Monday, April 11, 2011

Mish: Party in Australia Is Officially Over

Australian Home Sales Sink, Luxury Units Sell for Half Cost; New Home Loans at 10-Year Low; Australia Retailers in Deep Trouble; Party Officially Over
The buyer retreat comes as the stock of unsold houses mounts. Figures compiled by property analysts SQM Research show there are now 356,600 properties on the market, which is almost 50 per cent more than a year ago.
Please don't tell me it's different down under, and don't tell me there is a shortage of housing either. Skyrocketing inventory and falling demand says otherwise. Besides, it's a simple economic fact that home prices cannot sustainably rise above people's ability to pay for them. Nor can home prices sustainably rise several standard deviations above rental prices.
Look for the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut rates. It will not matter when they do. It was one hall of a party Australia, but the party is now officially over.
Heh, I said long ago that would be the real sign of the bust.

Next data releases of interest for Australia are the
Rismark Index from RPData which will be released April 30th
and the
Australian Bureau of Statistics, House Price Indexes: Eight Capital Cities, Mar 2011 which will be released May 2nd

1 comment:

jesse said...

If there's one thing I've learned, never underestimate a government's ability to "jump the shark".

It's already begun: underwriting mortgage-backed bonds. A full-on nationalization of the housing industry and its associated investments isn't out of the realm of possibility. It won't prevent a crash but it will keep the party going until the next election!