The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The extraordinary story of the run-up in Darwin house prices (chart)

This is very much in line with the explanation Glenn Stevens gave yesterday in relation to relative housing cost adjustments in Perth and Brisbane vis-a-vis the other major conurbations. You can read my full article on the subject here. This contains the following chart, which rebases the Darwin, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne dwelling value indices to 100 as at December 2003. Another way of telling the same story is via median prices. In the aforementioned Property Observer article, I note:

"In December 2003 the median dwelling price in Darwin was just $190,000, or only 60% of the national capital city price. Yet by April 2011, the median price of a Darwin home had risen to $442,500 or 94.5% of the national capital city median. That is, there has been a rapid convergence in the relative cost of housing across the country."

at 10:25 AM