Do I have your attention?

Crazy surveys come and go, in fact most are as meaningful as this blog, so much so, that if their arrival was in paper form and you'd run out of Sorbent, well at least your underwear wouldn't look like airport tarmac.

The frustrations of the digital age - you can't wipe your date with a pdf.

Some of these surveys do serve a purpose, occasionally they provide a window into the minds of the lunatics who you walk past on the street, who overtake you in your car, who sit next to you at work or manage the career of your favourite football player. Yep, this is the crazy country where mentoring a troubled seventeen year old girl means boning her and racking lines with her, and where taking out a home loan means you've got no clue what interest rate you're paying.

Welcome to Australia.

If you pay any attention to the scant numbers involved in a recent Mortgage Choice survey, barely 800, you'd disregard it as nonsense. Yet when the survey is done in a country where property is the religion and speaking ill of that religion is heresy, this survey is worth casting the beadies over a second time.

Consider it - over 25% of first home buyers without a clue of the interest rate they pay. The reality is, they don't need a clue - houses always go up, right? And you got free money for buying, who cares - you're already in front just with that purchase. According to Mum, Dad, Auntie Cath, Uncle Barry, Brad the X3 leasing real estate agent and don't forget the seven debt laden property investors who advise you at the work espresso machine each morning.

This is the property ladder - you never go down!

Even if those mysterious things known as interest rates go up - "7.85% is that how much this house is increasing in value a year?" If council rates, water and electricity bills conspire to push you to the edge - "What, you're telling me water and electricity aren't free?" And the price of petrol pushes you over the edge, you can always sell for a profit.

Like the owners of this 4x2 in Burnie...

It last sold in January 2008 for $375,000, it listed mid last year at $405,000. Six and a half months and $66k later, there's still no buyer at $349,000. It's not even at a 20% discount yet and it looks very painful. And to further twist the knife, after an apparent six week lull, where listings were treading water, they're slowly inching up again in Tasmania. Looks like it's time to sell when the kids go back to school.

The buyers are edgier, the sellers keep rising and those living costs that seemed to disappear, well they're back, as some Northern property owners found out this week when a two and a half year backlog of water charges were nailed to their doors.

As Steve said...

 Owning a vacant block in Scottsdale is like owning a rock around your neck.

I guess someone told Steve earning those capital gains was meant to be easy. Well that was last decade, when Brendan Fevola had a football career and Ricky Nixon's jerry curled mullet was cool.