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The opening statement made by Lindsay David for the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics Inquiry into Home Ownership.
To be frank, the evidence suggests that on the back of irrational exuberance, Australia is experiencing what can only be described as a classic debt-financed speculative housing bubble with every metric that evidenced the bubble in the US and Ireland present within our economic system today.
To put things in perspective, between the June quarter 1996 (when real housing prices first began to rise) and the December quarter of 2014, real housing prices rose by approximately 131%.
But over this same period, inflation rose by 60%, our population grew by 30%, real GDP by 79%, real rents by 21% and real household income by 39%. In short, the growth of housing prices has completely outstripped all economic fundamentals except for the expansion of household debt.
Over the same period, total household liabilities boomed from 54% relative to GDP to 118%. And today, Australian households now owe creditors close to $2 trillion and rising. Never has our household sector been as indebted as it is today.
Between 2002 and mid-2015 the mortgage books at the Big 4 banks, NAB, ANZ, CBA and Westpac grew by 388%, 435%, 475% and 554% respectively.
In 2002, just the size of the mortgage books at the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac combined was equivalent to 18% of GDP. Today, its stands at 44% of GDP and continues to rise.
In 2002, the mortgage book of Westpac suggests that for every dollar it had loaned to an owner occupier, it had lent 45 cents to property investors. By April 2015, the proportion rose to 81 cents.
It is truly surprising these patterns of rapid growth have not been of profound concern to the RBA, APRA or Treasury over this thirteen-year period for where data is freely available and states the blatantly obvious.
Australia has spent the better part of fifteen years avoiding the primary reason as to why house prices have boomed above fundamentals such as rents, incomes, inflation and GDP – which happens to be debt-financed speculation.
Our grossly undercapitalized, overleveraged, foreign funds-reliant banking system has artificially stimulated demand for real estate in what is an unaffordable market by consistently lending irrational sums of debt to owner-occupiers and investors. The public is also caught up in a mania of irrational exuberance, which combined explains why housing prices across Australia are as high as they are today. The evidence outlined in our submission suggests this to be the case.
To put it into perspective how expensive land is across Australia, you can find cheaper blocks of land per square meter on the hills of Malibu, California with a view of the Pacific Ocean than you can find in locales like Alice Springs or St Marys. Representatives, this is not normal, and quite frankly, laughable if the matter was not so serious.
For too long, Australian policymakers with authority and regulatory power have ignored all the warning signs pointing to a credit-fuelled housing bubble. Yet, over the years have implemented various policies to stimulate the price of housing and the rapidly growing risk home owners and property investors accumulate in order to keep house prices abnormally high whilst making various interventions that stick out like a sore thumb every time household credit expanded below a perceived comfort level.
LINDSAY DAVID is the author of <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com/2015/02/lindsay-davids-new-book-print-central-bankers-bubble-now-available/">Australia: Boom to Bust and Print: The Central Bankers Bubble.</a> David holds an MBA from IMD Business School and recently founded <a href="https://www.lfeconomics.com/about">LF Economics</a>.
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LindsayDavid-WEhfyLvNJJ

A classic debt-financed speculative housing bubble: Lindsay David

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When it comes to house prices, 99.9% of Australian’s believe that because demand outstrips supply is the prime reason as to why house prices in Australia are as high as they are. Unfortunately, the greatest flaw in this theory is that the assumption is that when it comes to the housing market that banks and debt do not exist. 
In other words, just because there are a large sum of buyers seeking to buy a house relative to the available (sufficient) supply that the price can climb infinitively.
Lets look at two hypothetical property markets as an example.
<table style="width: 269px;"><tbody>
<tr>
<td width="139"> </td>
<td width="65">City A</td>
<td width="65">City B</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Median Household income</td>
<td>$70,000</td>
<td> $70,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Median House Price</td>
<td>$210,000</td>
<td> $700,000</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
 
Now here is where Australian society has made a dangerously flawed assumption. The Australian herd assumes that just because a city such as the hypothetical City B has a significantly higher house price that there is less housing stock available in the marketplace relative to demand than City A. And based on this assumption that supply is incredibly limited that homebuyers are able to magically come up with the necessary funds (based on the absolute assumption that desperation to secure a roof over their head is higher in City B v City A) available to purchase a median house at 10x the median income without debt.
What the overwhelming majority of the Australian public… (including the economists at the big banks and RBA) dont understand ‘or will not acknowledge’ is that it is almost near impossible for housing in both City A and City B to be as expensive as it is even if there was screaming demand relative to the available supply without banks and debt.
But when banks in one city are prepared to lend more than banks in another city relative to incomes, you will generally find house prices are higher in the city where the banks lend more.
<table style="width: 301px;"><tbody>
<tr>
<td width="157"> </td>
<td width="69">City A</td>
<td width="75">City B</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Median Household income</td>
<td>$70,000</td>
<td> $70,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Median House Price</td>
<td>$210,000</td>
<td> $700,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Deposit</td>
<td>30%</td>
<td> 20%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total Deposit</td>
<td>$63,000</td>
<td> $140,000</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
 
