Housing markets aren’t just rising because of record low interest rates: Hotspotting’s Terry Ryder

PHOTO: Housing Markets

EXPERT OBSERVER

Here’s a one-step guide for identifying a charlatan in the real estate commentary space. Those who claim markets are rising because we have record low interest rates have just identified themselves as pretenders.

With that simple process, we’ve eliminated all the chattering economists in the land and a large chunk of the electronic media glitterati who don’t allow a lack of knowledge get in the way of strong opinions.

They’re the same people who talk about Australian real estate as a single market – e.g. “Australian property prices will rise 5% this year”. This is a red flashing light that the talking head is an idiot. Even discussing one city as a single market is foolhardy (refer last week’s column about Sydney, which highlighted the different scenarios currently in play).

Here’s what passes for analysis with most of these counterfeit commentators: if Event A coincided with Event B, then Event A must have caused Event B – obviously. It’s the first and last refuge of people who know little about real estate dynamics and want to pretend they have something to say.

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