Nice One - that is the trouble with examples like that from...

Nice One - that is the trouble with examples like that from people we know. With due respect, without being confrontational so many details are missing not to really make sense. What mining town are we talking about, which state, what are his debt levels, has he continued to live off capital in that time, good mining towns have not seen that type of decline. In Perth there is still quite a bit of lending taking place for IPs and brokers are saying they are lending. Anecdotal stuff like this says very little. Gail Kelly is making a call which now seems sensible but to say never is very very foolish. Heard it all before.

A good time to invest in real estate based esp on the experience of the 90's is to buy when everyone reckons it is a poor investment . It is all moving in that direction and 10 years time it will all happen again when a new generation of CEOs populate the banks etc. Remember a lot of the success of St George and WBC has been built on the property boom and easy to sound wise when she was one of the perpetrators of easy lending, had she sounded the signal bells then I would be more inclined to respect her call but she lacks the creds I am afraid.