Realty: is Australian residential property worth buying?

QUESTION: should an investor buy Australian residential property?

ANSWER: probably not.

Damien Klassen, who is one of the few analysts who does the numbers on Australian property (rather than just saying it will keep going up forever so it is always a buy), wrote a terrific article on affordability  Essentially, property is either extremely unaffordable (the mortgage cliff is coming) or we are looking at a global recession: neither will deliver stellar returns for investors in the medium term.

Interesting, while the government regulator in Australia, ASIC, requires entities like us, and Mr Klassen, to be licensed to advise on equities, any body can give unlicensed advice on property.  In fact, buyers normally hear from agents (employed by the vendors) that property is going up: no qualifications and no explicit disclosure of how much they are earning in spruiking properties.