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eppo said..
A lot of states in America only allow you to negative gear your own home. Same effect.

There are also property taxes in America which sometimes makes owning one's home prohibitive (depending on the property price vs one's income).

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Carantoc said..
But I think this topic is being over analysed.

The original question was :

towradgi said..
Why are perth house prices the lowest in Australia ??

The answer is simply another question : haven't you tried living in Perth ?

Perth or Towradgi? Lived just up the road from Towradgi for a decade. The biggest difference is the lack of 2 stroke noise pollution in the Perth suburbs. Mow the lawn maybe once or twice a year. Trees grow so slowly and provide such welcome shade no one dares pull out a chainsaw. It's so windy most people even give up on leaf blowers.

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Ian K said..

Carantoc said..
But I think this topic is being over analysed.

The original question was :

towradgi said..
Why are perth house prices the lowest in Australia ??

The answer is simply another question : haven't you tried living in Perth ?

Perth or Towradgi? Lived just up the road from Towradgi for a decade. The biggest difference is the lack of 2 stroke noise pollution in the Perth suburbs. Mow the lawn maybe once or twice a year. Trees grow so slowly and provide such welcome shade no one dares pull out a chainsaw. It's so windy most people even give up on leaf blowers.

I am with you there Ian. In Sydney I had Grevilleas that I had to prune each year as they turned into trees and I would have to lop them before they got out of reach from the pole pruner.

Here, I am contemplating similar Grevilleas and I think I will be okay. They say they can grow to 4m, but I suspect that will be a lonmg long time given the way I have seen everything else grow.

Nothing here seems to rot in the ground, probably because its just sand. In fact I just dug up part of my backyard and its different to the rest of the yard and most likely never been touched. Its like digging up a fresh sand dune!

I have become a 'local' and setup a retic system and tried to grow a lawn, but I am thinking maybe the weed infested sand I had before was a better option?

I do get a build up of leaves in the front yard, but I think I can live with it given that its the seabreeze that's putting them there.

If you want to make an easy 20% plus buy now before borders open , given every capital city has seen prices skyrocket .... Perth will catch up .

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bazz61 said..
If you want to make an easy 20% plus buy now before borders open , given every capital city has seen prices skyrocket .... Perth will catch up .

Really? Do you really believe this? Why? How?

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FormulaNova said..

jn1 said..

FormulaNova said..

Individuals are not going to give up investment properties when the government make it lucrative with the tax breaks they get.

The Labor government tried to campaign with policies to reduce this and never got voted in. Now they have given this policy up as they feel the public will do the same to them.

But does this make it the right thing to do ?

Well, that's an interesting question.

From an investor's perspective, they won't care and will use whatever financial options they have to them.

From a socialist's perspective, its not the right thing to do, but they won't be housing investors anyway.

Guess which ones most people will be? They, quite rightly in my opinion, will use the tax breaks to buy as many houses as they can afford, and push up the prices for everyone. You cannot expect everyone to have a strong social conscience and not buy investment properties. You should keep in mind that people in that position are in that position so don't care about affordability for others, or even worse they buy a house for their children because they can see that they would otherwise never be able to afford one themselves... making the problem worse.

People are naturally self-interested. Hoping that they will do the right thing for the common good is a waste of good thinking time. The only way to fix it is to fix the tax treatment of investment properties.

I don't see it ever resolving itself either as investors are always going to be able to afford to outlay more money than an owner occupier.

I sure as heck know that the Liberal government won't change it.

I don't expect citizens to act for the common good, but that's why we have government for. As you said, people aren't voting this issue. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer

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jn1 said..
I don't expect citizens to act for the common good, but that's why we have government for. As you said, people aren't voting this issue. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer

Oxfam report says Australian billionaires and world's richest men have doubled wealth during pandemic - ABC News www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-17/oxfam-report-covid-pandemic-billionaires-increase-fortune/100760968

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myscreenname said..

jn1 said..
I don't expect citizens to act for the common good, but that's why we have government for. As you said, people aren't voting this issue. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer

Oxfam report says Australian billionaires and world's richest men have doubled wealth during pandemic - ABC News www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-17/oxfam-report-covid-pandemic-billionaires-increase-fortune/100760968

I don't know if Gina would like being called a man... Fat cat, maybe.

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Carantoc said..
How do you claim tax expenses against your own home ?

