Thank you for sharing your recount and experience. I have been to Australia and New Zealand a lot and while I mostly traveled for fishing purposes I don't have as much an experience to compare as you seemingly do. But don't you think what you shared is happening in a lot of other places? I feel Auckland and Christchurch vs the rest seems to me quite similar to what you described about Sydney or Melbourne vs the rest in NSW/Victoria. Look at Japan, check out Tokyo and Osaka and then go to the country side. Most villages in the Japanese countryside are pitiful sights. I am surprised the snow in the winter in Niigata does not consume most of the older houses in small villages. They are in horrific condition. Obviously 5-10mil aud properties in affluent suburbs are not comparable with the backcountry. Properties most often are a pretty fair reflection of the income level of people and that in turn is an outcome of educational achievements of humans. Most of the time, not always. What really gets me is the unbelievable widening of the wealth gap in the past 20 years. The middle class has been hooked on drugs like internet, gaming, weed, alcohol, and a decline in moral values. Anything that shuts them up and lets them escape reality. Because otherwise they would revolt. So far I see not an inch of resistance. That surprises me the most. How much further can you push someone into a corner without them retaliating?
Very good, because prior to reading your post after VicBee's, Auckand is what I immediately thought of. Numerous exclusive suburbs and very well moneyed families there and kind of snobbish. There was this one well-to-do family down the street, I was a kid, the old man (building hardware boss) wouldn't even say hello to me. Long story short, I was a delinquent then and made his life miserable.
Our grandparents grew up in a labor market that is nothing like this! Let’s see, in 1960 you could buy a house in Hacienda Heights, Ca for $14,000 while a upper manager like Grandpa was making $17,000. Wages have not kept up for kids with productivity gains. I bought my first home by buying a acre for $8k and building in 1980s working at $11 a hour. Same property sold for $1+million now. Faulty premise dude!
Almost one-third of Australians face rental or mortgage stress, survey finds Kate BurketwitterJournalist Jul 19, 2021 https://www.domain.com.au/news/almo...smh&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pos5&ref=pos1 Almost a third of Australians say they face mortgage or rental stress amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with household savings also taking a hit in recent months. Against a backdrop of rapidly rising property prices and record-high rents across much of the country, 31 per cent of people are struggling to make their rent or home loan payments, new figures show. While this is down slightly from 33 per cent of renters and home owners in June, it’s well up on the 23 per cent of respondents who reported rent or home loan stress in July last year. The Finder Consumer Sentiment Tracker shows stress levels had been rising steadily since. Percentage of Australians who indicate they struggle to make their rent or home loan payments. The shaded area covers the period between the first and last lockdowns in Australia (excluding the most recent lockdowns). Photo: Finder’s Consumer Sentiment Tracker Graham Cooke, head of consumer research at Finder, said financial stress had been going in the opposite direction to what might be expected, with stress levels down last year, despite the coronavirus pandemic. “This shows that the government payments were effective in relieving some of the financial pressure resulting from the first lockdowns,” Mr Cooke said. He noted the stress metric had risen as lockdowns continued and as government support payments were lifted. People overextending themselves to keep up with rising property prices could also be a factor for increased mortgage stress, particularly among recent first-home buyers, as could recent increases in rates for fixed mortgages. Mr Cooke noted average monthly cash savings had also taken a hit, dropping to $703 in June – its lowest level since March 2020 – and down from a peak of $953 in February. AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver said mortgage and rental stress might have increased when Australia went into lockdown early last year, but the roll-out of mortgage repayment holidays, JobKeeper and the increased JobSeeker payment, combined with further cuts to interest rates, had eased stress in the months that followed. Reduced spending and increased savings last year by those whose income was not impacted by the pandemic meant more people might have got ahead on their mortgage repayments as well. Mr Oliver said the end of support payments and repayment holidays,along with rapidly rising property prices – which have seen people take on larger loans – and growing talk of future rate hikes, could all have contributed to rising stress levels. “The level of interest payments to household income has collapsed relatively, so in theory, you could argue mortgage stress should be lower, because we don’t have the high level of interest rates, but