Largely yes. Of course, supply and demand have a lot to do with it, but demand is (or rather was) not there because of overpopulation or scarcity of property - but rather because of the view of many people that they would own an asset whose value always went up. Pity they bought it with money that wasn't theirs, so they could keep on doing it and not think of the big picture.
Another thing, when the lady in front of me in the voting queue in the last Federal election, says to me, "I won't be voting for [insert local member's name] - he'll make our property values go down," sorry - I can't think of any other word but "wanting".
