The Great Australian Housing Rip Off

What happened to the Great Australian Dream? Home truths on the housing debate

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TPG is a local company, run by a man called David Teoh. He started the company in , but in the last decade has run hard on internet and mobile, both here and in Singapore. TPG owns iiNet, which is one of Australia's biggest internet brands, and David Teoh is now reportedly 11th on the list of the richest Australians. But he keeps a much lower profile than most of the others on the list. Asked about the arrival of TPG an Optus spokesman told news. Meanwhile a Vodafone spokesman said "As the customer champion, we welcome competition. Increased competition can only be a good thing for Australian consumers.

The plan is not to take on Telstra's impressive coverage in rural and regional Australia but pluck the low hanging fruit in the lucrative city markets. But some industry insiders have publicly questioned whether the spending is enough to do the job properly.

One anonymous estimate published in the financial press suggested the network would only reach 10 per cent of the population. TPG says one reason they can do it for less is they already own big fibre networks in the cities that connect the mobile cells, meaning the cost of rolling out a network is lower. Even still, they don't plan to cover the whole country, and especially not when they first launch. It is not clear how appealing such an option will be to customers. We all know how aggravating it is when your mobile service drops out.

A few years ago Vodafone learned this the hard way - coverage you can't rely on is one that loses friends fast. It found that in , even before TPG gets its own network, mobile prices fell by 3 per cent and data allowances rose by 46 per cent.

Jules McKendry: The first homebuyer

The timing of TPG's arrival into mobile is clever. Over the next few years many consumers will be compelled to change their home internet to the NBN. But in Melbourne and Sydney, some first homebuyers are faced with difficult choices: Tougher still is the realisation that they are competing with experienced investors equipped with tax breaks and negative gearing. Now as the housing market begins to slow down, predictions of a crash are beginning to emerge. For the younger generation, that's exactly what they're banking on. Jules McKendry and her partner have spent every weekend for a year trying to buy their first home.

She has bid and lost on many properties around Melbourne, but her competition is not other homebuyers — it's investors. Millie, her husband Ben and their young daughter Daisy have moved back home with Millie's parents — and all three of them share the room she slept in as a teenager. Ms Robson's parents, Gerry and Libby, also have their three sons living at home — but this family is lucky enough to get along. The couple say they are unable save up for a deposit to buy their own home and pay rent at the same time, so they have decided to sit tight, keep saving and wait for the tide to change.

Ken Morrison of The Property Council agrees there is a housing affordability problem, but believes undersupply and an increasing population is the root cause. The council believes a thriving housing industry makes for a thriving economy, and is a big supporter of negative gearing. It recently launched its own campaign against Labor's suggested policy changes, which proposed that negative gearing should only be available on newly-constructed homes. Buyer's advocate Catherine Cashmore has amassed some unusual data which she believes is proof there is a massive oversupply of vacant properties in and around metropolitan Melbourne.

She analysed records from Melbourne's water authorities to see how much usage there was per day and discovered around 80, properties where water usage was minimal. Amy Reynolds is a hedge fund manager with a Singapore-based capital fund, who believe that, based on global housing market indicators, property in Australia is massively overvalued — by as much as 40 per cent. They found a crash in their analysis that a bubble was coming because financial institutions were too exposed to the mortgage market, and her firm has bet against a number of major Australian banks.

In Sydney, the price to income ratio is currently In Melbourne, it is almost John Daley from the Grattan Institute paints a bleak picture for Millennials, saying the widening gap between house prices and the average income is locking Generations X and Y out of the housing market — and negative gearing is part of the problem.

Now it's less than half," he said. Twenty ago I can remember talking to a couple of young female social climbers gold-diggers at an expensive Sydney bar. Their logic was that it a kinda pre-sort mechanism contender present, pretenders eliminated.

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It is all just part of an elaborate of ranking and ordering system through which our social status is established. IMHO it is all part of the elaborate game of life, once absolute necessities are payed for ALL expenses beyond this are simply to establish social ranking. There is an interesting area in behavioral finance that looks at the ways in which some investors seem to intentionally select poor investment choices and literally destroy wealth, it is a form of narcissism coupled with a guilt complex, BUT it can be profitably mined by an astute financial adviser.

