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Property bubble set to burst?

July 10, 2011

Whether or not you believe the ‘housing bubble’ a) exists, and b) is set to burst, it’s no secret that the property market is a little lackluster at the moment. With the debate still in full swing on what the current soft property figures mean in the long term, a new voice has entered the fray.

Speaking at The Property Bubble Debate in June, Professor Steven Keen from the University of Western Sydney said Australian property prices would fall by 40 percent over the next 10 to 15 years.

On the other side of the fence, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver and HIA chief Economist Harley Dale firmly disagreed with Professor Keen’s findings.

Is it a case of somewhere in the middle, lies the truth?

Property data from March shows that housing sales are around 18 percent below their five-year average and listings are at inflated levels. This is good news for those looking to take advantage of the situation to build up an investment property portfolio, but bad news for the home loan belt.

Across the board, vendors are discounting their initial asking price, as the average number of days a property sits on the market increases.

In March, in the nation’s capital cities, the average time taken to sell a house by private treaty was 59 days, and 54 days for a unit. For the same period last year, the figures were 45 days for a house and 39 days for units. March also saw vendors discounting the price of their property by -6.5 percent for houses and -6.6 percent for units. Discounting has been most noticeable in Brisbane (-7.7 percent for houses and -7.9 percent for units).

The figures are lowest in Sydney (units -4.8 percent) and Darwin (houses -5.3 percent).

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