Property Myth

and of course no one had considered what to do with a whole stack of 457 visa workers, we don't need anymore

soon the property shortage (so called – gotta have some fear in the market – those clowns could not sell without it) will be a memory

other factor is what happens when people become unemployed, they head to the beach – they get out of the expensive cities that eat up their benefits go coastal and relax and wait out the upturn.

and my guess is that the stockmarket could jump 33% next year – all the way to 4500

I'm in London, trying to sell up and emigrate to Adelaide.
Ignoring that the UK has already had a house price slump, which is continuing, and now our GBP is just crashing in value the plan was to sell up our modest UK house and buy a nice home in SA, in the early days a couple of years ago I thought I'd be able to buy a house and an IP for the kids!
Don't think I can afford it any more, 2 years ago I had a paper figure of nearly $400k to bring over, today it would be around $250k to $260k.
I'm likely to be one of those migrants you mention who won't be bringing my money over to Australia any more, it's looking more like financial suicide every week.

What I'm surprised by is that Australia seems (from my very specific perspective) to have survived realtively unscathed from the global downturn so far.  Sure your dollar is no longer nearing parity with the USD, and everyones shares have taken a beating, but all things considered you're still waiting for the hammer to fall – if indeed it does. Will China's needs save your bacon?

I'm generalising rather a lot here, again from a very focussed perspective, but many Australians are still talking about house prices levelling rather than falling. I suspect you may have a delayed reaction but surely serious downward pressure must hit Australia in the coming months?

London has virtually no spare land, you should see what they do when what you would consider a postage stamp sized block comes up for sale. Flats are looking more like 3/4 scale dolls houses. If a pub or a petrol station closes a block of tiny low quality flats pops up in it's place.
Or at least that is what has been happening, the building industry is grinding to a halt now.
You are still the Lucky Country at the moment, and you've still got space – more than you may realise compared to us Brits.
Good luck to you, I hope the downturn doesn't clobber you the way it's clobbered us.

Keep talking about it though, because finding accurate or insightful news from Australia is very hard from here – any tips where I can look?

clones – you think a 30% fall is "big time"? lets wait for 50%

lets look back at oil. there was a "huge shortage" proclaimed a year ago. since then its fallen 75%. what happened to the shortage? is it just as mystical as the "housing shortage"?

Don't Buy  – Wait….
 
2009 will be bad for employment and houses above $300,000 will fall and fall over the year. Cheap houses will sell to first home buyers and they will live in them for 6 months then rent them out and move back home.

Just look at any suburb on realestate.com or any other house site, I have been watching for months now as house prices fall and fall, anyone with half a brain can see them dropping.
A month or so previous I said wait it will not be long for bargains, but I was wrong, you need to wait a few more months or even a year or so before we get to the bottom.

Yes.. I do agree with above opinions. But.. if you search through domain.com.au, the apartment prices across the sydney still similar to the price early this year. Vendors are reluctant to offload the property and Real Estate Agents are talking up the price. I am still sitting on the side line… probably looking at next year.