The home buyers strike is going to fail, but more than that, it deserves to fail.
There are plenty of reasons to skewer the movement simply because it won?t work, but the strike is a mistake for far more than just its ineffectiveness.
The campaign will ultimately prove self-defeating because it?s more about venting helpless rage and the delights of schadenfreude than putting out real solutions to the nation?s housing affordability crisis.
Advertisement: Story continues below Last night, tax reform group Prosper Australia, the campaign?s sponsor and driving force, held a ?pop the housing bubble party? in a Melbourne bar.
Called to ?celebrate falling house prices?, according to the event flyer, about 20 people showed up to discuss the current housing situation, formulate new strategies for the strike, and relax after doing a bit of laughter yoga.
?The purpose of the buyers strike is not an act of militancy or of unionism, it is about informing na?ve first home buyers, people who don?t have a good source of information apart from the spruikers, apart from the spivs, apart from people saying ?oh yes, you must buy?, and their parents are telling them the same thing, ?don?t worry about the price, prices always go up?.
I?ve got bad news for everybody here?prices don?t always go up, prices correct,? Prosper campaign manager David Collyer said.
Sounds admirable, right? But the schadenfreude was still yet come, served with a side champagne and caviar.
?We want to celebrate the bursting of the bubble, not maliciously because some people are going to get hurt, but as a way of celebrating that in a few years time we will have opportunity again, that when things revert to the normal we will be able to do the things we have always wanted to do.?
?Ladies and gentleman, I give you economic freedom because that?s what low house prices, low land prices offer to us. Economic freedom,? Mr Collyer said, leading the assembled crowd in a toast.
Champagne and caviar. It?s not just for Wall Street?s Masters of the Universe.
It?s also the nourishment of choice when you?re celebrating what you hope to be the collapse of one of the most important asset classes in the country, the place where some 70 per cent of the population have parked their money.
Nothing was said about what would happen over those ?few years time? ? about what life would be like in the post-bubble world. Just a cheer from some at an estimate that prices would probably fall by half.
It?s one thing to believe we?re in a bubble, that it has or is about to pop, and trying your best to get the message out there.
But there?s something perverse in welcoming the news with such obvious glee, any protests that it?s not meant maliciously to the contrary.
(And if you think this is unfairly picking on a few Prosper supporters, try checking out the comments that routinely get posted on Domain.com.au)
A property bubble doesn?t collapse like the controlled demolition of a building. There?s always plenty of collateral damage, so to speak, which makes you wonder how these people think that housing will come so easily within reach when the economy is consequently in the toilet.
Sure, some speculators and estate agents will also get burned, who seem to be the two groups targeted with the most vitriol and hate by the strike?s supporters.
But the only people who really reap the benefits of bubble collapses are those who sell at the top and those still rich enough, and there are always plenty of them, to pillage the wreckage at the bottom.
The great tragedy of the home buyers strike campaign is that Prosper makes some fairly persuasive arguments about the way that property is valued, held and taxed, but its message is getting drowned out in the noise.
By and large, the media has already moved on because the campaign has already spent its capital as an object of news or curiosity. Activist organisers GetUp! aren?t interested; even pledge numbers aren?t growing much anymore.
People who can?t afford to buy can?t strike effectively against something they weren?t going to be able to do anyways. Even if all of the 1300 people who?ve so far pledged to stay out of the market were actually genuine buyers, it still only amounts to about two weeks worth of lost sales in Melbourne alone.
And how many people are actually wading through the hyperbole to hear the details of what Prosper is actually all about?
The campaign has had a good run in terms of publicity.
But in continuing on in this way ? if the bubble does in fact burst and wholesale economic misery ensues ? Prosper and the campaign?s supporters are destined to be remembered only as those who revelled in the tragedy?s arrival.
Come the day, I?ll certainly be one of those calling to ask: Are you still celebrating?
