Is this the trigger ?

Australian Real Estate has been on a knife edge for a few years now just waiting for a lack of confidence or a Chinese set back for it all to come tumbling down

Is the cladding issue going to trigger that drop ?

I, along with many others on various threads on HC have been discussing the cladding issue for a few years since the Dubai fires, where half the hi-rise buildings are coated with similar stuff

We know there are at least hundreds of Australian buildings which also have cladding which may or may not be a fire hazard

Therefore there will be a massive drop in confidence in current buyers and intending buyers with existing owners having no recourse but to pay, out of their own pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars to retrofit fire-proof cladding
Property values in all hi-rise units must plummet ! so it stands to reason that the unaffected residential housing will follow, when you consider the mortgage levels which will take most of these mortgages under water even with a 10% drop in prices

There must be a exodus of off the plan purchasers who will take their deposits back and run like mad.

Anyone who willingly buys a hi-rise at this time is in dreamland if they believe that the prices will continue up when they will almost certainly come crashing down

It is always possible that the government could force to closure of these buildings leaving the owners homeless, of course to expect the government to do anything is a bit of a dream also but it is one of the possibilities that they will have to take some action

Before anyone talks about regulations being better here than anywhere else has not watched any of the videos where these building turn into roman candles within seconds and the result poisonous gas and smoke will kill your well before any fire reaches you, water sprinklers kill fire not gas or smoke