where are the fanatic bears?, page-2

30% decline still feasable. Obviously this hinges on negative macro outcomes, i.e. a hard (or relatively hard) landing in China, coupled with continuing protracted recovery in USA and more "Euro Zone" ridiculousness.

However as iv'e said on here previously, i favour a 15-25% decline with greater than that being a worst case scenario (ie. continued negative macro outlook and China hard land). It's hard to envisage a 30%+ decline here, given the Case Shiller Index shows a decline of about 40% in the US. They are way more screwed than us and have no ammunition to fire, so it's doubtful we could decline by a similar amount, even though our debt build up is higher given where our interest rates are (we are probably entering a cutting cycle), and the fact that our banks weren't giving out 600K loans to immigrant Mexican strawberry pickers earning 22k per year during the "boom"

That said, if the trend continues, a 15% drop by this time next year could easily be reality in many capitals. Personally i doubt this cut (and even a few more) would do much to fire up the housing market. The cut is a sign of underlying weakness abroad, and domestically in our non mining economy. More likely households will continue to pay down debt.