we know that people have to borrow a lot more to get into the market and people may stress over the amount that they have borrowed,” he said. Rising property prices may have driven up mortgage stress levels, as house hunters borrow more to keep up with price growth. Photo: Stephen McKenzie Mr Oliver expected stress levels for those impacted by the current Sydney lockdown would fare similarly to last time but noted the support payments were less generous than those seen last year. However, he noted there was often a disconnect between mortgage stress indicators and the level of defaults, or non-performing loans, suggesting that while more people were stressed, the bulk were still able to meet repayments. It comes after a report released by consumer group CHOICE earlier this year found that more than 130,000 households in NSW and Victoria alone were on the brink of a financial crisis due to mortgage stress. The Financial Rights Legal Centre, which offers advice and advocacy for those in financial stress, is consistently getting calls daily from those in mortgage stress, said senior police and communications officer Julia Davis. “They are often referrals from the banks, people who were on a COVID-related [mortgage] deferral during 2020 … and all those deferrals have come to an end, and people are not in a position to go back to resuming normal repayments.” The Financial Rights Legal Centre is getting calls daily from those in mortgage stress. Photo: iStock While some had already been facing hardship that was exacerbated by the pandemic, others worked in hard-hit industries like tourism and hospitality and simply had not been able to recover since. She feared the latest lockdowns would only add to the financial stress of those who had already chewed down on their savings last year and noted some people were already spending less on food and other essentials in order to meet their repayments. Ms Davis said the increasing stress levels were another reminder of why an overhaul of responsible lending laws still before the senate should not go ahead, with concerns it could see more Australians get loaded up with unsuitable debt. A big concern was that those already facing financial stress could turn to third-tier lenders who may help them refinance at shocking rates that they cannot afford to pay off. Mr Oliver added overhauling responsible lending laws seemed unnecessary given the surge in lending suggested the current rules were not a constraint on borrowing and added it seemed jarring to relax the laws at the same time as the RBA and APRA were warning banks to maintain lending standards. He also expressed concern that the 60,000 government loan scheme spots – which help first-home buyers and single parents to get into the market with lower deposits – could cause higher mortgage stress levels down the line. While it was desirable to help these groups onto the property ladder, he said there was a danger in more people borrowing at a very high loan to value ratio.
Sydney house prices reach record median $1,410,133 – rising more than $1200 a day in just three months Tawar Razaghitwitter Journalist Jul 29, 2021 https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydn...smh&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pos5&ref=pos1 Sydney house prices are breaking records yet again, surging to $1,410,133, new figures reveal, rising more than $1200 a day in the second quarter of 2021. The median house price jumped 8.2 per cent in just the three months to June, according to the latest Domain House Price Report, released on Thursday. Over the past year, median house prices have shot up by a staggering 24 per cent – or $272,887 – the fastest annual growth since Domain records began in 1993. Capital city median house prices, June quarter Jun-21 Mar-21 Jun-20 QoQ YoY Sydney $1,410,133 $1,303,185 $1,137,246 8.2% 24.0% Melbourne $1,022,927 $982,382 $880,620 4.1% 16.2% Brisbane $678,236 $645,718 $600,258 5.0% 13.0% Adelaide $629,728 $597,187 $541,591 5.4% 16.3% Canberra $1,015,833 $919,900 $786,517 10.4% 29.2% Perth $595,823 $589,687 $530,702 1.0% 12.3% Hobart $646,301 $606,275 $503,392 6.6% 28.4% Darwin $608,519 $559,022 $497,543 8.9% 22.3% National $955,927 $903,471 $804,380 5.8% 18.8% Source: Domain
Their money is not hard-earned. That's the problem. It was earned through unfair trade practices like dumping + unfair tariffs on foreign imports, selling fake and even toxic products, technology theft and forced technology transfer. Take away all that, they wouldn't have earned that much money and wouldn't be able to afford to buy that many properties around the world and driving up the property prices and driving people to live in cars. By your theory, China should be proud that foreigners buying properties in China is an endorsement of the location. So WHY ban foreigners from buying and owning properties in China? WHY not let foreigners exercise their "endorsement of the location" with their hard-earned money? I have asked this question six times now and still nobody is able to answer this question. Skirting around the issue and blame it on the Chinese government being a communist regime is a pathetic cop-out and everybody can see that.