The home loan interest is a deductible against your income.

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Harrow said..
The home loan interest is a deductible against your income.

Is that true ? Even for your own home, or only when the property is income producing ?

Is that a US thing ? Can you offset any other home expenses or is there just some quirk relating to mortgage interest ?


Nah, you sure that is right ?

Wouldn't you have to have an office or rent out a room or something, and then only be able to claim a portion of it that relates to the income earning bit ????

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Carantoc said..
Is that true ? Even for your own home, or only when the property is income producing ?
Is that a US thing ? Can you offset any other home expenses or is there just some quirk relating to mortgage interest ?
Nah, you sure that is right ?
Wouldn't you have to have an office or rent out a room or something, and then only be able to claim a portion of it that relates to the income earning bit ????

Yes, it's a USA thing for mortgage interest on your primary residence, however, there is a limit on the size of the mortgage, around $750k I think.

There are separate rules for additional deductions relating to home office expenses.

USA isn't the only country that does this. Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland also have some sort of deductible on home loan interest.

Or if you work for a registered charity in Oz, you can salary sacrifice you mortgage payments, eg, pay in pre tax dollars and save roughly 30% compared to a regular tax payer.

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airsail said..
Or if you work for a registered charity in Oz, you can salary sacrifice you mortgage payments, eg, pay in pre tax dollars and save roughly 30% compared to a regular tax payer.

You don't even need a mortgage. You can salary sacrifice $15,900 per year into any personal expense. Coles gift cards for your groceries if you want.

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jn1 said..

CH3MTR4IL5 said..
Not many capital cities where you can live 10k's from the city and 5k's from the coast on 700m2 for well
under a mill. I reckon Perth is pretty good, plenty of jobs and affordable property.

This topic makes me very angry . I think housing shortage/pricing in Australia is disgusting, and I don't know why homeless people aren't protesting about this issue on the scale of Covid protests !. I think the housing shortage is similar to the toilet roll shortage we all saw in March 2020. Except suppliers agreed to ration supplies so that everybody could have toilet rolls (something we would never see from real estate industry). As a house in it's "original function", Why would anyone need to own more than 4 properties ?, let alone 8, 12, 15 properties that I hear some of the guys at work brag on about . I can understand a holiday retreat, and a house for the kids (3 houses). But not more than that. The greed must stop. Posters on here might find current state acceptable/normal and people sleeping in their cars normal. I do not. As a said in a previous post, the politicians are part of the problem as well. So nothing will change until something gives them a tune up at the polls:

www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-20/australian-politician-property-ownership-details/8453782?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment

The mindset needs to change. Housing should be viewed a safe place to shelter, not a commodity to improve capital gain.

Who benefits the most, by a staggering margin, from the hike in house pricing?

The financial industry are creaming it! Leading the rat race like the Pied Piper.

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japie said..

jn1 said..

CH3MTR4IL5 said..
Not many capital cities where you can live 10k's from the city and 5k's from the coast on 700m2 for well
under a mill. I reckon Perth is pretty good, plenty of jobs and affordable property.

This topic makes me very angry . I think housing shortage/pricing in Australia is disgusting, and I don't know why homeless people aren't protesting about this issue on the scale of Covid protests !. I think the housing shortage is similar to the toilet roll shortage we all saw in March 2020. Except suppliers agreed to ration supplies so that everybody could have toilet rolls (something we would never see from real estate industry). As a house in it's "original function", Why would anyone need to own more than 4 properties ?, let alone 8, 12, 15 properties that I hear some of the guys at work brag on about . I can understand a holiday retreat, and a house for the kids (3 houses). But not more than that. The greed must stop. Posters on here might find current state acceptable/normal and people sleeping in their cars normal. I do not. As a said in a previous post, the politicians are part of the problem as well. So nothing will change until something gives them a tune up at the polls:

www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-20/australian-politician-property-ownership-details/8453782?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment

The mindset needs to change. Housing should be viewed a safe place to shelter, not a commodity to improve capital gain.

Who benefits the most, by a staggering margin, from the hike in house pricing?

The financial industry are creaming it! Leading the rat race like the Pied Piper.

well in NSW prior Covid Stamp duty revenue tanked , so much they were considering a property tax to replace it , that's been shelved as revenue from stamp duty is rolling in ..for now ..