I tell my daughters not to judge people on where they live or what they earn, but on how they treat others. My favourite example is the Japan, where the ratio between the wages of top level managers and low level workers is much smaller than in the West. I think a big part of this is because Japan has many, many other traditional mechanisms for acknowledging status — every verb is marked to indicate the relative status of the speaker and the listener, for example. My favorite memory is, when too my surprise, I was taken to point, for misquoting Soren Kierkegaard, I flippantly threw some Existential theory into a bar room BS session.

The great Aussie rip-off

I had no idea how much the Japanese people respect and admire Kierkegaard, so it was a real eye-opener, a genuine glimpse at some real cultural foundations and a chance to understand Bushido, from a western framework. I recently went to Germany and bought a bunch of toiletries. Below is a comparison of the prices to AUS:. Overall the basket is roughly double the price. God I am so depressed, should have known better to click on and read the article and the comments. Terribly accurate, how can we be so dumb? I went to Stratco a fortnight ago to buy two meters of colour bond steel bar fence with a gate.

Last week I asked a carpenter for a quote to build a verandah a few columns and a laserlight roof. I am only in Melbourne every so often. Sydney at least once a year. For eating out I find them both cheap compared to Perth. Perth is by FAR the biggest rip-off capital city in Australia. Crap service, poor choices and very average food. Pretty happy with that. The beer is a schooner as well. They call it business lunch. Also available to mugs in your street at: I assume the shippers pay us for the privilage of freighting it.. They imported Polish beer and very good it is too, try Zywiec and sold it at just above cost, they also do a variety of good beers more cheaply than anyone else.

Now, if we can remove penalty rates cue howls from Left , someone will grab this market and you too will be able to afford a beer at the pub.. So lets all support lower interest rates so that we can pay more for everything as a result of real estate prices and debt going up. Considering the businessman needs to pay: Who sets his wages partly determined by having to access shelter, in Australia, the highest priced in the world. In Japan there are yen stores where everything just about really is yen. I used love that- when in need of a retail pick me up it could be accomplished for very little damage.

These shops still exisit, and at the same price point thank you deflation. They are now opening up several here in OZ. How much for each of those items? I know it comes upon the expensive list- but Japan is my cheap holiday destination! We never did see one single policeman either. In the two small children camp and had a once a year babysitter last Saturday night.

Two entrees, one main and a bottle of mineral water — 90 dollars. I think you overpaid for the meal. The alcohol costs sound about right when going out, although you could get a couple of 6 packs for that price. Australian prices seem to have gone bananas. ScoMo's hedge fund mates to run Australian borders Yes, it's border security Coalition style, via. It will be the poor that get hit the worst if history is anything to go by. Unfortunately, I suspect you are right.

This thread demonstrates ultimately, why Australians are losers. Bring it down, watch it crumble before your eyes. Could patriotic Afghans be more proud?

Australia — the lucky country. Lucky if you can afford to live here! Have you heard of alphabetical order before? I post, you think. Working from home these days, and having two young kids You and me both mate, but you need a few more years practice at being a total tight arse before you can really budget. LVO, Whoever draws the short straw…Drives! I bet you never heard of Ozbargain. Did you see them when they were in Australia relatively recently? For cinema lovers everywhere… With Hoyts and Village you can go buy vouchers on their website for use.

No-one should pay full price for cinema tickets anymore. They are the quickest way I know of spotting a moron. As if all those trendy something girls with neck tatts are ever going to regret it? Standard dress in the Melbourne cafe scene. It seems like some people really enjoy being ripped. Bar prices are out of control at the moment.

Is Australia's great mobile rip-off about to end?

It could be worse. You could have gone to Canadia and been in the same situation, only colder. Now they do it themselves.

No fun anywhere anymore. I call them Camericans. Vive la Port Stephens!!! The tattoo will be of their new Maloo. Hubris… Pride cometh before a fall etc….

Expensive bars would have to be under buildings housing lawyers. Which then drives up wages.. How do we have such ridiculous prices but no inflation? Good band name that. Agree with that theory too mate. Had a similar experience to UE a couple of weeks ago.

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Am currently looking for overseas work to escape this sh1t. Pay as you leave at many places…. What about the ridiculous prices of some domestic services no affected by exchange rates? Of course that works both ways.

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