No need to stay longer here to know that its heading south. Property prices are ridiculous and it is getting overcrowded. That is wat i meant about it becoming like peesai. Ive lived in Canada before this and it wasnt as bad. Maybe due too the freezing temp in Canada. As for "pockets of opputunity in housing" Ive look around from clarkson to leederville train line and the prices almost the same. BTW i have a 1 year old wt me, so I cant just go after any property just because its cheap. Anyone wt a toddler will understand.
Curious as to why you left Canada? Cold? Every Chinaman here in SG still wants to go to Canada to eventually enter the US.
The world has changed. The last of the boom and bust cycles are ending. The Keynesians have not been able to solve anything - Japan's has 240% public debt to GDP and until today their bust has lasted over 20 years. No amount of stimulus has helped - yet investors continue to buy bonds driving interest rates down. At what point will the dam burst? 300%? Japan can never repay its debt. Neither can Europe. The Euro is a problem that will go on for years - the ECB will print its way out of this mess and the stock market will hit fresh highs once the printing presses roll. But the debt will still be there. They will join the US and "kick the can down the road" We will all be old and grey before investors lose faith in the system and demand accountability.
During the next ten to twenty years growth in Europe, US will be like Japan last 20 years. US housing is currently hitting bottom but prices will be under pressure for many years. Prices are "cheap" in the US currently and prices are set to crash in Europe in the next 10 years. No more boom and bust cycles for some time. Only equities can be inflated by the printing press so dont sell your gold just yet.
Then we come to China. As you are well aware China is slowing down. Its partly govt engineered and partly unbalanced. Their per capita has reached the magical middle income development figure. The only way to grow is to switch to consumption led growth. No nation in human history has been able to achieve rapid growth at this point of its development. Their property market is bursting. Canada and Australia have done very well due to the demand from commodities to get to this point, but now all eyes are on the handover, and keeping social harmony. China is a mess. We simply don't know what's next.
Australia is different. It has the lowest debt to GDP in the western world - many nations envy Australia's fiscal health. The mining boom, housing boom, record consumer confidence and Welfarist level revenues from taxes have cushioned Australia from the GFC. If you think the US can print money - the Chinese printed 1/4 of its GDP in 2008 to avoid recession - and Australia got a big economic shot in the arm. The Chinese got 7% inflation. But now we see something else there - China and the effects of the Australian housing bubble are starting to take its toll on the economy. We currently see Australian housing falling 5% per year for several years. We see mining to be in a long, slow decline as China switches from export led growth to domestic consumption. Along the way the Australian govt has the most amount of firepower to cushion its citizens.....no more boom and bust cycles. We dont see any rapid declines in Australian housing, wages, costs, or taxes. Just a long period of stagflation/deflation, but Australia will fare better than the US or Europe, but prices there will be lower than in Australia.
Expect it to be like this for a very, very, very long time............