Property experts warn Perth's housing crisis to become a 'catastrophe' when WA border drops Sarah Brookes By Sarah Brookes February 24, 2022 - 6.03am Perth property experts believe the city's housing market is on a knife edge and when 'Fortress WA' reopens on March 3, an influx of tens of thousands of residents will be like a "torpedo heading for a submarine". Industry insiders predict anywhere from 20,000-80,000 interstate and overseas migrants will be fighting over only 10,000 properties in the months after reopening, and the current housing crisis will become a housing "catastrophe" with price rises that tip the market into a boom-bust cycle. Mr Thompson's been in the business 20 years but says he's never seen a market like this. Mr Thompson's been in the business 20 years but says he's never seen a market like this. CREDIT:PETER RAE State government projections released in December predicted WA's population would grow by one per cent in 2022-23 (26,800 people), 1.3 per cent in 2023-24 (34,840 people) and 1.4 per cent in 2024-25 (37,520 people). These had all been freshly revised up from previous projections. CoreLogic's latest statistics show currently fewer than 8000 properties to buy in Perth and 2000 properties to rent. Ryan Thompson is director of a company that coaches real estate agents and runs another company specialising in auctions. He said Perth was already struggling with demand. "I am told there has been permission given to 30,000 people to return or come to Perth from March and there are another 50,000 awaiting approval," Mr Thompson said. Perth house prices could continue to rise as borders reopen. Perth house prices could continue to rise as borders reopen.CREDIT:ISTOCK The Perth market also had more interstate buyers than ever before with many buying sight unseen while they awaited the reopening. "I've been in real estate for 20 years and I've never seen a situation like this before," he said. "It's a torpedo heading for a submarine and it will explode. "The queues will be worse than the lines we saw last year. You won't be able to get a property for love or money and I can see sale listings drop down to 3000, which we've never seen before." Mr Thompson expected a gain of at least 10-20 per cent on house prices and possibly even a doubling. Prominent Perth property analyst Gavin Hegney also believed the WA market could handle only around 10,000 buyers. He said he understood there were 22,000 applications pending or approved to come in once WA opened. He said even 20,000 entering at a rate of around 400 per week would cause price and rent rises of roughly 20 per cent across a year. Above these levels, pressures on the market would dislocate prices upward, causing a boom and bust cycle. EDITOR'S PICK WA Premier Mark McGowan. Parliament, February 2, 2022. Picture: Peter de Kruijff Analysis Coronavirus pandemic Pandemic fatigue starts to set in for WA, just as things are about to get 'bumpy' Mr Thompson said to compound matters, the building industry was gridlocked because the borders had cut off its labour supply and increased the cost of materials. "You'd typically expect releasing land would be a good remedy but building at the moment is a nightmare and you'd be lucky to get something built in two to three years," he said. A state government spokeswoman said a campaign was under way to lure construction workers from interstate. The Build a Life in WA campaign began in November and is being expanded internationally to New Zealand, and to cover hospitality workers. RELATED ARTICLE Career development is one of the most common reasons why people choose to move to a different city. Property market Perth's cheapest suburbs to upgrade from a unit to a house During the pandemic, net interstate migration to WA returned to positive territory (4592) for the first time since 2012-13, meaning for the first time the state gained more residents from the eastern states than it lost to them. Garth Davis, whose company advises on property investment across Australia, said WA needed out-of-the-box ideas to mitigate a catastrophic shortfall in rentals. He said normally new migrants would rent for the first 12-24 months to get a feel for the suburbs and proximity to amenities before buying. "Assuming that 30,000 families try to rent, and there are only 2000 properties to rent, we will have a major rental shortfall catastrophe," he said. "Rents are already going at $100 per week above asking price in this market ... rents will be going at $200 to $400 per week above the asking rent ... ridiculously high levels of unaffordability." He said measures the state government could take included incentivising residents with spare bedrooms to offer them as short-term rentals. He also believed any empty property not occupied for at least six months of the year should be charged a substantial 'vacancy tax' so overseas owners would not let properties sit idle. "We have a housing crisis already," he said. "Which will become a housing catastrophe as the borders reopen." But this was all wild speculation, according to Steven Rowley, the director of Curtin University's Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. EDITOR'S PICK The hard border was extremely popular. Coronavirus pandemic Two-thirds of West Australians supported hard border ahead of new reopening date, poll reveals "Obviously there will be some people coming, but also there will be some people leaving," Professor Rowley said. "Nobody talks about the net impact ... nobody can accurately forecast that. It could be a lot less." However, he said there was certainly an existing issue with rental stock and any positive net flow into the state would put further pressure on that. "I don't think we can call it a catastrophe yet," he said. "But clearly the market is in a serious situation." Professor Rowley said people would not move to a new city for work without securing accommodation first, meaning WA could struggle to fill all the jobs going begging. "The lack of available properties will make a big impact on the number of people who come here for work - and we mustn't forget the employment market is strong in the rest of Australia too." The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day's most important and interesting stories, analysis a

