Does anyone else out there find Rudds promise to try to find ways to make home ownership for struggling australians a joke.
Two months ago i read an article by a very enthusiastic realtor saying that now the foreign investment review board ( read rubber stamp board ) has relaxed the rules for foreign ownership in our housing market, wealthy foreigners particularly the wealthy chinese were behind the record sale prices for melbourne housing real estate.
I have now just finished reading an article in the real estate section of my local newspaper stating that foreign investment is now powering the Banyule property market surge.
Can someone please explain to me how opening up our housing market to more competition from wealthy foreigners is going to make buying my first house in Banyule more affordable for me.
Maybe i am a bit confused and Rudd actually said he was looking at ways of making housing more affordable for off shore investors.
Can someone out there please help me clear this up.
Bigdamo65

big damo65,
At the risk of sounding totally cynical, which I probably am.

You question has a few mistakes in it.
- Your source was a news paper
- you believed a realtor on anything.
- You believe that *any* politician is able to do anything.

In the last case the labor govt,like any other, works in statistics and supports a flawed economics structure that believes is in both the magic pudding theory and the trickle down principal.
The first is self defeating and the perversions of the latter is extraordinarily weighted towards capital.

In short the theory is that the more money you bring into the system the more there is to share around.

- Sadly, this involves debt, which world wide is several times more than the combined of all the world's countries GDP....(the magic pudding theory).

-Secondly, the money tends to be diverted into the pockets of capital with little real flow on to the likes of you and I.

-Thirdly, the government can only be involved in gross statistical numbers ( blunt instruments based on rear window views), and as such, there are going to be winners and losers. The first two factors pervert the effectiveness of the the third.

But don't worry, worrying about something that you can't change is pointless. Besides, you won't get out of this world alive anyway, so just roll with the punches. :-)

Yes 30% of buyers were foreign nationals. Not sure how they can actually live in them?. The difference between now and before appears Chinese buying is more business focused. Real estate purchase in my neck of the woods (FNQ) used to be for pleasure. That is investment is holiday units, golf courses and tourism etc. Now it is in economic hubs or mining.

So I doubt there was any real demand so it is not truly reflective of local economic conditions. Add the first home buyer carrot into the mix and really wonder if our economy is as good as they say. The push factors are not natural. If these stimulus effects start to wane no doubt there will be another fake push introduced and we wonder why economies get into a mess. However it may work as a bridge until natural cycle takes over. Gamble somewhat, Australian home prices have a long way to fall.

I agree with the missus post, I doubt first home buyers government subsidy's and all, are buying into such markets.
But in the bubble that is Australian housing, it will be in part the withdrawal of these over seas buyers that see,s that bubble burst.
Much pain and suffering is coming to our housing markets.
Our thread starter, clearly bitter, has ignored just how much help this government has given, and a fundamental of buying anything, prices are made by the market not governments.
As an owner not a buyer he/she would have no problem with that,until that bubble explodes, and it will.

Just to correct The Belly i am not bitter but angry at what is happening in the housing market out there.
I am wondering about your political leanings given your comment about all the so called "help this government has given".All they have done is create more demand through bad policy and thus push up house prices even more.Are you a home owner already and are not really affected by this ?
Prices are obviously market driven but to believe that government policy has no impact on market prices is ridiculous.
As for me having no problem as an owner if my house value went up is just as ridiculous.
If i owned my own house and sold it to buy another one even if it is worth $500,000 i would still have to spend the same to buy another house of the same standard unless i wanted to move to Back o bourke.
The only people who benefit from increased house prices are investors and real estate agents.
To me my own house would provide security of accomadation and an end to the dead end of renting and nothing more
Bigdamo65

It is properly not worth the effort but click on the little man at the bottom of any of my posts.
It will take you to my post history.

You will then find I am welded on ALP.

now can you truly, honestly say that screams my views are not mine?
Like a few conservatives who constantly question my views based on my known political stance I find your question, no insult, to me, remember you too have political leanings, to question your honesty based on them is childlike.
My post history ,often, finds me at war, openly, with my ALP my thoughts are my own, no doubt yours are too.
And it is weakness, not talking of you now, for some who never question their party's line to question me on that subject.
I do in your posts see an angry person on this subject.
I do think if you owned your house you would not complain about market forces.
And, truly, I think you are shouting into an empty oil drum, market drives every thing both recent governments watched us ,unwisely in my view, pay far too much for housing, we will in time, pay for it.
Not however me, yes I own a country home, far from a mac mansion , but it is mine, for less than 200.00 you can buy neat tidy homes here that would bring 700.000 in Sydney.
I did not buy for investment, tell me it is now worth 10 cents no worry I bought my roof to live a life under.