The autumn property selling season has ended. It was a selling season like no other, due to the fact that very little actual selling took place. The once hectic auction rooms are quite now, apart from the occasional stirrings of dispirited ghost bidders; across the land a multitude of hopeful For Sale signs are buffeted by depression driven winds from across the Atlantic. The market’s melancholy mood is indeed strikingly removed, from the hectic exuberance of blooming springtime.
The banks, auctioneers and the government like dutiful doctors fuss about the ailing market; variously offering comforting words, tinctures of interest relief and placebo like soft landings. But what is remarkable about the vested interests reaction to the utterly inevitable is their zealous denial. Denial in the face world beating indebtedness; rising interest rates, a glut of supply, ‘relaxed’ (to the point of comatose) lending standards and a collapsing real estate market in the United States.
But while I am surprised by this denial, I understand it. The bursting of the property bubble will do damage to this country, as have other speculative property market ‘corrections’ in other countries. Nevertheless, that the bubble was allowed to reach such epic proportions, that’s its bursting will cause misery, is much more than unfortunate.
The banks, auctioneers and the government like dutiful doctors fuss about the ailing market; variously offering comforting words, tinctures of interest relief and placebo like soft landings. But what is remarkable about the vested interests reaction to the utterly inevitable is their zealous denial. Denial in the face world beating indebtedness; rising interest rates, a glut of supply, ‘relaxed’ (to the point of comatose) lending standards and a collapsing real estate market in the United States.
But while I am surprised by this denial, I understand it. The bursting of the property bubble will do damage to this country, as have other speculative property market ‘corrections’ in other countries. Nevertheless, that the bubble was allowed to reach such epic proportions, that’s its bursting will cause misery, is much more than unfortunate.
