"sydney melbourne brisbane perth and auckland are the metropolis, where you would expect land prices to rise above the inflation rate, because of an influx of migrants!"
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Partly migrants, but also because land is "released" by state governments according to their planning schemes. A manipulated market, in other words.
All of which keep land more expensive than it otherwise would be.
And who pays for it? Anyone with a mortgage. Who benefits? The banks of course.
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"however, land prices have taken a tumble in the us and some other northern hemisphere countries,"
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Apart from the sub prime crisis, US land prices have usually been lower than Oz. Why? Is it easier in the US to subdivide land? More cities and therefore more decentralized?
For some reason we think that we are richer when our house price goes up, forgetting that every other comparable bit of land has increased by the same amount.
