THE HOUSING BUBBLE HAS BURST! Hurray. Sydney housing prices dropped by 10.4% in the first quarter. That's so tops. Good job Federal Reserve. And good job Peter Costello. The newspaper said investors are "fleeing the market". Yay. With their tails between their legs. It's almost worth having a party.
I’ll come to a party. I’m not really sure what all the celebration is about (can I buy a cheaper house? Is that it?) but I think it would be fun to be able to say “I’m going to a party to celebrate the burst of the housing bubble.” It may seem uncool but, could perhaps be a little cute at the same time.
Tom / 11:33pm / 9 May 2004
Yup. Houses will be cheaper, and wealthy investors won’t make so much easy money. Market bubbles have quite a lot in common with pyramid schemes. Everyone benefits until it gets to a certain point. Then it bursts and all the recent entrants get badly burned. Anyone who bought a house as an investment in the last 12 months, has done extremely badly. They’re going to lose a crapload of money if they sell it. Or they’re going to lose a crapload of money because their interest payments are heaps, heaps bigger than the money they’re getting in rent. If we’d bought our Hardy’s Bay house in the last 12 months we’d be paying about $45,000 a year in interest, and only getting $10,000 in rent.
Ryan / 7:21pm / 10 May 2004