Comments on: Sydney Housing Market: Crash and Burn?

By: ponyfizz

ponyfizz — Fri, 11 May 2007 04:02:32 +0000

As a Sydneysider who is in the market for a house on the north shore of Sydney, I can definitely tell you that properties in ‘St Clair’ and surrounding areas are a totally different story to everywhere else.

These a very undesirable areas and run with their own price fluctuations different to other parts of Sydney.

By: John Callahan

John Callahan — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:52:50 +0000

I tell an Aucklander that he US and Sydney are slumping and Auckland got the housing boom bu harder and longer than anywhere else in the world and they look at me as if I farted in the middle of a party “Baa !”they go ..couldn`t happen in this paddock and they run off somewhere else to eat their grass .

By: WhatThe?

WhatThe? — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:58:55 +0000

In responses to the response that the Auckland market will continue these massive increases for another 5 to 7 years, what planet are you on? Who would invest in a market where hardly anoyone is going to be able afford the rents to make those properties a viable investment? I believe the underlying economics suggest the cost to rent should not be that significantly different to the cost of ownership. Do some basic maths on the economics and work it out from the 3 perspectives, owner occupier, landlord and tenant. If the investor is solely looking for capital gain, rather than investment return then the current market could be compared to a pyramid scame, and the bigger it gets the bigger the fall as the growth is not driven true underlying economic activity or even inline with the average rate of inflation of income and expenses. I predict the Auckland property market will drop 10% to 20% during 2007 and that will hurt a lot of investors looking for a cheap and easy capital gain to live off. Those investors will be forced to sell as the cost to service those loans is out of step with rental return and there are no new capital gains to sustain it. As Bollard says, the current property market is a very high risk investment. And if you can’t see the message in that, look out!!

By: Juha

Juha — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 04:11:21 +0000

No, no, Auckland houses will continue to rise for the next five to seven years still. There’s plenty of steam left in the market, and it won’t start levelling off until the median doubles again to above $800k.

By that time, home ownership will have settled at its natural level, which is about 8.56 per cent of the population, most of whom are overseas absentee landlords.