Now as per the above, if the banks in City A are only willing to lend households 210% of their income to purchase a home, that would mean there is a good chance (give or take a few % points) that the median household would only be able to acquire a maximum of $147,000 of debt (on top of their deposit) to purchase a house.
Theoretically, even if there was an actual dire shortage of houses available in the marketplace, you would find that more often that not the only way to drive house prices higher would be if the median homebuyer was able to come up with a larger deposit.
Lets assume that the median homebuyer in City A were to come up with an $70,000 deposit versus a $63,000 deposit. It would mean that the homebuyer would be able to pay $7,000 above the median house price. But in City B there is a distinctive difference (spread) between the median income generated by the median household and the median house price when compared to City A. 
All things being equal between the two cities where there are just as many homebuyers in each city desperate enough to get into the housing market. If the banks in City A are only willing to lend a median income homebuyer $147,000, but in City B banks are willing to lend a median to homebuyers $560,000, which city do you expect to have higher house prices if both property markets share the exact same level of demand?
So the next time you hear a chief economist from one of the major Australian financial institutions mention the importance of supply and demand– remember, they (and the banks they work for and lend significant sums of debt to homebuyers year after year) assume that the banking system has no involvement whatsoever in the housing market and has not made an impact on the price of a house through flooding the housing market with debt.
Artificial leveraged demand created by the Australian banking system in what is a nation where housing is completely unaffordable is what drives prices in Australia sky high. Funny how no major financial institution, research agency or government entity such as Treasury or the RBA will never address the demand side of the Australian housing market. Just the good old, ‘we have a housing shortage’ and the population is desperate… creating artificial desperation. <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Australian-Consolidated-Private-Gross-Debt1.jpg"> </a>
Lindsay David is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Australia-Australian-Credit-Property-Bubble-ebook/dp/B00JJ7UW0S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410612321&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=australia+boom+to+bust" target="_blank">Australia: Boom to Bust</a> and  <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Print-Central-Bankers-Lindsay-David-ebook/dp/B00TMHEDBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1423979661&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=print+the+central+bankers+bubble" target="_blank">Print: The Central Bankers Bubble</a>. David recently founded <a href="https://www.lfeconomics.com/" target="_blank">LF Economics</a> and holds an MBA from IMD Business School.
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Artificial desperation: Lindsay David

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If APRA enforce’s the assessment of a new mortgage holder’s ability to pay down their mortgage obligations the right way, it would cause a heavy blow to the Australian economy. The base assumption is that mortgage stress starts when more than 30% of household income is used to pay down the mortgage. Most households with new financing are already experiencing this stress at record low rates.
In Australia’s instance, and based on after tax income, households would only be able to borrow 3.64x the household income (unless the household already has other debt commitments) if the 7% servicability rule was to be property enforced. The only way to safely assure that new mortgage holders would be able to absorb 7% interest on a new mortgage is if it is based on the ability of the mortgage holder to manage 7% interest rates after income tax and all other debts taken into considerations have been factored in….unless you allow for dodgy measurements which Australian lenders are good at using.
<img src="/images/2015/05/25/lf_economics.jpg" alt="">As the above figure illustrated, this would mean one heck of deleveraging event in Australia if new borrowers borrow significantly less than the previous borrowers which would break down Australia’s Ponzi household lending business. Had the RBA not taken abnormal measures to save the housing market now on two occasions in the last seven years, Australia would not be in this problem so far down the road. Until then, hardly a shred of chance APRA will act tough. Like it’s associates at the RBA, talk is talk and data is data. And both have been managing a bubble, not an economy. That’s what the data tells us.
Lindsay David is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Australia-Australian-Credit-Property-Bubble-ebook/dp/B00JJ7UW0S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410612321&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=australia+boom+to+bust" target="_blank">Australia: Boom to Bust</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Print-Central-Bankers-Lindsay-David-ebook/dp/B00TMHEDBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1423979661&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=print+the+central+bankers+bubble" target="_blank">Print: The Central Bankers Bubble</a>. David recently founded <a href="https://www.lfeconomics.com" target="_blank">LF Economics</a> and holds an MBA from IMD Business School. He blogs at <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com" target="_blank">Australia Boom to Bust.</a>
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APRA won't act tough, just talk on property investor lending: Lindsay David

