its not so again I'm not sure where your going with this.

 rents – rents (excluding Perth and Darwin) haven't risen however rental yields have. When yields rise that usually means asset values are dropping.

So my contention is the numbers aren't good once you lift the bonnet and dig a little deeper. You'll have to elaborate on the second part of your statement about fundamentals and it's all clearer now. Your statement was too vague to make anything clear that I can get my head around anyway.

I would also consider reverse ordering the threads. Perhaps as an option. It's less clicks to jump to the latest post not the first of a thread which I then have to click again. I do notice that one can jump to the last page from the forum threads page though – that's good.

Another handy tool is a "JUMP TO" option at the bottom of the page that gets you straight to a particular forum. It's usually a drop down box.

Can we loose the SAVE text and replace it with POST.

I notice that when I page back I can only go to the first page after I click Quote to start a reply not all the way back to the thread when I first clicked on it. I often do several revisions of a post (previewing). Before I post I will sometimes select all in the comment box and then copy it. I'll then return to the thread, paste into a clean comment box and reread the relevant comments in the thread before posting. I notice the copy function in the rich text editor is disabled also. I have to switch to plain text to copy

If I understand you correctly you are saying it's not a coincidence so therefore you are drawing from the Kouks blogs as part of your post. You do know why they call him The Kouk and no it's not short for his surname.

As to facts well….

Fact is sometimes used synonymously with truth, as distinct from opinions, falsehoods, or matters of taste.

I think they more accurately reflect opinion or engineered outcomes but facts is somewhat of a stretch.

You're saying your post is not substantially a point for point summary of one of the Kouks blogs.

http://www.marketeconomics.com.au/2164-australias-best-economic-fundamentals-since-1964

• Australia has GDP growth of 4.3%, at the same time inflation is running at 1.3%, at the same time the unemployment rate is below 5.5% (5.2% to be precise), at the same time mortgage interest rates are below 7% (6.85% for the standard variable rate).

Amazing coincidence if it's not.

And if I allowed myself to be unduly influenced by the "doom sayers" I would bury my head in the barren sand and miss out on those opportunities. So my choice is to look for the positives on offer.

And there is of course the opposite to that position. Those who are prone to positive bias and jump in with both feet. I'm neither pro nor con most markets. They are either opportunities to be taken or avoided subject to risk reward trade-offs. The trick with most investing is try and stay objective without letting too much bias creep in from either way. 

I'd rate anything Simon Pressley says as somewhere between the Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland. He's actually worse than most of the so called doomsayers just on the other end of the spectrum. 98% of his article was simply noise.

"It's good to see a few more positive articles finally emerging to counter the prevalence of negative articles, statements and comments which the media focuses on."

​It's irrelevant whether or not information is negative or positive. It's all just market information. What is important is how credible, useful and informative the info is. Markets ebb and flow on information. Investors live and die on the accuracy, credibility and timing of market intelligence.

It's what you do with information and how you analyse it that's important.

If you choose to be positive in a bearish market simply to hang and be seen with the pro property crowd then you run the risk of being taken out of your position in a bear market. If you genuinely believe the MSM market hype is wrong then put a case that supports an alternative.

While I don't generally follow MSM commentary one has to consider the old adage, "Where there's smoke there's probably fire". 

Nathan and I don’t see eye to eye on a few things (philosophical mainly) a bit over the top for me but I’d rate him as an honest ethical young guy who’ll do his best to try an help you. Up to you if you think what he offers is value for money for your situation.

It may all be moot anyway if prices keep declining at their current rate.

Thailand’s top coal miner Banpu has suspended up to US$600 million of its four-year investment plan and lowered its production target by 10% due to softening coal prices.

Of the total amount,investments allocated for Australian operations will be lowered by to $400 million. Capital expenditure planned for Indonesia will be cut by $100 million from $345 million, while the budget for Mongolia is down by $250 million from $400 million.

Then you have India the supposedly new mega market for coal as it tries to grow electricity output to support economic growth. Problem is that idea is falling apart fast. They have mandated cheap electricity however they can’t sustain that with current imported coal prices.

For Australia there are plenty of international suppliers (competitors), a market glut and soft prices. Australian miners need to get around $80/t (thermal coal) to get past break even but new mines will struggle to stay viable at that price.

For those investing or invested in towns within coal mining regions there may well be tough times ahead. The downward pressure on prices is likely to remain for the foreseeable future and the likelihood of mines going into care and maintenance along with suspended expansion plans seems highly likely.

Foundation of all economies is small business.

Whenever governments interfere in markets they invariably create bubbles and distort market fundamentals . Property affordability is at its lowest in modern history so I have no idea how you draw the these conclusions.