Recent content by sphinx

4 "financial" years = 2 calendar year + 2 days If you contribute before the end of this financial year, you can use your money July 2011 (perhaps the time the market has just bottomed or is still crashing). You don't have to put ALL your planned deposit into it, just enough to get the 17%...

Nobody believes REI's spruiker data after they reported there were only 700 properties left in the entire Sydney for rent. :rolleyes: 1%? rubbish! Sydney's rental vacancy rate is climbing steadily up. One of my friends just negotiated $20 down for his rent with the landlord.

don't forget person/house changed from 2.6 to 2.2 from 2006 to 2008. That is 0.4 change in just 2 years with good economic situation. It can change back in worsening economic condition as well. Do you think with 2.6 person per house in 2006 (2.6 is also the OECD average), people were in...

what over building? Under their assumption that person per house always go down (1.8 in 2006 and will stay the same or go down), there was no over building.... there was only sever undersupply! The so called over-building is a complete hindsight.. under the new 2.2 person per house.... sure...

What happens if person/house rise from 2.2 t0 2.3? (21 million / 2.2) - (21 million / 2.3) = 415k more houses/units to the supply side! So these so-called "30k -40k houses" undersupply per annum is just nothing compared to any slight grouping of people which always happens in a recession. As...

Here is indeed different because: 1. We do not count on-sale house as vacant .. but US do. That usually adds another 4-5%... more in a bad market. 2. REI publishes fake ultra-low vacancy rates. Independent research shows otherwise...

not sure why this highly dubious figure is always quoted to mislead people. The figure is based on a big assumption that person/house and person/bedroom will stay at historical low. But person/house or bedroom is climbing back rapidly and a slight increase will create a huge oversupply. With...

It took 23 years for the stock market to climb back to the before crash level in 1929 (in nominal term). I am not sure how many 20+ years one has o wait to recover the loss and get some investment return. I would say, if you don't plan on using it in 40 years, its not an issue. On the other...

Current CDS (credit default swap) indicates the default possibility for government bond: * Australia government: 14% * US government: 7% Possibility of Australia default jumped drastically in the last week or so due to: * rate cutting stopped. * surprisingly big GDP contraction...

One thing you seem to forget to mention from the same source..... UK has been (still now) in severe "undersupply"... more severe than Australia... (under the way supply is estimated). UK also has a longer period of under-built than Australia. One thing ofen used as the last straw on this...

Yes. I don't get it when you only consider the rosy scenario of leverage on the way UP, not DOWN when your deposit is effectively wiped out for a small drop in property price. On a high LVR, there is a very high possibility of getting into negative equity when bubbles burst. When prices have...

1. About leverage. I find slightly amusing that people here talk a lot about leverage on the way UP, but not on the way DOWN. But they do laugh at share investors who use margin loans. Using leverage in a type of investment which barely tracks CPI in the long term... I don't see any smart in...

You don't understand probably because you have never done the numbers in detail. Property prices usually need to appreciate 5% annually to "break even" (either buy vs. rent OR buy IP vs. not buy IP). I don't want to go into the details of the calculation.. but the gist is that you have to...

Perhaps i didn't make myself clear. I made my initial 2002 decision without knowing this forum. I was very tempted to buy in 2007 after some years of easing (then a false recovery signal) in Sydney market and I started reading this forum (joined after a while). However, I still came away with...

Thanks for your advice. I did my research and decided not to buy in 2002 in Sydney although I could buy. So after 5 years, financially I am 200k better off than if I bought in 2002. I am predicting zero growth at least in the future 5 years after an initial burst and some later recovery. So I...