Anecdotally speaking as someone who grew up there, I feel investment property is tied culturally to wealth building in Australia above all other asset classes (I left 6-7 years ago so maybe it's changed), it's also encouraged by the government with tax breaks. Despite declining birth rate the property owning class will continue to buy up and rent out everything available.

I suspect the current property owning class will keep buying it up as investments and land banking, and bidding up the price as they go. The only way they could be as high as they are is as ‘investments’ where the purchaser either had capital or is anticipating selling before their loan reverts from interest only.

@bamboozled - Can’t reply directly as we’re too nested, but I think as long as our services and jobs are concentrated around Sydney, there won’t be any particular decrease in demand. The end goal for these people is to own all the property around the city that could feasibly be rented out to workers, who have no choice but to live there because that’s where the hospitals, jobs, and people are.

40 years of successive governments have set the city up to make decentralisation basically impossible. We have next to no fast transit options, our roads in and out are all privately owned toll roads, and once you leave the ‘greater sydney area’, which is fairly massive anyway, there’s basically nothing there to support you.

Workers can't afford to pay the rent being asked though? If you're paying such insanely high prices for land, you need to get a pretty high return on the land to fund the next purchase ? In that regard it seems like a race to the bottom?

Also, remote work is now becoming more of a thing than ever, so people have much less of a need to live in Sydney itself and pay crazy high rent. I can see this happening in many other major cities.

I actually left a major city recently where I was paying 5x the rent I was paying pre-pandemic. Things just aren't what they used to be in this regard. I also now have way more money to save and invest in property myself, or other things such as shares. I feel like before I was a slave, now I'm somewhat liberated.

This is what I don’t understand with the tech workers who can work remotely, why live somewhere really expensive?

I’m not in tech but it really doesn’t matter where I have a place to live so I’m in the process of buying a house in Iowa which is literally less expensive than the storage unit I rent in Phoenix — relatively speaking, over time, if you aren’t that good at math, maybe?

Sure, after closing I have to deal with the squatters (or maybe renters, dunno?) and probably have to do some repairs (again, dunno?) but the price is basically for a shell of a house which, after a bit of research, is how these things are priced if you’re willing to take on some risk and don’t mind doing some work before you can move in.

At the risk of just rambling…the flowers in the front yard are what really sold me, what kind of person is going to stay in a bank-owned house and still maintain the yard?

> This is what I don’t understand with the tech workers who can work remotely, why live somewhere really expensive?

Because of what's around it.

Funny enough you mention Iowa. My brother got a job that allows him to work remote and considered moving to a small town in Iowa because he could buy a decent house for under $100K, which would give him a mortgage that's half of what he pays for rent right now. But then he looked at the neighborhood in street view and saw an alarming number of Confederate and Trump flags and decided against it.

I luckily bought my house when I did, because home values in my area have nearly doubled in the last 7 years (Paid $338K, currently estimated worth $650K now). For me to move to a cheaper place means living in the middle of nowhere, and I prefer to live somewhere that gives me lots of options for fine dining within a 30 minute drive. I also like living in a nicer neighborhood where I don't have to worry about some crackhead trying to steal my wife's catalytic converter.

IDK, nine years of driving cabs in Phoenix I think I’m a pretty good judge of crappy neighborhoods.

Quad-Cities seems like a good area to me, that was my original plan but this about 45 minutes away in Clinton. Probably won’t be able to get away without a car like I did in Phoenix because I can’t really see me riding a bicycle in the real cold but everything I need is within easy biking distance. Hell, the Mississippi River is a leisurely seven minute bike ride away.

I’m actually totally randomly headed out there on my next load, will have to be on the look out for confederate flags.

Ok, what's the end game there? You own a bunch of land with less and less demand for it?

> Honestly, why do you think house prices in Sydney will double again?

In Canada, up until a couple years ago, house prices appreciated 7% per annum on average. That is a doubling every ten years.

In the US, prices have appreciated by 3-4%. That’s a double every twenty years.

Sydney prices will be on the same trend.

So I should just pay $3,000,000AUD for anything I can find because it's only going to double no matter what?

It will eventually double. Canada’s 7%pa seems high to me, but so it seems to be. Mind, homes are much bigger, more energy efficient, better finishes. I think reasonable home appreciation should be close to the inflation rate. Or better, wage increases.

But, yah, even then it eventually doubles. Look up “Rule of 77” for an explanation.