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Web alert - warning on 'crazy' house prices
One of the most outspoken sceptics of Australian property prices has launched a new effort to raise awareness of “crazy” housing prices and policies.
In an effort to turn losing a bet about a local housing bubble into winning more followers, University of Western Sydney associate professor of economics Steve Keen has unveiled keenwalk.com.au.
The site will highlight the 224 kilometre journey on foot from Parliament House in Canberra to Mount Kosciuszko in the Snowy Mountains he is making in April, after losing a wager with Macquarie Bank analyst Rory Robertson that home prices would fall 40 per cent from peak to trough in a year.
Professor Keen will wear a t-shirt with the words, “I was hopelessly wrong on house prices. Ask me how.”
Last year, capital city house prices rose by 12.1 per cent, hitting a new high, as demand from first-home buyers sparked a revival at the lower end of the market, while Australia’s strong economy bolstered the top end.
Undaunted, Professor Keen is asking members of the public who “agree that Australia’s housing prices and policies are crazy” to join him for 15 kilometre stretches of the walk, expected to take him eight days in total. The site will also raise money for the Swags for Homeless charity, which distributes weatherproof swags to Australia's 16,000 homeless.
“I’m happy to walk from Parliament House to Mt Kosciuszko if I can draw attention to the absurdity of basing economic policy on making housing more unaffordable,” said Professor Keen.
He also reminded Mr Robertson that the second part of the bet - whether Australian home prices would drop 40 per cent over 10 to 15 years - “is still alive and well.”
“Rory may yet have to follow in my footsteps,” he said.
Mr Robertson said in November that if Australian house prices ever fell by 40 per cent from any peak in his lifetime, he would follow in Professor Keen's footsteps.
Professor Keen said the main reason home prices surged in 2009 was the government’s first home owners’ grant boost, which has created a caste of “sacrificial lambs of Australia’s so far successful evasion of the GFC”.
He pointed to a recent Fujitsu Consulting study which predicted that 40 per cent of the 250,000 first time buyers who entered the market in the last year and a half are experiencing some degree of mortgage stress, with that share expected to rise to 47 per cent by December.
Fujitsu describes mild mortgage stress as borrowers reprioritising their bills or borrowing more from other sources in order to maintain their home loan repayments. In more severe mortgage stress, borrowers are forced to refinance loans or sell their homes.
However, Mr Robertson again warned against too much pessimism.
"Betting the house on an economist's forecast typically is not a smart move," Mr Robertson said today. "Unfortunately, Dr Keen recklessly encouraged everyday Australians to sell their homes at what turned out to be the peak of the global financial crisis, and the trough in local house prices." |
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