Comparing any stable investment to housing is very difficult. Every house is different and prices vary from suburb to suburb. Some cities house prices have dropped 30 to 50% from the peaks. In Queenland mining area's investors were crushed with some losing up to 80%. Then you have negative gearing. Guess what its a loss every year! But hey lets just look at the price of a house without taking into account any of these factors which gold does not suffer from. You can cherry pick a housing area and say look how much this has went up but you cannot cherry pick a bar of gold. Whether its in Sydney or out the back of Bourke its still a bar of gold precisely priced by the market. Lots can go wrong with housing just ask those tower owners in Sydney who have major structure issues. How about all the houses burnt to the ground in the major bush fires. Then you have termites, lousy tenants, rip off real estate agents fee's.
