I'm all for averages, I find them a reliable indicator. I guess I need to sit down and work out the actual figures and make some forecasts from there.
What I keep thinking about is the fundamental building blocks of demand that I have outlined again and again.
These are things which are particular to Australian society.
Other countries are happy to have most houses multi-generational, for us it is unusual. In many countries it is not unusual for unrelated persons to be sharing houses, even unrelated families. I know when we arrived in Australia (1966) we shared a small house with another family and they weren't even the same nationality as us.
Other countries find the majority of people are happy with less square metres of floor space per property, less bedrooms, less bathrooms, we prefer large spaces.
Other countries (including the USA) have heaps of cities with 1 mill people, 250K people etc and these are distributed everywhere. Australians seem to congregate in 5 or 6 major cities and they all house populations which are major percentage of the overall national population.
These things are "Australian" and are part of the reason that our property markets operate differently from other countries. I get tired of people who say "hey look at Japan, that will most certainly happen in Australia".
These sort of statements come from people too lazy to think things through.
