A fundamental truism of economics is that if you tax something, you get less of it. Tax is thus a good place to start in seeking to explain why Australia’s housing market is chronically under-supplied…
Does the building industry have the enough capacity to increase the housing supply?
AAP
We often hear that Australia is facing a housing shortage that is driving up property prices, but what is the best way out of this predicament?
In the final days of last year, National Housing Supply…
Australian suburbia: a work of art, but in the wrong place?
Suburban Exterior (1993) - Howard Arkley/AAP
In spite of what everyone believes through natural pride and vanity, the family house is an asset that depreciates.
Don’t be deceived that the value of property goes up and up, which of course it does…
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…
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…
The UK's boom-bust housing cycle has led to knee-jerk government policy.
Like Australia, the United Kingdom accords a particular value to home ownership that extends beyond the mere provision of housing.
We British like to think of ourselves as a “property-owning democracy…
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…
