"Tax reform group Prosper Australia today called on first home buyers to delay buying real estate ahead of the flip into a falling market, which it described as ‘imminent’.

Australia’s housing market is widely regarded as being in a price bubble and ‘most severely unaffordable".

http://suggest.getup.org.au/forums/60819-campaign-ideas

High house prices push people towards renting, but house prices appear to be overpriced.

So why is this so?

When the bubble burst, more than a few fingers will get burnt.

I suppose questions should be asked, why is Australia becoming so expensive?

Yet in the time of a socalled boom, where is all the money from taxation going? as it is not being spent on roads, rail, or our public hospitals.

meh .. we've been in a housing bubble for over 30 years haven't we?

I have been hearing for years now the pundits saying the bubble will burst, any minute, now please panic .. do we ever hold these idiots to account when their predictions fail, pity.

It won't, it's not a bubble. Bubbles have little of value behind them and all fall when someone refuses to pay the price. I know many economists call it that, and classically it may appear so, but people pay the price and receive value, hence it is not a bubble.

Now if the economy tanks, that's another story, but with all the stuff under the ground here and China going gangbusters, it won't happen.

As long as people want to improve themselves and their lot, they will aspire to better homes in better areas. So there is always an upward push.

Basic philosophy in buying housing is buy the most you can at any time. Don't buy a cheap house in an ordinary area as it won't grow, that is, not everyone wants to live there.

Do you really think people will stop moving, having bigger families and wanting a better lifestyle?

There is so much negative attitude in Australia and it seems to always stem from people who think we have more than we deserve, who feel guilty at our wealth, Saul.

Do you think all the people queuing up to come here to Australia all want to live in mud huts? They are coming here for a better life and will do their damndest to get to the top of the pile and the best house they can get, with a couple of investment properties thrown in because it's a better bet than any other investment currently in Australia, shares stink!

Interesting article.

I don’t buy the argument, or rather assumption, that the government, in allowing a person a tax deduction, is “giving” money to that person. This line of reasoning could only make sense if all property presumptively belonged to government in the first place. It’s back-the-front. People are not cattle owned by government. People who pay less tax than they conceivably might are not, for that reason, responsible for the fact that the government unfairly taxes others: - the government is. Stop blaming the victim, and start naming and shaming the bully.

“[T]he reason why ‘negative gearing’ will forever remain untouched [is] because (like grants to first home owners) the people who would experience declines in the value of their properties were it ever to be removed are far more likely to vote against a government which removed it (or an opposition party which promised to do it) than there are people who would benefit from lower property prices and would change their votes accordingly.”

But why? Why wouldn’t there be as many people who would benefit from lower property prices and vote accordingly?

But in any event, that is not an argument for *increasing* government’s gouging of productive activity. There is never any discussion in these proposals about the purposes of what government is taking it for in the first place. Why should government be presumed to have first dibs on everyone’s productive efforts, when the very arguments in favour, rest on a welter of evidence of the unfairness and incompetence of government at directing society and managing the economy. Why do they keep getting a "get-out-of-jail-free" card?

If the purpose of the exercise is to promote work and savings – STOP TAXING THEM and stop funding their opposites.

'pro-Palestine stand'?

I thought it was an anti-Jew stand.

Ask Mel Gibson, you just shouldn't mess with the Jews.

Sorry, The relevance of that post may be missed by some.