Will they turn?

The conversation was about uprisings and it made it to the inevitable - "the thing that frustrates me, you never see anyone pull that in Australia - politicians never have to worry about that." 

He was wearing a collar and tie, and had a business degree, so I doubt he wanted a full scale revolution - just some entertaining militancy here and there. So I had to remind him - when the locals arrive home to find the plasma TV still working, and the BBQ still cooking meat, not much is wrong in Australia land.

Until something does go wrong. 

When was the last recession in Australia? Who cares, they don't happen any more. A relic of a bygone era, like Steve Guttenberg and his other Police Academy friend - the one who made the funny noises. Since that last recession the peeps have gorged on debt, saved very little and understood bugger all about frugality. Houses have trampolined to insane heights and they've been used as ATMs to fund lifestyle choices because the river of money would keep flowing.

Unfortunately without a recession, (my misanthropic belief) no one learns anything, no one understands their vulnerabilities and the excess is never flushed away. This leaves the weasels, the pole cats and the ferrets to thrive without question. The sewers will flood, the turds will wash into the streets, grow legs and get fitted for suits, before then becoming a quotable real estate source in the media - and still nobody will notice.

Of course if you've been fitting extractors to the Maloo all weekend, you would have missed this

EMBARRASSED agents are covering up a growing failure to sell homes at auction by not telling reporting bodies about their failed campaigns.

Figures compiled by research agencies Australian Property Monitors and Residex over the past three weeks show that between 10 per cent and almost 50 per cent of auction results across Sydney went unrecorded.

The reason was embarrassed real estate agents wanting to avoid reporting of failed auction campaigns, said leading property analyst Louis Christopher, managing director of SQM Research.

Up until now, Louis Christopher, before he was beheaded at APM, and Crikey's Adam Schwab, have been the only ones questioning this gong show. Schwab, here, here and here, the third article where I made an appearance as "percipient Crikey tipster."

Yesterday, a percipient Crikey tipster questioned, “why is the Real Estate Institute of Victoria allowed to peddle their unreliable data to paint a completely different picture of the Melbourne property market? Taking into account ‘no-result’ auctions over the past five weeks, the clearance rate is falling — now to below 60% — yet the figures the REIV present indicate a clearance rate at more than 70%. The market isn’t as balanced as they would have you believe. Anyone who has studied investor behaviour knows people are more comfortable to move with the herd and reassurance that others are buying will influence their choices. The misinformation is deliberate as the REIV attempts to massage the market and stop buyers making informed decisions”.

And that's the game, duking the stats and we're meant to be appreciative because they're providing a free information service - their benevolence knows no bounds. But only a fool should expect accountability or self regulation, which makes my little rambling paragraph to Crikey, pretty damn foolish. What we should expect is the media to shine the high-beams, exposing the nonsense, allowing those participating in the market to enter fully aware of the misinformation minefield they face - that's probably even more stupid.

Enzo and Andrew, who kind of look like a pair of PE teachers that hired suits to attend a wedding (all that's missing is the service station sunglasses perched on their heads), will defend their stats to the death and the meeja always needs to quote someone important sounding, like CEO or Senior Economist. So maybe they should take a look at what happened to David Lereah; now a dried up, white dog turd, waiting to be turned into a puff of dust by the lawn mower. Did he think it could happen to him?

To do a crevasse leap, things are getting a little tense in Riyadh, foreigners in the know are high tailing it in anticipation of faecal matter hitting the fan. Not that this receives any play here, but imagine trying to fill the lime green Maloo at three bucks a litre.

Suckered into a market with dubious stats, then the shock hits that you can't dodge. Ah, never mind, the clearance rates will still be strong next weekend - and the weekend after that.

Total auctions: 2000
Sold at Auction: 6
Passed in: 4
Auctions with no result: 1990

Clearance rate: 60%

If only those who bought the lime green Maloo had bought the gold Maloo - if they couldn't afford to drive it, at least they might have been able to melt it down.