Still Speculating In Australian Housing: More Punch, Mate! - Great Speculations - Buys, holds, and hopes - Forbes

Still Speculating In Australian Housing: More Punch, Mate! - Great Speculations - Buys, holds, and hopes - Forbes: "Leading up to Japan’s bursting real estate bubble in 1990, we were told that this time was different: house prices simply reflected the growing economic power of Japan Inc. and there was a land shortage in overcrowded Tokyo. Today, Japanese real estate prices are still less than 50% of that peak value reached more than two decades ago. During the U.K. bubble, Brits blamed zoning requirements for creating land shortages until prices crashed to the lowest multiple of income on record in 1997. Similarly, builders in Northern Ireland predicted severe housing shortages if planners did not release more land in 2003. And before America’s bubble burst, there were land shortages across the country, from Florida’s undeveloped west coast to the deserts of Nevada.

While prices at home have already fallen 30% from their peak, they’d have to fall another 45% just to reach the long term trend, which according to Robert Shiller, has been flat in real terms for three and a half centuries!!