What’s driving the boom in Australian property prices? | Four Corners

why do all real estate agents have such punch-able faces

Why are houses now so costly and unaffordable?

Our biggest problem in Australia is that wealth creation is concentrated in the property market and not anywhere else. Our manufacturing, productivity, businesses and real economy has been decimated over the decades, and the spirit of enterprise has been suffocated in favour of speculation. When you turn to your house to make the money for you, you are in effect locking up energy and value in only the idea of a home, and not in producing goods and services for the community. It is therefore imperative that we restore actual wealth creation to restore parity between our contributions to community and the real value of our homes.

The LNP MP said it's a failure on housing affordability. But he is in government. What is he doing to alleviate the issue? It is all lip service.

How did this not end with a link to a suicide support line after you spend 45 minutes telling young people they will never achieve their dreams and will always be a disappointment to the parents they still live with?

You know the counties in a mess, when young people start praying its markets collapse.

"Cant believe younger people arent angrier"... We are angry! What are we going to do though? String up our parents and molitov the parliament?...the young generation are just giving up because the carrot isnt even in view anymore. Pretty rich to seeing an LNP MP talking about price rises...considering his party took it upon themselves to lie to the older generations about negative gearing...

Housing is a business in Australia. The banks, govt, media, real estate agents, developers are all doing their best to inflate prices. There is no such thing as free market.

"Old houses are full of stories". And leaks and rot. Buying without inspections is a horrific risk.

The Chinese had the one child policy. Its probably time Australia introduced the one house policy.

In the US here. My dad's parents helped him buy his first house in his twenties in the early 70's. A little 900sq ft home for a single man. He met my mother and they stayed there for another 5 years after marrying before moving into their forever home of 2500sq ft in the 80's. That's generational wealth. He was griping to me about silly youths not buying houses nowadays, and i asked him why he didn't help me with an extra $100K to buy a starter home for myself in my twenties. He piped down because they were dealing with the 2008 crises and had to file bankruptcy and lost most of their savings. That's how generational wealth gets eliminated.

As a Canadian, some of our cities are experiencing the same problem. The solution is an end to foreign ownership (just the ones who live overseas), and a cap on how many homes a person can have as “investments,” and more state capital put into building low-income and cooperative housing. Also, tax corporations and the ultra wealthy sufficiently.

Many people cannot afford a home, because some investors own dozens or even hundreds investment properties, and they receive tax incentives to own more investment properties. Our tax policies encourage people to speculate in the property market, that is the root cause of the issue. Investor should really pay more and more tax for each additional investment property they buy.

Governor Bligh said no-one should own more than 1 home. I would would be happy with keeping that at 2. This country has been mollycoddling house prices for a long time at the expense of everyday people. Homes and land should not be treated like the stock market.

My blood boils watching this. I am paying taxes to subsidise investors ! I am almost 40 with 2 kids and cannot afford a house.

Rural northern California here. About 10 years ago, here in California and many other popular U.S. states, the housing market crashed really bad. Lots of people lost their homes. They had big mortgages, and their house values were diving big time. Lots of people could not sell their homes. Foreclosures and bank repossessions were happening left and right. The mentality PRIOR to this was, 'how can you go wrong buying a house?' Because next month, it would be worth more! Getting loans was crazy easy. Buyers and lenders were manipulating the numbers. Lots of buyers were speculating, and many were making a killing. People were just buying houses to make money, not to live in. And then "IT" happened. I started seeing notices (legal documents attached to the front doors and windows of homes) that homes were being repossessed, or were in foreclosure, or were being sold by the bank) on every street. Houses were becoming very affordable, fast. Foreclosure news was in the news every day. "Upside down" became the common term for people who could not sell their home because they owed the bank more than their house was worth, and the interest rate they were NOW paying (because those BAD variable interest rates were "killing" people) was more than they could afford. It was common for home owners?(you don't really own it until you finish paying for it!) to simply stop paying on their loans for months, some more than a year. Some people, lots of people actually, just walked away from their homes, just left them. Some just gave their keys to the bank. I'm 67, and have lived my whole life in California. I never imagined that "day" would come when home prices would drop, and drop big time. I saw it on my street, in my neighborhood, even in my quaint, rural little town where I thought we would be spared. Lots of people lost, and some people gained from the housing bubble bursting. I seriously doubt that the housing situation in Australia can continue on it's current path. It's like musical chairs. Eventually the music stops.

The look of guilt on the faces of these realestate agents is telling, they are making stacks and even they know it is unethical.

Negative gearing needs to STOP ! It old out of date political policy that’s killing Australians home ownership dreams

At 14:35 when he said "why aren't younger people mad about the system being rigged against them".... maybe we aren't so vocal because we've been told were ungrateful, spoiled, lazy and entitled children that just don't work hard enough? It's because we've been shamed for "not trying hard enough"

such a useless report. they spend the so much time reiterating the same point; "the market is expensive and inaccessible". we know that mate, thanks for clearing it up. why dont you really dive in and tell us why its like this. i.e. negative gearing, foreign investment, over commodification, historically low interest rates. why dont we implement a policy to stop some bloke living in dubai from buying 5 investment properties, pricing out every day aussies.