Hahaha well I am an anaesthetist @Rudyboy so maybe they are taking the drug thing seriously!!

Glad to see Perth is getting in on the property pump again!

Worth noting that it took 7 or so years for Perth property to surpass the highs set in 2014 (at the peak of a mining boom).

As per the ABS, and using Sydney as a reference, it went something like this:

All of which is to say that, believe it or not, property does sometimes go down in value. And the malaise can last a reasonably long time.

In Perth's case, it was something like 15% top to bottom. Sydney's pullback between 2017-2019 was more mild (about 10%) and shorter lived.

Not a disaster of course, and who even cares if you were buying a place to live in and weren't overly stretched in meeting repayments along the way. But anyone who is leveraged to the eyeballs on an investment property, with negative real cash flows, is asking for it imo.

I just hope their folly won't impact the wider economy in any systemically important way..

Incoherent, ill-informed, long-winded, rambling rants are my specialty @Cbcameron

I have to share a quick story following an experience yesterday with a RE agent (I think they worked for R. Sole & Co agency).

So, we inspected a house that looked nice enough online. Unsurprisingly it was very different in real life (shock horror!). Oh well, that's par for the course, so we shrugged it off and left.

Later that day the agent calls me to ask what I thought. I politely said that I thought it was too expensive given the state of the house, but thanked them for the opportunity and asked them to let us know if anything else came up.

They then went on to explain to me why I was wrong and how it was, in fact, an incredible bargain.

Look, there's nothing to be gained from getting into a debate with these people. And given they are the gatekeepers you need to see the bigger picture and avoid any petting point scoring.

But in this instance I had to ask why, if that was the case, no one else was interested and why the property had been on the market for nearly 3 months. I mean, markets can be inefficient and all, but surely such an obvious bargain wouldn't remain in plain sight for so long? Let alone when demand is sky high and with very little stock on the market.

Their response?

"Most buyers are idiots".

My head nearly exploded. I mean, even if that were true, is that the kind of thing you would say openly to a mark, er, I mean prospective buyer?

It took a Herculean effort, but I had the good sense to bite my tongue and just say "you're probably right", thank them for their time and hang up.

Serious late stage vibes. But the top won't be in until we actually buy :)

@Strawmani feel your pain. I am moving to Perth from wollongong for a year and deciding to rent. Going from owning back into the rental market is insane.

4 calls on consecutive days. 1 Enquiry, 2 emails a cover letter. Offered 7% extra on rent with 6 months in advance all in writing. Still couldn’t even get a call back or an acknowledgment of the offer.

Have to try and stay on the good side just in case another comes up is painful.

Best of luck with it @Metis

It's a degrading and stressful experience. I'm convinced the majority of landlords are perfectly decent folk, but these middlemen make it tough.

Talking about stressful

There was a house inspection last week in our street (Lane Cove) which caused a traffic deadlock.

Our street was so narrow that no cars can go in and out and people were parking on the nature strips and other people's driveways.

In the end, the cars that were trying to get into the street for the inspection had to reverse out back to the main road causing additional traffic chaos.

Just FYI, this is the street.

@Strawman To rub salt into the wounds, I think the house could easily go for $3m+. It is small double-brick and not renovated but lots of potential (in fact most of the houses on our street including mine are double-brick). Only 15min drive from city and there is a terminus bus stop so you can be the first person to get a seat on the bus to the city.

40 years ago, houses here would be about $40K