the IMF international Monetary Fund reports.....australian house prices are not overpriced at all ! migration is the key to the housing demand and prices in australia .....
the US problems with house prices related almost soley to the availability of credit.....aka sub prime, and the non recourse loans associated with it.... an extract from page 17 for you to read
As noted in the 2008 IMF staff report for Australia, if some country- specific factors, particularly the impact of long-term migration on housing demand, are taken into account, the results do not produce evidence of a significant overvalulation of house prices.
here is the link to the full report....a very intereting and timely report http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/02/pdf/c1.pdf
so PLEEAASE no more rubbish about house prices falling 30% or more....in australia....
and for the bulls......increases of 20% net, after rising 45% in the first 6 years, then a decline.....again they are not talking about australia....the US decline is only 10%...but the basket case japan is 30%
To put these gap estimates in perspective, it is useful to compare them with house price cycles in the advanced economies over the past several decades (OECD, 2006). Between 1970 and 2005, the average house price cycle lasted about 10 years, with an expansion phase of 6 years during which real house prices increased by about 45 percent. During the subsequent four-year contraction phase, real house prices declined about 25 percent, with the range of declines across countries varying from about 10 percent in the United States to more than 30 percent in Japan and several European countries ps note to bears....you will miss out or pay more if you continue to wait for the mythical 30% drop in house prices...but I suggest you can wait a few months for interest rates to go down.....??? that might be a bit late...house prices rise when rates go down....so you could buy at the lower price now...with a variable rate which will drop anyway...not a fixed rate...
