Intelligent post however the problem is the following. (ill refer to NSW since everyone seems to be fixated on it) NSW has been in the doldrums for ages not just now, any stats will show flat growth for large chunks of NSW for a while now. This isnt a "bubble" if anything its a bubble that has been deflating slowly since 2003.
What has saved Australia is not clever investors or politicians but rather the opposite i.e. its stupid politicians we can thank, for saving us.
Thanks to politicians being too slow to build the necessary infrastructure needed to match the demand in housing, supply has been restrained. This has meant that while the US had an oversupply because every man and his dog (literally - they managed to get a dog a loan in the US) was both building houses and buying them, Australia couldn't ever meet demand so now demand has dissipated and coming closer to supply (still nowhere near though).
In short in the US there was an oversupply which meant speculation had nothing to constrain it except for economic reality (i.e a recession). Once that hit we got what we have now boom/bust.
So for the first time we can thank our politicians for not doing enough as being the perverse reason why australia has not had the same impact.
Regarding the loans thankfully the US "boom" busted before our banks could get anymore "Adventurous" in their loan offerings. Remember when lo-docs started at 60% and ended to 100%?
American loans where A LOT WORSE they had loans which had an extended period of low interest like an extended honeymoon period which exploded to something much higher than the standard variable. Imagine how many "insight" viewers would have taken out loans at 3% interest without a second thought for 3 years down the track - SBS would have had a field day trawling all them out with their "aftermath" stories.
All in all thanks to political inaction and luck Australia was saved. Nothing else.... its not a case or arbitrarily saying "were different".
Only problem now is thanks to the yanks "sentiment" here will be in the doldrums for 6-12 months at least.
My reading says that most of the "medium term" future is already carved in stone years before the events come to pass. For example the "sub-prime" debacle was known to anyone who cared to read. 'Twas years ago Buffett warned that "derivatives" were "weapons of mass wealth destruction". The fact is that 99% of investors think they know more'n "the Sage" or are too thick headed to put a little thought into just what a "derivative" is. Anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size should have been able to predict that the "liar loans" were a disaster just waiting to happen and that the US Fed's rescues are merely ensuring the inevitable bang will be louder than it should have been. Equally, Greenspan's continuous money printing was always going to pump up bubbles.
Why are Aussie bubbles "different"?
There is nothing that has happened in recent years which has surprised me (you are welcome to search years of posts). So why aren't I rich? Fair question. It is the 6-9 months periods that I can't predict so maybe Shady and I should get our heads together.