Don't worry, it already happened

 
The general consequence of my bashful bladder means the urinal is a no go zone - even if I feel I'm going to explode. I hear footsteps behind me and the water works lock up; the presence of others is behaviour altering and sends me to the stalls for sanctuary.

I bring this up because when people know they're being watched, they modify their behaviour. There's been a noticeable drop off in real estate stories across Tasmanian, now I don't know whether to strum my own bum hairs, write a sonnet to myself and claim credit, but it's hardly a bad thing to have this noxious blog ready carpet bomb journalists who fall prey to property spruiking. After all, they are meant to ask questions, right? Not glibly take the word of every silver tongue they encounter.

The failure of hard news continues to be the unquestioning coverage of the guy with the hard-on. Of course he's gonna tell you it's a good time to have sex and what's the sub-editor gonna stick on top of that story? Yep, it's time to bang like a barn door.

While The Mercury coughed up a story about how Hobart was awesomely affordable for key workers - courtesy of the marketing department of Bankwest - the victory seems hollow when the state is the lowest paid in the nation and government jobs have a more palatable remuneration. It was also a bummer to find no one was even brazen enough to compare Jan 2010 and Jan 2011 housing finance figures and proclaim a 3.2% increase, mind you they still sucked - the second worst January since the year 2000.

This leaves me looking abroad, while I do have local statistics cooking, they're not edible yet. In the interim, what has caught my nose is the stench of the Sunshine Coast's carcass, beginning to rise up and be blown by the prevailing winds. Adam Schwab noted earlier in the week...

According to RP Data, since peaking in 2008 house prices at Noosa, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, have fallen 18 per cent and apartment prices 24 per cent.

As is the style these days, the worst is over before we even knew it had happened. The Courier-Mail was out this morning quoting all the reliable sources, local agent Tom Offermann offered up this offal...

for "those with confidence" this was a defining moment. "You can buy well and reap the rewards," he said. "Stock is up 20 per cent on normal levels, buyers are down about 30 per cent and there's good value."

The question has to be, by whose measure? Throughout the article we're finally offered up that key piece of information that is conveniently left out of most real estate articles -  the discounting. Ain't it amazing? This stuff only rears its head and is canvassed by agents, when 'the worst is over'. When the real estate agents finally realise the buyers are firmly encased in their shell and the desperation begins to rise, "oh yeah by the way, real estate prices have been going down, we forgot to tell you. Lucky though, cause it's all passed and it's time to make those fat gains again."

You'll notice even I fell prey to the same thinking, using the word 'carcass' to describe the Sunshine Coast, which gives a sense of finality. When the Sunshine Coast could in fact be fly blown, drunk and only hanging onto the cliff by a branch that snagged its rapidly deteriorating underwear.

Why else is the Sunshine Coast's Grizzly Adams-esque Mayor, Bob Abbot, getting huffy about a lack of finance for building and development...

IN a sign Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbot may be becoming more development friendly, the green-tinged politician has teed off on the banking sector over a decline in building and development approvals in the region.

Cr Abbot yesterday called on the wary banks to loosen their lending criteria to make it easier for the building and development industries to get finance.

Now I'm not au fait with the development policies up there, I understand they're somewhat restrictive, so the mountain man might be blame shifting, but given the climate in the south-east of Queensland, who'd be lending into the Sunshine Coast at all? Bring up any of the real estate listing sites and it looks like an outbreak of herpes on a pornstar who forgot to take their valtrex. And on Refindprice, the discounting up there is beginning to look ruthless. I should rename this site to Tasmanian Real Estate Triffles, because the real trouble is on the Sunshine Coast.

Bringing demographics into the mix and the area is the second biggest geezer enclave in Queensland, behind the Fraser Coast, and as this unlucky story shows, not all of them have paid their bricks and mortar off...

PETER and Becky Francis were two-and-a-half years off retirement. They were comfortably on the way to paying off the mortgage on their North Buderim home, and enjoying a relaxed lifestyle.

Their Durham Crescent home was one of two properties condemned by the Sunshine Coast council after December's rains caused the structures to crack and start slipping down the hillside.

Given the evaporation of home equity, the high rate of geezers and the fact that real estate represents 72% of the wealth of Australians over 60, this Sunshine Coast thing - despite what real estate agents are saying - it ain't over, it might just be getting started. Spooked geriatrics, spending less, or wanting to get out with what equity they have before this really turns bad, could turn this place into a Reno or Dublin. Something slightly foreboding, because look who the Queensland Department of Infrastructure and Planning used as examples of where the Sunshine Coast could aim for in terms of population in a 2008 demographic report...

 

Argggggggggghhhh!! And if you want a sniff of what lessons were learnt in Reno...

"Equity is not only gone, but it's not coming back for some time," Kaiser said. "And once it does come back, it won't be on the same level that it was during the bubble. Those days are over. I think the crash has served as a strong wake-up call for people."

Included in that wake-up call is the realization that houses can not only lose value, they can lose a large chunk of it.

So we'll round out with a little more on why the banks might be holding back on finance on the Sunshine Coast...

Agent John Swainson said the price of Lot 3 Bayview Woods an architecturally designed four-bedroom, three-bathroom prestige home a short stroll through rainforest to the water and Hastings St had been slashed 34 per cent from $2.95 million to $1.95 million.

The owner, a long-time local developer and real estate agent, who did not wish to be named, told The Courier-Mail he was selling due to "financial pressures" linked to the global financial crisis and had decided to move to Cairns to start a new business.

At Sunshine Beach, Heather Marshall, of Dowling and Neylan, has another property a developer is looking to sell in a hurry.

Previously listed as high as $1.4 million, 14b Weyba St was $920,000 last week and today has seen a further reduction to $895,000 (down 36 per cent) and this includes a furniture package worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Not wanting to be named, 'financial pressures' and someone else kicking in the furniture as they try to flee. I don't think you need me to point out the worst ain't over.