While the Coalition has criticised Australia’s public debt levels, it is the country’s private debt that is the big issue.
Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com
Liberal MP Andrew Robb has criticised the rise in public debt under the current Gillard government in a recent ABC radio interview. During the interview, Robb claimed growth in public debt was excessive…
As Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy considers a bailout from the European Central Bank, commentators argue over whether the root of the country’s economic troubles sprang from its housing bubble, rather than prolifigate public spending.
AAP
Spaniards Fernando and Sara got married in 2007. With the help of their parents, the couple bought a house in the outer suburbs of Sevilla because they couldn’t afford one closer to the city.
An art history…
Australia’s housing and rental affordability crisis is often cited as a justification for negative gearing.
AAP
Few Australian housing policies are more contentious than negative gearing.
Despite the publicity it has received and its popularity with government and property investors, little analysis of negative…
Talk of a Chinese property bubble has been greatly exaggerated.
Spiffy0777
Five years on, the US economy remains sluggish after the bursting of a house price bubble. More recently, the focus has been on China, the world’s second largest economy, and whether it too might be overwhelmed…
The foundations of the real estate industry are threatened by entrenched conflicts of interest.
thinkpanama
Conflicts of interest undermine the quality of advice and policy. It is critical to the functioning of markets and government that parties involved are free of conflicts, especially monetary ones. We would…
Our property prices are propped up by a range of political, economic and even emotional reasons.
AAP
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…
Bigger houses (on the left) – not smaller lots – are killing the Aussie backyard.
Tony Hall
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…
The US Occupy movement has turned its attention from corporate greed to the housing market.
AAP
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…
Buyers' playtime: Australians have splurged on mortgage debt.
Flickr/Bill Ward's brickpile
Our Safe as Houses series delves into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view property…
Interest rates would appear to be a national obsession: but are we worrying too much?
AAP
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we…
Increasingly, the impossible dream? Government policy has contributed to a lack of affordable housing.
AAP
By Ian Winter, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute
The Federal government’s Tax Forum offers a unique opportunity to begin remedying some of the inefficiencies and inequities we are witnessing in our housing system.
Housing in Australia has become an…
House prices grew by 127% between 1996 and 2010, but few people believe there is a property bubble.
AAP
One aspect of housing and stock market bubbles continually repeats: the vast majority of economists either miss or deny their existence.
In recent years, enormous asset bubbles have burst in many countries…
Could a housing bubble burst occur in Australia on the same scale as in the US during the financial crisis?
AAP
By now it should be obvious to anybody who is not a banker or a real estate agent that Australia is in the grip of a substantial housing bubble.
The greatest housing-price rise in the history of Australian…
Would you behave differently if you knew when the crash was coming?
Dave Hunt/AAP
Economists and physicists may seem like unlikely bedfellows, but then opposites often attract. Their union has recently produced a peculiar baby, a field of research known as “econophysics”.
Physicists…
