usa, circa 2006, page-2

During 2006 property spruikers in the US claimed that their housing market was not a bubble because of stable supply (less homes were being built), rising population, low interest rates, low unemployment and low default rates. Since then fewer homes have been built, population trends are largely unchanged and interest rates are much lower. It just shows that the fundamental story does not make a market. House prices have plunged (even worse than during the Great Depression) and unemployment has soared since 2006.

Here in Australia the pundits also claim that our low unemployment, low default rates, a growing population and fewer homes being built will create a floor for house prices. But once buyer demand evaporates (as evidenced by the fall in housing finance figures) and sellers flood the market before further price declines (hence the glut of properties for sale) the very character of the market changes. Australia's level of household debt is even higher than that of the US. Just as in the US in 2006, Australia has already reached the tipping point of our great housing bubble deflation.