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Carantoc said..
But I think this topic is being over analysed.

The original question was :

towradgi said..
Why are perth house prices the lowest in Australia ??

The answer is simply another question : haven't you tried living in Perth ?

I live 2 minutes drive from the beach, plenty of amenities, great weather 3/4 of the year. House costs 400k. My wage is $140k 2 weeks on/2 weeks off, plus 4 weeks annual leave. Where else can you get that in Australia

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bazz61 said..
"Obviously there will be some people coming, but also there will be some people leaving," Professor Rowley said. "Nobody talks about the net impact ... nobody can accurately forecast that. It could be a lot less." However, he said there was certainly an existing issue with rental stock and any positive net flow into the state would put further pressure on that. "I don't think we can call it a catastrophe yet," he said. "But clearly the market is in a serious situation."

Professor Rowley said people would not move to a new city for work without securing accommodation first, meaning WA could struggle to fill all the jobs going begging.

"The lack of available properties will make a big impact on the number of people who come here for work - and we mustn't forget the employment market is strong in the rest of Australia too." The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day's most important and interesting stories, analysis a

Yep, for all the positive spin that a real-estate agent tries to put on it, there is also the negative side.

Realistically, if you didn't already know someone in WA, would you move there?


Apparently during the pandemic was the first time since 2012-2013 that WAs population increased, which tells you something. If it were that great, why were people leaving?

In order to appreciate it?

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FormulaNova said..

Realistically, if you didn't already know someone in WA, would you move there?

would i move to a place where i can have a well-paying job, a short commute, a decent sized house and be able to leave work and be on the water in 10 minutes with wind most days?

yes, yes i would.

On the ground ..Where I live any house for sale is lucky to last a week. Spoke to a couple of local real estate agents who have been around well before the GFC bubble. They said it's happening again. The sight unseen eastern states buyers are back and in droves. He already has several bookings in April to drive them around - they will be 4-5 properties at a time normally. Just like what happened between 2002 and 2007.

.. and the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along at the gong "

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CH3MTR4IL5 said..
would i move to a place where i can have a well-paying job, a short commute, a decent sized house and be able to leave work and be on the water in 10 minutes with wind most days?

yes, yes i would.

I hope people don't think I am being negative towards WA. You would be preaching to the choir as I only moved here to WA by choice a few years ago myself.

But if you are from the east coast its different. Perth is so far away that a lot of people will go somewhere else than visit, just like people here will visit Bali before they visit anywhere on the east coast. Perth is so far removed from thoughts about where to live that people ask you why you would move there as it seems so strange. Lots of people have never bothered to visit either yet a trip to Qld or Victoria is common.

I think its a bit amusing that people and the media here seem to talk a bit about how 'the east' sees us. From what I have seen they don't think about WA at all unless there is something newsworthy or the border is shut. If it weren't for windsurfing, I am not sure I would have visited either.

The point I was making is that it would be less likely that people would be considering a move here, unless they already knew someone here or had a job lined up.

Even on the job front, high salaries are great in the boom years, but the reality is that wages fall outside of those years.

The property market is also different. This is not Sydney. This is not Melbourne. Its not even Brisbane. Perth has so much more land available and house prices will never increase the same while that is the case. The housing boom here when mining boomed got people all caught up in it as they paid more for houses than they should have and only now are they getting close to prices from 15 years ago.

Investors might buy up in Perth in the short term, but they are not smart investors. For the same reasons I mention above, its not a great place for housing investment either.

