We have not yet escaped the GFC.
We have done well but the rest of the world owes more that it is worth.
Australia's weak link seems to be housing.
We pay more than most for far less.
A country town home selling for less than $300.000 would sell for nothing less than $700.000 in Sydney.
And investors get in to very big debt to own two or three such homes.
Yesterday a story appeared in the press, workers in Gladstone Queensland are living in tents.
AS rentals are a thousand dollars to twelve hundred a week.
Just a light tilt in our economy, bought about by the worlds GFC may well/will start an avalanche of defaults.
I think we must watch the housing market greed is only good while it works in the favor of the greedy, it can not forever do that.

rentals are a thousand dollars to twelve hundred a week.
Belly,
Right again. Where I live & work the Governments in their infinite wisdom are paying up to $1600.-/week for Public servant housing. It got so bad that a whole council shifted their offices a thousand kilometres to escape the huge rental costs or so they tell us. They're now flying people in-out weekly at even greater cost & increased inefficiency.
You see the Goss, Beatty & Bligh Govts (Qld) have sold all departmental housing & as soon as the deals were singled rented the premises back at inflated cost. The tactic was to relieve the Govt of responsibility. Would you believe there are still people who say Labor is doing a good job. Where do such morons live & what do they do for a living ? Probably retired on handsome taxpayer funded super.

http://www.torresnews.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1819:land-rent-rises-400-per-cent&catid=3:news

Belly,
fyi

Sorry to make this political, but this problem has been brought about by the lack of confidence, by both every day people and business owners and leaders alike.

we have been in poor shape for years.

Just now we are starting to see the data being released to back this up, unemployment starting to rise, many sectors starting to buckel, and many already dead in the water.

Yet, this government still insists we are in great shape. Why?
When are they going to admit they have repeatidly failed to manage our economy and that, if not for the mining boom, we as a nation would be dead in the water.

Worse still, we have nothing left to fight with, thanks to their irrisponsible waste and missmanagement.

And you lot support them.

At a time when we should be litterally printing money, we are borrowing 100 million a day just to service debt, debt that was not there less than four years ago.

You were all warned, many times over by those who know, employers, job creators, yet you just could not bring yourselves to accept that your government was totally incompitent.

Its a disgrace, and one that will haunt your lot for years to come.

Thanks!

Those two posts gentle men are uninformed, no government, state or federal can be blamed for this.
A problem from the 1970,s it now is a bubble.
And it will burst, in an Australian movie from the 70,s we saw a little piece of real life.
Young couple living in a caravan, about 5 years in to a marriage, bought their first home.
They clearly could not afford it, so? they filled it with white goods and such on the never never, credit.
Today, as our population grows, as it always has been speculators and investors compete with first home buyers and the upwardly mobile.
Before the GFC we, some, spent far too much , on credit and prices driven by MARKET FORCES not the every shade of governments went too high.
We have a better banking system/lending than America, safe guards than them too.
But we paid/borrowed much more for homes too.
The only possible blame for high rentals that can be put on government is we no longer build as much low income housing.
Do we blokes spend tax payers cash, that pocket is not deep, on getting involved in the market enought to drop those rents? billions of dollars?
Our spending habits have changed we bank more spend less, but still owe more.
And the banking we know has retailers concerned.
How much more concerned if we see 2% rise in unemployment or rise it rates.
Our housing bubble is going to hurt.

A problem from the 1970,s it now is a bubble.
Belly,
right again, 1972-75 to be precise.