Daggett “However those landlords who bought their properties before the housing hyper-inflation of recent years would be doing very well indeed.”

This supposed “hyperinflation” was a direct consequence of reducing interest rates, wherein “affordability” being a constant, remainded the same and prices rose as interest rates (the cost of borrowing) declined.

I bought my house in 1996 about 3 weeks before the ARB started the drop in interest rates from 12%+ to about 5% in a few months. It was no speculators secret, it was plain and simple to see what wqas going to happen.

House prices have declined in most capital cities from a peak in 2003/04 since the recent interest rate increases. I still suggest affordability is a constant, the movement in house prices representing a negative correlation to interest rates (but the full effect distorted by the progressive increase in average weekly earnings – which contributes directly to disposable income)

We could probably get an 85% accurate model of future house prices simply by modeling

Average weekly earnings – after tax (disposable income)
RBA Interest rates
Allowance for net Immigration influences (demand accelerant) – by region and not simply nationally.
Index of Consumer confidence (another demand factor)
Unemployment rates (higher unemployment removes buyer demand from the market)
State government land hoarding policy (significant supply effect).
Government of the day (everything is more miserable under labor).

Actually – I might build such a model – I am sure I could sell such a thing and then afford to invest in a nice “McMansion”.

Oh, “candobetter” I suggest you rename it “tryhardernexttime”

Foundation should focus on the argument.

Daggett earlier clearly showed how the cost of housing relies mainly on the cost of land and that the cost of land relies on scarcity (induced and actual). He pointed out that immigrants do not bring land, water and other natural resources with them. This is why population growth is a problem that won't go away and why it is intimately related to the problem of unaffordable housing.

The Development lobby is organised to orchestrate demand and cause bottlenecks and then to manipulate the government via the media and pressure groups to 'release' more land, even though we should conserve land and other resources 'for future generations' and in order not to exacerbate carbon emissions (big percentage of carbon is contained in soil and plants).

When uncleared land is brought into use for housing or the related economic expansion which our kind of high energy and materials consuming society (mainly composed of employees rather than of self-sufficient land-users) requires, the animal and vegetable occupants of that land die of thirst and hunger - just to fatten the wallets of those on the top of the growth pyramid with high stakes in the finance, energy, property and materials industries.

Nothing here questions the potential economic and human value of individual immigrants anymore than it focuses on the potential economic and human value of individual babies born.

Neither immigrants nor children born here bring land with them, but a sane society guarantees, through sensible land-use and inheritance laws (land-tenure systems) that no child will be born without a natural entitlement to biophysical resources of land, water etc.

High immigration is targeted by people who are concerned about lessening quality of life and overshoot of resources because without high immigration the population would gently peak and then reduce about half-way into this century.

With high immigration we are on course to increase Australia's population by about 50% in around 30 years. With actual crises in supply of water and soil and signs of impending petroleum depletion anyone well-informed should be frightened.

So, Kanga and daggett, is it true that you are Sheila Newman and James Sinnamon respectively? Co-contributors to James' candobetter blog?

If so, your use on this thread of Sheila's work as apparent independent support of your position is, to say the least, deceptive.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in saying stuff like "as I stated in my masters thesis back in 2002..." or "as Sheila, my fellow-contributor to candobetter, said in her 2002 Master's thesis on this topic..."

But to pretend that you are citing the piece as authoritative third-party substantiation is, quite frankly, a little weird.

Looking back, Kanga's first salvo aimed at my "why France" observation is little short of dishonest, if in fact Kanga=Sheila.

>>Sounds like Pericles, unable to come up with specific criticism, is blustering to cover the fact that the material presented by S.Newman is so far beyond the usual fudge that passes for research in housing that he is totally out of his depth.

If this is Pericles’ standard of critical review, then Ms Newman has little to fear.<<

Why the third person usage? And what price the self-praise in the "material presented by S.Newman is so far beyond the usual fudge that passes for research" claim?

There is no shame in being anonymous - as I myself prefer to remain - but to pretend that the material you reference is independent of your own view is not a good look.

Who is Kanga?

Kanga
Description: A mother kangaroo, about 30 inches tall.
More Description: Kangaroos are generally regarded as one of the Fiercer Animals. A "Strange Animal".
Even More Description: Carries her family about with her in her pocket. The fastest animal in the Woods.
Address: 100 Aker Wood North
Son: Roo
Favorite Things to Do: Motherly things.
What She Does Every Tuesday: Goes to Pooh's house to teach Pooh how to jump.

Kanga IS a pretty extraordinary animal. If she isn't already writing under the pseudonym of S.Newman, I am sure that she could - and she would probably get a lot more attention, seeing as roos so rarely actually write about land-use planning.

I believe this whole posting thing started out by accident when roo, writing as Daggett, persuaded his mother to help him out on some technical details which he said were for a school project.

Signed by Eeyore on behalf of the Animals in the Forest since no-one dares tell Kanga that this is really not about a school project.

See http://www.lavasurfer.com/pooh-guide_highclassics.html for a portrait of Kanga. Perhaps Pericles, Col Rouge, Daggett and Foundation might like to meet and reveal who they are.

Kanga, I can only assume from your twee, but unconvincing, little post that you are embarrassed at your blatant self-promotion and devious behaviour, as you should be.

And anyone who thinks that Eeyore would be sufficiently motivated to write "on behalf of the Animals in the Forest" doesn't know much about Winnie-the-Pooh either.

"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and They don't Think" [Eeyore]

Coo-ee Pericles!

Just hopped over from the back paddock and noticed you were waving at me.

You seem to forget that this is an anonymous forum which allocates pen-names to all members, presumably so as to allow greater freedom of debate. I am no more at liberty to reveal my true identity than that dentist who speaks on behalf of a plaque-combating toothpaste.

By the way, is it true that you are really Andrew Bartlett posing as a famous Greek statesman, whilst clutching at straw-men for the sake of staying in a discussion where you have used up all your intellectual ammunition?

The only reason Kanga would have to be ‘embarrassed’ at promoting Sheila Newman’s work would be if it were as manifestly inadequate as the ‘grey fluff’ that is constantly incestuously promoted by the property development, finance and housing industries and their accomplice ‘think’-tanks, advertising agents, elected stooges and corporate mates.

With regard to the – entirely unjustified - criticism of the concept of self promotion, I can only say that even the honourable Malcolm Turnbull has needed to respond to similar envious jibes, where it has been inferred that Wizard Home Loans are promoting Malcolm and Malcolm is promoting Wizard and even that Malcolm may intend to promote such loans through Malcolm’s new fund management company: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s892544.htm

Of course Newman’s work, which does not propose wealth transfers to benefit investors, would not attract the interest of finance companies. Her straight-talking similarly would not attract government grants or corporate scholarships. Maybe only a mother Kangaroo and a bellicose Beaver could be expected to take her side.

And yet, the tiny efforts of those humble glove-puppet champions draw a disproportionate number of slings and arrows, like Robin Hood and King John or David and Goliath.