Very few, if any, property bulls distinguish the better of the dwellings types when they commment on property prices or when they encourage/advise people to buy rather than rent.
For a traditonal property market to function properly you need both buyers and renters. There is always a need to bring things back to balance should one side deviate significantly form the equilibrium point.
As a keen observer of the property market, not an expert as i still have lots to learn. I have witness rents generally contract across all sector of the market; commercial, industrial, retail and lately residential due to increased vacancy.
The only ones increasing rent are the unique/specialised properties that are still in demand or short in supply or those with existing leases with fixed rent reviews. Those being reviewed to market are either stagnant or contracting.
Those idiotic commercial managers are doing what most owners want, increasing income streams to help drive up capital values. Should yeilds contract on lower rents the capital values will eventually follow. For long term owners the contracting yields are not that much of an issue as they have already had a windfall over the past 10 years. For those highly leverage who bought more recently, last 5 years or so any yield contraction could eventually spell desaster.
Passive we all guess, no one knows exactly what is going to happen and when..I comment on the trend i witness, there are too many variables and potential market manipulation strategies implimentatble for anyone to be able to accurately put a finger on when a market turns. The banks are too highly exposed to property (residential in paritcular) for them or the government to sit by and let natural market forces play-out a downturn without attempts to interfere, can there interference continue to be successful is something we will eventually witness.
I dont mean to be patronising i just ask those question to get readers to think about them and do their own research without sounding like i'm giving a lecture.
PS Generally I think the only bad time to buy a property is when you're a leveraged short-term investor jumping in at or around a peak. In other siutations its great, good or less optimal.
If you want to own your own 'home' the 'great' time to buy, imo, has past but it it is always a good time to buy if you can afford to do it without the possibility of downing when the interest rate tide turns..
Remarks about missing the boat/s, i missed a couple but i wouldn't swim after boats moving away, all boats will eventually dock again (they all need to refuel) or another boat will turn up. For if all boats sailed off into the sunset, passenger numbers would only ever decline and that can't be good for capital value growth would it bulls?
