A great post by Krugman, on his blog. This picture from Schiller tells pretty much everything you need to know to decide whether or not there is a US housing bubble.
There is a bunch more on his blog – and if you get it then you’ll know why I am short EQR (Equity Residential)
Here’s another taste – that green swell is a wave of subprime mortgages about to be rolled over, probably into adjustable rate mortgages (floating) and at very high rates. That spells doom for tens of thousand of US homeowners.
Lance Wiggs 
I’ve figured out the issue with the NZ housing market.
Every three years we get an updated GV from qv.co.nz this seems to go up each year and apparently has a rough science applied. (ie some computer model).
People (buyers) see the GV as a safe figure so will happily pay more than this so raising the GV’s raise the acceptable purchase price.
This year I happened to have paid QV to value my property(s) for a resale value a couple of months ago this cost money so one assumes they applied a bit of individual thought. So when my GV arrives in the mail this week it’s gone up by 9%! In two months!
I reckon that the reserve bank just needs to get these guy’s off the local body payroll (as the increase in GV helps the increase in rate take!).
I guess in the end it’s still supply and demand but the higher the GV the braver the purchaser (well me anyway)!
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