Also, it's not a property bubble when there are less houses than people who want them. Because the population growth rate in Australia is (comparatively) high f

Also, it's not a property bubble when there are less houses than people who want them. Because the population growth rate in Australia is (comparatively) high for a developed country we have high intrinsic demand for new housing. It is quite simply a myth that there is a housing shortage in Australia. This idea has been conceived and perpetuated by vested interests in the property market in Australia, particularly the Housing Industry Association (HIA). A recent article does a good job of exposing this:"Housing industry's missing persons report pure fiction" http://is.gd/eXZT5 http://is.gd/eXZT5 It's not the first time this kind of tactic has been applied either: in the lead up to the property crashes of the US and UK the press ran numerous stories about housing shortages. These quickly turned to stories of housing gluts after the bubble popped. Look to the Australian census data of 2001 and 2006 and you'll see we've been building at an increased rate, and have an increasing number of empty houses on the books (around 800 000 in 2006). A contrarian site gathers a bunch of this information here: http://bubblepedia.net.au/tiki-index.php?page=HousingShortage http://bubblepedia.net.au/tiki-index.php?page=HousingShortag...