Interesting. Down here in Australia our economy has been doing OK, we've had a great run of dodging recessions, but due to house prices appreciating so much since the 90s, there's similar problems with house down payments being far out of reach of many people.

Recently, our government is making a change to allow first homebuyers to purchase properties with only a 5% deposit.

Historically the Australian government set up the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation in '67, to provide insurance for banks against the risk of borrowers defaulting, to support home buyers. In 1997 the Howard government privatised the HLIC by selling it to GE, and we've had a private sector for mortgage insurance since, compulsory if borrowers are borrowing more than 80%.

Now in 2025 the current Albanese government is rolling out a scheme where the government will act as a public mortgage insurer again to allow first home buyers to buy with only a 5% deposit.

I'm not quite sure what to think. I heard an economist interviewed who reckoned this was a great idea to make it easier for young people to get into the property market, arguing that Aussie homeowners historically hardly ever default on mortgages. But naively it seems like this is yet another change that is going to push up house prices even further by increasing demand, without doing something to increase supply.

I also wonder if systemic mortgage default risk appears like it is lower than it actually is because Australia has been lucky enough to escape a major recession for so long.

There's some pretty poor economists out there, and don't underestimate ethe ability of journalists to find someone conforming to their biases.

I think giving the government an interest in keeping house prices high is an awful idea and we should get over this obsession with homeownership.