I understand "affordability" as the ease with which something is bought. Hence silver is more affordable than gold, which is more affordable than platinum. To suggest that "unaffordability" means that nobody can buy something seems ludicrous. "unaffordability" could be defined as being expensive and thus a purchase option. Hence cars, computers and televisions are now more affordable, whereas housing is now more unaffordable.

Interesting definition, Antiseptic.

>>Pericles, I call it speculation because it has been driven by an expectation that prices would continue to increase<<

That doesn't define speculation. It defines investment. And I'll prove it to you, with one simple question.

What would you call the act of putting your money into a venture that was based on the expectation that prices would continue to decrease?

>>If ordinary families have been priced out of the market for ordinary houses in ordinary suburbs, then there is something wrong with the fundamentals<<

Have they been? Is there any factual basis to this assumption?

>>The fact that Governments artifially support house prices by witholding land releases only adds to the case.<<

What has that to do with speculation, or speculators? It is simply a facet of the market conditions that are taken into account when making an investment decision. Would the situation change, in your view, if governments simply released all the land that developers asked for? Would you have any view on, for example, their responsibility to provide infrastructure?

This is the purest nonsense, Fester.

>>I understand "affordability" as the ease with which something is bought. Hence silver is more affordable than gold, which is more affordable than platinum.<<

Silver is no more "affordable" than gold or platinum. You are simply referring to the amount of each commodity that you can buy.

It is equally true that a bigger house costs more than a smaller one, but what does that prove?

>>To suggest that "unaffordability" means that nobody can buy something seems ludicrous.<<

It may seem ludicrous to you. But it is literally true.

>>"unaffordability" could be defined as being expensive and thus a purchase option.<<

No. That's why we have the word "expensive", and the concept "purchase option". The dependency is on the money in your pocket, not the commodity itself.

>>Hence cars, computers and televisions are now more affordable, whereas housing is now more unaffordable.<<

By this logic, a Maybach Landaulet is "more affordable", but a house in Mildura, at a fifth of the price, is "more unaffordable"?

In whose universe?

Pericles,
I define it as unaffordability when a community where many families do not get an opportunity to buy land & build a home because Council sells to the highest bidder rather than to individual families. The other description I'd use is immoral.

By your logic, "affordable" applies to all things, so becomes a meaningless epithet. "more affordable" and "more unaffordable" are simply relative measures of cost.

Applied to precious metals, "more affordable" refers to the relative amount of a precious metal you can buy for your money. Thus,for a given amount of money, you can buy more silver than gold, and more gold than platinum.

Applied to housing, "affordable" refers to the proportion of the population able to buy a house. Thus "more affordable" implies that a higher proportion of the population are potential buyers, and "more unaffordable" implies that a smaller proportion of the population are potential buyers.

In each case you are making a comparison of cost. For the precious metal example, you are comparing the quantities purchased for a given amount of money. So "more", refers to the weight of metal. For housing, you are comparing the proportion of the population able to buy a house at different times. So "more" refers to the proportion of the population.

<By this logic, a Maybach Landaulet is "more affordable", but a house in Mildura, at a fifth of the price, is "more unaffordable"?>

For starters, you are comparing different commodities. What you could observe is that a Maybach Landaulet is more unaffordable than a Hyundai, as fewer people are potential buyers. For a house at Mildura, you might conclude that the house is more unaffordable, because compared with some time in the past a greater proportion of the population were potential buyers.

No violation of a definition at all, and a seemingly trite thing to understand.

Pericles, housing investment has traditionally been based on the prospect of having a long-term interest that will effectively self-fund. The capital gain is expected to be made over a long period and the main reason for buying your "six pack" or duplex is to have the rental income, especially as a retirement income stream. This is the model that ordinary "mum and dad" invetors have followed and it is a pretty good one. Successive Governments have encouraged the practise with tax breaks.

Speculative investment, on the other hand, is based on the idea of making a quick buck. It may be that one has found the "hidden gem" in the local housing stock or, as in this case, that one anticipates a rapid period of generalised price inflation due to regulatory and social factors, as well as the effect of speculative investment itself. "Bubbles" are features of investments that have an excess of speculative cash being pumped at them.

IT is the rapid price inflation driven by cashed-up "investors" that is the problem here, I think. House price to household income ratios have risen dramatically, pricing a great many people who do not already own a property out of any prospect of purchasing one without committing so much of their income that it is unsustainable, even if they can obtain a loan of the requisite size in the first place.

In any case, it seems to me that you're getting your knickers in a twist over semantics. 'twere ever thus...

Fester, the difference between cars and houses is that houses are persistent investments that tend to appreciate in value, whereas most cars are rather less durable and tend to depreciate. Most people buy several cars in their lifetime, as a temporary investment in utility.They don't have speculators driving prices up on the latest model commodore.

Antiseptic

The difference between housing and cars is that the car market is a free market. So if the demand for cars increases, manufacturers can make more cars to satisfy this demand. With housing, the supply side is heavily regulated and restricted, so with increased demand via high immigration, supply shortages are a consequence. With less restriction, there would be much more supply to meet demand.