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Housing and the Global Financial Crisis: US versus Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Nigel Stapledon
Nigel Stapledon*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, UNSW
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Abstract

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In the housing cycle which started in 1996, Australian house prices have risen more than those in the US, prima facie suggesting that Australian prices should fall sharply. This paper questions that simple hypothesis. The reasons explored are: Australian prices have risen significantly less than those in coastal California, the more valid comparison; the Australian housing finance system contains fewer of the structural weaknesses of the US system; fundamentals in the form of the decline in real interest rates explain most, but not all, of the price rise; and macroeconomic conditions for housing in Australia are more favourable to weathering the global financial crisis.

Type
Symposium: The Global Financial Crisis
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , July 2009 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2009

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