Steve Keen concedes

According to Bloomberg...

“BLOOMBERG News
Nov 2 2009 2:03:34
Macquarie’s Robertson Wins Mountain Bet on Australian Houses
By Jacob Greber
Nov. 2 (Bloomberg)

An Australian academic who predicted a collapse in house prices concedes he lost a bet with Macquarie Group Ltd. economist Rory Robertson that commits the loser to walk from Canberra to the top of the nation’s highest mountain.

Steve Keen, 56, plans to start in April the 230-kilometer (143-mile) hike from the Australian capital to Mount Kosciuszko, a 2,228-meter peak that is snowcapped for much of the year, the University of Western Sydney associate professor said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg News today.

The concession follows a report published earlier today showing Australia’s house prices jumped 6.2 percent in the 12 months through Sept. 30, shattering Keen’s forecast a year ago that the housing market would collapse by 40 percent. Robertson, 43, challenged Keen to hike Mount Kosciuszko if values fell by less than 20 percent. “Keen could scarcely have been more wrong,” Macquarie’s Robertson said today in Sydney. “I wish Dr. Keen well on his long walk.”

The Sydney academic will do the walk wearing a tee-shirt saying: “I was hopelessly wrong on home prices! Ask me how.”

Keen said his prediction was confounded by the government’s decision to more than triple the size of grants to first-time buyers of new dwellings to A$21,000 ($19,000) in October 2008. The government also doubled payments to those buying existing homes for the first time to A$14,000.”