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eppo said..
On the ground ..Where I live any house for sale is lucky to last a week. Spoke to a couple of local real estate agents who have been around well before the GFC bubble. They said it's happening again. The sight unseen eastern states buyers are back and in droves. He already has several bookings in April to drive them around - they will be 4-5 properties at a time normally. Just like what happened between 2002 and 2007.
"

Some of those people will be idiots. They will be comparing the property prices from Sydney and Melbourne and looking at the bargains in Perth and ignoring the fundamentals. The real estate agents will be telling them its 'just about to boom' as they always do. You would be hard pressed to find a time when they don't say that.

Interest rates are cheap. People are digging in and ignoring the reality of interest rates increasing and will all be thinking that they can sell for a profit before that happens.

Personally, I am curious to see if there is a surge for people buying here when the border opens. A friend who is a conveyancer was telling me that they have been doing work for buyers from outside WA all during the pandemic and it has only slowed down in the last 2 months. The guy hasn't had a day off apart from Sunday until about the start of February.

Yes i know what you mean FN, I came because my ex was here, would not have considered it otherwise. She left, i stayed.

agree it would be a weird market to invest in, but for a owner-occupier the quality of life is pretty high, for a budget that wouldn't get you in the door in most capital cities you can be 20 mins from work and 10 from beach.

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FormulaNova said..

eppo said..
On the ground ..Where I live any house for sale is lucky to last a week. Spoke to a couple of local real estate agents who have been around well before the GFC bubble. They said it's happening again. The sight unseen eastern states buyers are back and in droves. He already has several bookings in April to drive them around - they will be 4-5 properties at a time normally. Just like what happened between 2002 and 2007.
"

Some of those people will be idiots. They will be comparing the property prices from Sydney and Melbourne and looking at the bargains in Perth and ignoring the fundamentals. The real estate agents will be telling them its 'just about to boom' as they always do. You would be hard pressed to find a time when they don't say that.

Interest rates are cheap. People are digging in and ignoring the reality of interest rates increasing and will all be thinking that they can sell for a profit before that happens.

Personally, I am curious to see if there is a surge for people buying here when the border opens. A friend who is a conveyancer was telling me that they have been doing work for buyers from outside WA all during the pandemic and it has only slowed down in the last 2 months. The guy hasn't had a day off apart from Sunday until about the start of February.

Nah perth prices always bridge some of the gap (even get on par is some past cycles including the GFc) with Melbourne and Sydney at the end of a cycle. Unless this time it's different. Interest rates are going nowhere fast. Not until the economy over heats and theirs a lot of slack from the affects of covid and suppressed property prices in the last decade. Our home just got valued at peak GFC prices actually. So it's made that up now. Only
up from here - until the inevitable correction to
clean out bad debt. And oh boy is there a lot of that in every sector with cheap interest rates.

There's a lot of coin being splashed around over here - lots. you have to be here to see it on the ground.


Plus the government and their federal reserve cartel couldn't afford to pay the debt on the debt they have racked. Nah woukdnt be worrying about interest rates just yet - but yes they will Be a factor at some stage.


Lots of commercial infrastructure happening as well. Tradies are killing the pig as well. Knocking back work they have are booked out for well into the future. The resource sector is going nuts and it's just the beginning
the fundamentals are just fine right now - Until they aren't of course.

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eppo said..
Nah perth prices always bridge some of the gap (even get on par is some past cycles including the GFc) with Melbourne and Sydney at the end of a cycle. Unless this time it's different. Interest rates are going nowhere fast. Not until the economy over heats and theirs a lot of slack from the affects of covid and suppressed property prices in the last decade. Our home just got valued at peak GFC prices actually. So it's made that up now. Only
up from here - until the inevitable correction to
clean out bad debt. And oh boy is there a lot of that in every sector with cheap interest rates.

There's a lot of coin being splashed around over here - lots. you have to be here to see it on the ground.


Plus the government and their federal reserve cartel couldn't afford to pay the debt on the debt they have racked. Nah woukdnt be worrying about interest rates just yet - but yes they will Be a factor at some stage.


Lots of commercial infrastructure happening as well. Tradies are killing the pig as well. Knocking back work they have are booked out for well into the future. The resource sector is going nuts and it's just the beginning
the fundamentals are just fine right now - Until they aren't of course.

I noticed last year that summer was the busy period and when temperatures started to cool down, so did property sales. I expect this is a normal part of the cycle in Perth.

