property for nickoo, page-16

G'day
Good discussion, barring the personal abuse, its no crime to have a different point of view, is it.
Loved the joke about people downramping property to buy it cheaper. LOL
Personally I am a little bearish on property atm and have just sold our one investent property (bought nearly 4 years ago). Although locations with strong population growth should fair better, eg brisbane and darwin. There are a number of reasons that I think the near future will be down or flat, but the biggy for me is the ageing population. This was stated as a positive by someone, re higher wealth, maybe you should read about the kondratieff cycle. When high % of baby boomers have insufficient funds to retire, and lets face it, when they all start retiring, the govt will have to cut pensions drastically, retirees will have to realise their only investment assett (their home)to afford to live, won't they? All those large homes with one or two older people living in them? Birth rates are low, redevelopments all over the place, but where's the population coming from. Immigration will have to be it I suppose. Working people will have to pay more tax to support overloaded health and care facilities?
Here in adelaide things have been going well with the low $aus, plenty of exports (including plenty to the US), cars - holden and mitsubishi, wine, grain etc. Though I don't know the numbers this could change significantly with the expected ongoing change in the exchange rate.
Anyway, in our case we were heavily geared (a crucual point for us) and taking a profit seemed like a good idea in the current climate.
Add to this the global situation, rising fuel costs? Collapse of the US economy? Effects of the droughts.
Maybe Bob Sinclair is correct, I didn't want to take the chance.
cheers
Rod