Bloomberg’s Chris Bourke is the latest to call the top on the great Australian housing bubble:
The party is finally winding down for Australia’s housing market. How severe the hangover is will determine the economy’s fate for years to come.
After five years of surging prices, the market value of the nation’s homes has ballooned to A$7.3 trillion ($5.6 trillion) — or more than four times gross domestic product. Not even the U.S. and U.K. markets achieved such heights at their peaks a decade ago before prices spiraled lower and dragged their economies with them.
Australia’s obsession with property is firmly entrenched in the nation’s economy and psyche…
Aussie households have racked up record private debts and aren’t getting the pay rises to help service them. That’s a core concern for the RBA…
Soaring prices have seen home ownership among young Aussies fall to the lowest level on record, squeezing out all but the wealthiest buyers…
“Australia’s world-record housing boom is officially over,” UBS Group AG economists declared at the start of this month. “The cooling may be happening a bit more quickly than even we expected.”
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
