Those are both better options for Australia than pumping house prices forever. Either we get better rental laws or more cheap housing built.

Yeah, same boat. Financially, we're doing well. We're lucky I work in a good, secure technology role, and I earn well in my particular market. One additional benefit I have is that I work for an org that pays for top shelf health cover as part of my package.

Our total insurance went up at renewal time (March) - house, two cars and a caravan, and they went up by around $1200 for the year. They (RACV) had increased the replacement value on my car, but there were no other major changes. I called them up and said that I'd have no choice but to look around the market - I can't justify a $1400 increase when I haven't made a single claim myself, and the cost of living itself was going up so much too.

They took me through a bit of a detailed questionnaire for the house and car policies and, with some tweaking on excesses for the cars, got the increases down to around $300 for the year across all four policies. Still a hit, but nowhere near as big a hit if I hadn't made the call.

I'm expecting them to go up again next year - I think I'll be looking for an insurance broker at that point.

Yeah, it does stink. I've told all our kids (oldest is in uni, nearly 20yo) they're welcome to live with us as long as they need to, if it helps them save enough to eventually head out on their own.

But... they're active kids, with active social lives. Who in their right mind would want to spend their best years living with their near-50yo parents?

It's a shit sandwich alright, and none of our governments have done anywhere near enough to stop it. If anything, they keep making it worse.

We're starting to see institutional money leaving housing markets.

The money comes from debt, so as debt costs increase, the profit margin of buying homes decrease. As well, as the amount of money available to a common customer drops as interest rates rise, house prices will have to drop as a function of the laws of physics and mathematics -- The only way to keep increasing prices is to keep finding people who can afford higher prices.

The fact that there are still buyers doesn't mean prices can't drop, it's about the balance of buyers and sellers, and if people are dumping their houses at a loss because they can't afford to keep paying then that'll drive prices down by increasing sellers and decreasing buyers.

It'll play out in a bunch of ways because there's a bunch of stuff out there totally reliant on sucking up debt. Real estate bubbles around the world, zombie businesses, even the rich used debt as a tax vehicle for consumption since you can take out debt without paying taxes.

I agree that we definitely need more supply, but there are a few things that could happen as prices increase, eg people downsizing from large places to smaller places, and people sharing accommodation.

Also, hopefully some people will sell their Air BnBs, increasing the property on the market, they'll probably become Air BnBs again, but maybe it will help with prices.

Again, more supply is needed, and rich investors will probably have a field day, but even if prices don't drop, they should at least stop sky-rocketing.

aww yeah its crazy, even during 2022 we went back to the bank for pre-approval and yeah we had more money saved for a deposit but what they offered us was way above what they offered us the year before. And then is when economists were saying we need to reign it in or the market will pop.