House price boom must end, says David Gonski, page-57

Look, you're right, my post was a bit provocative. My issue with real estate agents (and their intellectually limited friends in their industry 'peak bodies' is their role in pumping up the prices. An absurd amount of money has been made out of this most non-productive of industries. There have been far more victims than there have been beneficiaries (the losers being the taxpayer who doesn't use negative gearing, and anybody who doesn't invest in properties - think first home buyers, renters, people on low income have seen their once relatively decent minimum wage turn into a poverty trap, courtesy of the loony prices we now see).

But what was all this pain for? So that a bunch of people could make lazy money on an asset which contributed essentially zero to the economy, much less helped the housing supply.

Now we're in a situation where many of the winners have made millions for little work, and the humble first home owners, who are paying 70% of their incomes to service an obscene loan that doesn't even get them into an area they like, will be the hardest hit when the economy goes.

I don't look forward to seeing them go bust, nor do i look forward to the person who's eked out enough to buy that one investment property.
But I will laugh when the person who's bought 10 houses and paid zero tax is brought back down to earth, and I will have no pity for the agents who've made fortunes by trumping up this pseudo industry with hype and rent seeking, at the expense of the entire rest of the country.

Every dollar sucked into unproductive assets like houses is a dollar denied to our savings, or our equity markets. And the credit we collectively hold as a nation is frightening.