My goodness you're thick in the head... do you not understand that property rights in communist (but not exclusively) countries is fundamentally different from those of liberal economies?!? You cannot own land in some countries; you can lease land and whatever you build on it for X number of years (like 99 years) after which the property reverts to the state, unless the state grants a new lease. Don't ever believe that you can build in China and expect to own what you built on the land you built it. And if you got burned once, you've been warned.
Still irrelevant to why they ban foreign ownership of properties in China. Why not let the foreign buyers decide whether they want to buy a property that lasts 70 years or not? Why ban the foreign ownership outright? And yes you can build in China. Chinese farmers do it all the time on the land that they own. Still skirting the question: WHY ban foreign ownership of properties in China if scooping up properties in a foreign country that results in unhealthy rise in property price is such a positive thing?
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ns-in-a-smartphone-world-20210908-p58pxx.html Australian property: Delivering Walkmans in a smartphone world By Shane Wright September 11, 2021 Imagine, for a moment, what the world would look like if Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were more interested in San Francisco real estate than computers. The pair founded the company we know today as Apple by selling Wozniak’s scientific calculator and Jobs’ Volkswagen van. That money was enough to start Apple on the path that not only delivered the world home computers but also the iPod and iPhone. Steve Wozniak with Steve Jobs and one of the first Apple computers. Credit:Bloomberg It was a huge, and ultimately successful, financial gamble by the pair. The benefits of that decision in the mid-1970s can’t just be measured in Apple’s market capitalisation (somewhere north of $2 trillion) – the productivity gains are still being felt today. Had Wozniak and Jobs, rather than build and market a PC, invested in property, they could have made enough money to be very comfortable. But you might still be listening to music on a Sony Walkman while waiting for your visual display terminal to warm up enough so you could use it like an electric typewriter. In economic terms, it’s opportunity cost – what you give up to do something else. In the Apple case, the chance of making a breakthrough in computers was (fortunately) more enticing than a life in real estate. It’s becoming clearer that, as a country, Australians are making the other choice. Our tax system, our monetary policy settings, our fiscal settings and even our television programs all drive us to sink money into real estate rather than something that might be riskier but could deliver huge, long-term gains. Earlier this year, the Bank for International Settlements, the central bank to the world’s central banks, reported that house prices across the world were climbing rapidly, in large part due to record low interest rates. Central banks like our own Reserve Bank of Australia know that a burgeoning property market delivers an economic sugar hit. Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into Australian property over recent years ... at the expense of everything else. Credit Domain The BIS noted that while there were short-term gains from a hot housing market, in the longer term, countries increased the risk of slower overall growth. And while housing construction lifted on the back of lower rates, that in itself was “associated with lower aggregate productivity growth”. Productivity growth is what drives higher wages and standards of living. Without productivity improvement, you’re stuck listening to Wired for Sound on the Walkman rather than wandering around with an iPhone flicking through Spotify. As the Productivity Commission has noted, Australia has done really poorly on the productivity front over the past decade. Even excluding the COVID-19-infected 2019-20 financial year, the past decade has been the worst in terms of productivity growth in 60 years. What did we do in the past decade? The value of home loans held by the Commonwealth Bank alone climbed by 88 per cent over that 10-year period to $322.3 billion. Its loans to investors for property more than doubled to $164 billion. That’s a huge amount of money that could have gone into research and development for Australia’s own version of Wozniak and Jobs. Instead, it’s gone into bricks and mortar and splashbacks and the removal of load-bearing walls. Over that decade, Australian GDP has increased by a touch over a quarter while GDP per person has lifted by less than 10 per cent. Cliff Richard may have been ecstatic listening to AM and FM on his Walkman. But it’s no way to run an economy.