I bought a house here in Perth almost a year ago. In my research I looked at where prices were at and where they were before. For a lot of places the prices zipped up when the boom periods hit and then dropped each year since. Lots of people were in negative equity and I expect a lot of them are now much happier.

From memory there were two obvious peaks, one in about 2007 and one in 2014. In looking at the property values for places I was looking at I saw that some were still behind their peaks.

The housing market can be irrational though, and right now there are plenty of cashed up people with not much to spend their money on, low interest rates, and a belief that property can only go up.

One of my first thoughts when looking at property in WA was 'these people are nuts, they think they are in Sydney'. My thought might seem arrogant, but it felt right. I guess if EVERYONE thinks that they are in a hot property market it's all good

The east coast housing has now become unaffordable for the average blue collar , in WA you have massive industry with real paying wages , this makes WA desirable for many , I enjoyed my last stint in WA , spent all summer at MR exploring fishing and some small wave surfing (MAL) a few years ago .

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bazz61 said..
The east coast housing has now become unaffordable for the average blue collar , in WA you have massive industry with real paying wages , this makes WA desirable for many , I enjoyed my last stint in WA , spent all summer at MR exploring fishing and some small wave surfing (MAL) a few years ago .

The unaffordability problem is a result of poor government policy. It doesn't need to be this way. Plenty of other countries don't have this problem, so why do we have it?

If WA was so good, or better than anywhere else in Aus, why did you leave it? Like anywhere it goes through boom and bust periods. The huge downside is it seems to be built on the basis of one major industry. When it does well, people are happy and have money to spend. When it goes into the bust cycle people have no money and there are not enough other industries to support them.

In Sydney and Melbourne you have a lot of industries that support people when things go quiet in one area. In Perth when mining bites the dust people are left standing around looking at themselves wondering where all the good money went to.

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FormulaNova said..

bazz61 said..
The east coast housing has now become unaffordable for the average blue collar , in WA you have massive industry with real paying wages , this makes WA desirable for many , I enjoyed my last stint in WA , spent all summer at MR exploring fishing and some small wave surfing (MAL) a few years ago .

The unaffordability problem is a result of poor government policy. It doesn't need to be this way. Plenty of other countries don't have this problem, so why do we have it?

If WA was so good, or better than anywhere else in Aus, why did you leave it? Like anywhere it goes through boom and bust periods. The huge downside is it seems to be built on the basis of one major industry. When it does well, people are happy and have money to spend. When it goes into the bust cycle people have no money and there are not enough other industries to support them.

In Sydney and Melbourne you have a lot of industries that support people when things go quiet in one area. In Perth when mining bites the dust people are left standing around looking at themselves wondering where all the good money went to.

This...

And the last bust of 2014 - 2017 was savage, know many who left and will never come back after been driven to the wall here.
I was out of work for a long time, couldnt find anything to do.

The diversification in the economy didnt happen (got more concentrated actually).

So for those who come, make hay when the sun shines, because it can get ugly very quickly when turns the other way.

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Tequila ! said..

FormulaNova said..

bazz61 said..
The east coast housing has now become unaffordable for the average blue collar , in WA you have massive industry with real paying wages , this makes WA desirable for many , I enjoyed my last stint in WA , spent all summer at MR exploring fishing and some small wave surfing (MAL) a few years ago .

The unaffordability problem is a result of poor government policy. It doesn't need to be this way. Plenty of other countries don't have this problem, so why do we have it?

If WA was so good, or better than anywhere else in Aus, why did you leave it? Like anywhere it goes through boom and bust periods. The huge downside is it seems to be built on the basis of one major industry. When it does well, people are happy and have money to spend. When it goes into the bust cycle people have no money and there are not enough other industries to support them.

In Sydney and Melbourne you have a lot of industries that support people when things go quiet in one area. In Perth when mining bites the dust people are left standing around looking at themselves wondering where all the good money went to.

This...

And the last bust of 2014 - 2017 was savage, know many who left and will never come back after been driven to the wall here.
I was out of work for a long time, couldnt find anything to do.

The diversification in the economy didnt happen (got more concentrated actually).

So for those who come, make hay when the sun shines, because it can get ugly very quickly when turns the other way.

That was a construction boom , they all end , you stay or move with the times for work , or retrain , Pro Build has gone bust , how many that effects is anyone's guess , many will go to WA , interesting times .