Are we different? Australian housing notches up 10 months of declines.

Further doubt has been cast today, if Australia’s housing market is in fact different to the rest of the world.

The latest RP data update on Australia’s capital city market has shown house prices have fallen a seasonally adjusted 4 percent for the 12 months to October 2011. Prices fell 0.5 percent alone in the month of October suggesting the pace of the correction has accelerated.

On a monthly basis, Brisbane was the hardest hit recording a fall of 1.6 percent s.a., with Adelaide just behind with a 1.3 percent fall. On the other end of the scale, Hobart and Canberra did manage to record gains for the month, up 3.1 and 1.6 percent respectively.

This new data shows house prices in Australia have now clocked up 10 consecutive months of declines. Just last week, the Economist magazine released its yearly update on housing markets around the globe, reporting that Australia, Belgium, Canada and France are more overvalued today than at the peak of the American housing bubble. Data also shows Australian households now have more debt as a percentage of household disposable income than at the peak of the American subprime mortgage bubble.

Do you think Australia is different, or will the Australian housing bubble head in exactly the same direction than our oversea’s counterparts who had similar size bubbles? Where do you believe the market will be this time next year?

» Home price falls accelerate – The Age, 30th November 2011.
» House prices continue run of falls – The ABC, 30th November 2011.




13 Comments

  1. Hard to say, I mean everywhere is different in the same way I guess. That should cover all basis. But when the media and Real Estate commentators state that, property sales are slow due to things like the weather, if that can happen here, we’re different!

  2. The Gold Coast is a true reality check for Oz. Hedges avenue property on Mermaid Beach sold $17.5 million in 2007, recently resold $7.7 million. If thats not the sound of an enormous bubble deflating what is? Judging by the number of mortgagee sales deduct at least 15% per year for the next 3 years. Rents are also falling as more empty highrises come onto the market. Definately will imitate Japan and stay down for a long time when it hits rock bottom.

  3. A ponzi scheme is a ponzi scheme and it always ends the same way no matter where it is found in the world. Bankers and politicians should be held accountable for instigating and benefitting from illegal activity. Why are the criminals who masterminded the Global Credit Crisis not behind bars?

  4. @Charles Ponzi, Bankers and now Australian politicians alike, have bestowed huge pay rises upon themselves. Just today!

    People of this forum/blog. Do not tell your children to become Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, or any other (once) respectable profoession. Especially such professions that require one to actually know something, and become skilled to earn an income (gone for good now).

    Push them into Politics or Banks.

    “The penality for not part taking in Politics is you end up ruled by your inferiors.”
    – Plato

  5. 10 months consecutive house price drops!!. That doesnt even come close compared to North Queensland. How about 4 years of drops. Now you can buy houses here 15% cheaper than if you built it 4 years ago.
    How far will it go

  6. LOL, that is awesome

    Crazy no straight rhyme or reason.

    Just look past events, around imploding around.

    Instead, both agents and buyer advocates are victims of their grand delusions now.

    At the same time the pursuit of reality becomes a passion among the more actively minded people reckon.

  7. Bank deposits are up 10% in the past year.

    Credit growth is up 3.5%.

    Mmmmm……are assets at the top of their “trading range” likely to continue to rise……

    Yeah, the day it snows in hell.

    The stimulus to revert this trend will have to be executed perfectly, but I doubt it could actually have any effect.

  8. I’m an Aussie and as optimistic as I’d like to be, Australia isn’t immune. The prices have moved beyond affordibility thanks to Banks and the Real Estate industry supported by the media. The market is bloated teeding banks & greedy agents. The push might come from another corner of the economy, who knows when but it will come. Lets see what happens when China slows down. We like to think we are different and to a degree we are but not immune.

  9. Properties were selling within a week a couple of years ago on the Gold Coast. Now the same property has been sitting there for 12 month with no interest??? We used to show 2 clients a property and one would buy(from approx 2003-2007ish). In the current market we could show up to 30 clients with 12months of price drops and still no one wants it. I guess all the silly southerners & overseas investors have all woken up…… Buying a house in Main Beach on the Gold Coast on the absolute beachfront 900sqm block with house back in 2002 was approx. $580K in 2007 that same house sold for 16million that’s better than winning the lotto… Your average house and land on the Coast was approx. $80k in 2002 than 2007 the same houses were selling for $500k now hard to sell for $330… I cant see the future but the Gold Coast housing market is slowing going down down down for a while yet.????

  10. All tax payers need to chip in once again and hand out more money to prop up this decline in housing prices.

    As an optimist, I love expensive food, clothing and shelter.

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