You may have it half right, money is too freely available now to almost anyone.
As you say years ago things were different, if you wanted a loan you went to the bank where you and your family had banked for the last 50 years and sat cap in hand for the bank manager to quiz you about your need to even have a house.
Then if the loan was not large enough to cover your requirements you had to get another 2nd mortgage at a higher interest rate.
These sorts of actions kept a lid on things and although such attitudes would not and should not work in today's society the fact remains that there is virtually no limit to borrowing today so this has certainly pushed prices up and incidentally the size of the mortgages which are commonly in the 90% range.
Just imagine the chaos that would occur tomorrow if the banks put their interest rates up to 12% or the 17% that it got to in Keatings time. It would be fun watching that.
Without getting into the bears/bulls bit it is obvious that all property is far too highly geared and too highly priced due to the easy access to finance and if the finance was restricted there would be masses jumping out of windows.