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GUEST OBSERVATION
If I were an Australian central banker, politician, bank economist, or even a negatively geared property investor, I’d be telling you Australia has a chronic housing shortage, which is responsible for our sky-high housing prices. But as an independent macro researcher, the data tells me otherwise.
The best method to determine whether a surplus or deficit of housing exists is to compare the flow of new net dwellings to new net households. This has given rise to the LF Economics Dwelling Supply Index, which tracks the supply and demand trends since June 1996.
Using the most conservative estimates to err on the side of caution by biasing downward the number of dwellings while biasing upward the number of new households, the data tells us the following:
<ul>
<li> In September 2014, Australia had a net cumulative excess supply of at least 165,000 dwellings.</li>
<li> This surplus is equivalent to more than one year’s supply at current population growth rates nationwide, and about three years for the most oversupplied state, Victoria.</li>
<li> Australia’s dwelling oversupply peaked in June 2006 at 349,000 dwellings.</li>
</ul>
Western Australia, Queensland and Northern Territory are the only states undersupplied, given the rapid influx of population to service the mining sector. This is reflected in both the continuing net deficit of dwellings relative to households and strong rental price growth. These metrics are now reversing as the mining boom unwinds.
This illustrates the classic case of supply and demand: when the index shows a persistent surplus, rental prices remained subdued. During the global financial crisis, however, rental prices surged as a genuine shortage occurred because of a moderation in construction and heightened population growth via net overseas migration. Unlike capital prices, rents cannot be leveraged, so they demonstrate the true supply and demand situation.
If there were such a dire shortage of housing as the housing cheerleaders suggest, property investors en masse would not be negatively geared in a record low interest rate environment. This tells us leveraged speculation has generated “artificial” demand that has absorbed a wealth of the supply.
Sydney and Melbourne are today’s prime examples. Unfortunately, it is only when the tide rolls out that the masses realise no such housing shortage exists. Miami and Dublin are excellent examples.
The numerous global housing price booms of the 2000s were written off by government, industry and the economics profession as a failure of inadequate housing supply and a rapidly growing population. The facts later demonstrated these booms were actually gigantic asset bubbles, spectacularly crashing and revealing mass overbuilding.
A tiny fraction of the 15,000 professional economists in the United States managed to correctly identify that their housing price boom represented a bubble and was not the result of a dwelling shortage. Relative to scale, Ireland was no different. And it appears Australia’s economists are following suit by falling into the same trap of illogic.
It is easy to see why Australia’s housing lobby places the blame for high prices on government regulations and dwelling shortages: it’s an easy and a much safer explanation than admitting the real cause to be debt-financed speculation – a bubble. Indeed, as of September 2014, Australia has the world’s third-most indebted household sector relative to GDP, edging closer to Denmark (1st) and Switzerland (2nd).
Unfortunately, the faulty narrative is maintained by government and industry, whose experts have numerous unresolved conflicts of interest.
Lindsay David is the author of <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com/2015/02/lindsay-davids-new-book-print-central-bankers-bubble-now-available/">Australia: Boom to Bust and Print: The Central Bankers Bubble.</a> David holds an MBA from IMD Business School and recently founded <a href="https://www.lfeconomics.com/about">LF Economics</a>.
This article first appeared on <a href="https://www.prosper.org.au/" target="_blank">Prosper Australia</a>.
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Melbourne and Sydney are in housing oversupply: Lindsay David

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GUEST OBSERVATION
In recent times there have been a lot of arguments in the public domain on whether Australia should get rid of the negative gearing tax tool for property investors.
Negative gearing is a valuable tax tool in any economy to help companies that make investments reduce their risk-burden by allowing them to make tax deductions against losses incurred where the revenue of the investment does not cover the loan costs.
In other words, allowing the investor short-term tax relief in the investment they make, or long-term relief when an investment does not turn out to be as rewarding as anticipated (a lousy investment).
However, in Australia, negative gearing has unfortunately been used as a speculative tool to help property investors cover their losses throughout the time of holding a particular asset so they are able to eventually flip the asset for a profit.
There are two key problems with this mindset:
<ol>
<li>Using negative gearing in pursuit of capital gain only works when the investment appreciates in value greater than the overhanging costs involved in maintaining the liabilities of the asset whilst under ownership.</li>
<li>If there is a market correction, those who hold negatively geared assets in pursuit of capital gain generally get burnt.</li>
</ol>
Unfortunately with so many Australian property investors incredibly negatively geared, it would be economic suicide to get rid of this tax tool overnight. Getting rid of negative gearing today would simply burn too many property investors at the same particular time causing mass damage to the Australian economy.
With the majority of negatively geared property investors earning less than $100,000 per year, it would simply send too many Australians into bankruptcy too quickly. In economic downturns, negatively geared property investors would progressively suffer which would slow the pain burden.
If anything, they should keep negative gearing for property investors, however introduce resourceful tools to mediate property investors from taking advantage of a tax law where they are willingly prepared to take excessive risk where it is all but mathematically certain that they will incur losses for a very prolonged period of time. This forces investors to invest responsibly whilst reducing tax losses.
My recommendation is property investors with loan to value ratio (LVR) greater than 50% void from making any tax deductions against the first 2% of rental yields (or equivalent to property price paid).
This would force property investors to shift their focus from speculating mode to yield-hunting mode. It would also push those who are taking an abnormal amount of risk in the name of capital gain to offload their properties to reduce fiscal losses which increases tax revenue by billions of dollars. Furthermore, this approach would reduce the risk profile of property investors in a downturn.
Lindsay David is a co-founder of clean technology company GreenRigCo and a former strategy and business development consultant. You can read his blog <a href="/expert-insights/finance/36475-fire-the-rba-governor" target="_blank">here</a>.
To purchase a copy of his book 'Australia: Boom to Bust', <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com/buy-australia-boom-bust/" target="_blank" title="Buy Now">click here.</a>
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Lindsay David

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