12 years ago - Eight Housing Affordability Myths - The Centre for Independent Studies
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Mash_man710
artsrc [OP]
This is a really good summary of some, contrarian, but textbook economics implications on housing.
Hopefully no one agrees with all of it, that would be dull. But hopefully it makes you think.
For me the conclusion, that the way we control the supply and distribution of *land* is the key to housing, is right.
You do need a broad understanding of what land title rights are. Land zoned agricultural is not the same as the same physical land zoned for a 10 story building. Land with publicly provided roads, schools, etc nearby is not the same as land without those. Land close to jobs is not the same as remote land.
This one is my favourite:
> When foreigners buy domestic property, they transfer overseas wealth to Australians in the form of either new dwellings or higher prices for existing dwellings.
This reminds me of the MMT perspective on borrowing, that when a currency issue borrows they are exchanging tokens they make up for free, for real goods and services, a pretty good deal. A massive contrast with the media narrative that we are stealing from our children.
One of the persistent errors in economics are assumptions about rational collective behaviour.
The real, intrinsic value of a bitcoin is zero. The market price is not zero. When will the price correct?
The real, intrinsic utility of gold, while it is sitting in a vault, is zero. For longer than human written history gold has had high exchange value, not determined by its utility. The market stays wrong longer than the market has existed.
This forgets that housing in Australia is a meme stock - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme\_stock
A genuine change of perception would not just change prices, it would do so in an unstable way.
sien
Thanks for posting. This is a good article.
Great article. All of the talk of bubbles is skewered by one line - "when something can be explained easily by economic fundamentals, it's not a bubble."
The other great line relates to housing (mortgage) costs. Repayment on your principle is a saving, not a cost. That's why mortgage repayments are excluded from the CPI.
artsrc [OP] 2 points · Jul 2026
I am not a fan of the current set of choices in the Australian CPI.
Ignoring the biggest expense for most people is problematic.
Beyond repayments of mortgage principal, one of either the appreciation of your home, or the inflationary decrease in the real value of your mortgage is also saving.