question for acouch, page-36

Chris
you forget the economic concept of substitute goods.
Everyone here is trying to predict what type of place people want to live and now and the future - FORGET IT!

IF we have a 50:50 mix (whatever it really is, I dont know) at the moment you will find that this mix is dominated largely by PRICE. Isnt this obvious? If the prices of units drops by 20% this would change the 50:50 mix with more people moving towards units and bringing about a drop in house prices.

Its why when I talk about the property market i speak of it as a whole. The types of accomodation are largely irrelevant.

Rents can't increase any more than they are due to the current vacancy rate for one and because they are already taking a large part of a renters income. If the average person can save a couple hundred a week by moving further out they will soon realise that their time and costs related to this will justify the move.

You need to assume there is equilibrium now in the mixes of where people are wanting to live and for the most part, you will find the trend is that populations are moving away out of city centres. This will continue. I've talked about many of the cities in the US (and I use this country as an example becuase of its similarity to Australia compared to say Europe). Centuries ago people needed to live close to their work as they didnt have the transport and so compact communities were formed creating dense cities. you will find, the newer the city, the more sparsely populated the cities become (compare NY and LA).
Why would people assume that in Australia(!) we're going to reverse this whole trend and favour living in tight communes again.
I won't even start on the security threat this causes (ie think back to Sept 11).

New cities can and will be created when existing cities become too expensive. Pensioners are selling up and moving to cheaper places to take advantage of the punters willing to pay them hald a million dollars for their house.