I think it’s pretty clear that Australia is in the middle of a significant real estate bubble fuelled by speculative investment, tax incentives, and government stimulus.
Rather than harp on about all the reasons why explosive property appreciation isn’t good for the economy (and isn’t sustainable), I’ll just post some links to websites that serve as appropriate counter-balances to the wide-spread (and well-funded) property spruiking shenanigans that somehow pass for journalism in Australia.
General information:
- Bubblepedia: Wiki and forums discussing the Australian property bubble. I recommend subscribing to their RSS feed so that you can read articles they link to (and make up your own mind).
Blogs:
- Delusion Economics: “An Economic Realist Practitioners Blog with an Australian Slant.” Frequently updated; heaps of graphs.
- The Unconventional Economist: “A contrarian examination of economic and financial issues from an Australian perspective.”
- Steve Keen’s Debtwatch: “Analysing the Global Debt Bubble.”
Price histories:
- REFind: Property advertising history (“The best way to track Real Estate and rental price reductions for individual properties.”)
- Old Listings: Look at old listings (advertised prices for houses) per suburb, and browse through listings per street.
Philosophical / Political:
- Prosper Australia: “This land is your land.” Geoist group promoting replacement of all current taxes with land and resource rental taxes.
- Land Values Research Group: “Economics as if location matters.” Statistical arm of Prosper Australia.
- Earthsharing Australia: A sister organisation to Prosper Australia.
Suspicious:
- apm Home Price Guide: Used to list up-to-date monthly price changes. Now only lists year-to-date prices until ~3 months ago and a positive “long-term trend”. (Still useful as a reference for “discounting” though.)
- RP Data suburb reports: Only lists aggregated data and median prices, but the effects of (increases and decreases in) government stimulus are visible in many suburbs.
Do you have an opinion on housing prices? If so, please leave a comment.