"BOOM" indeed.

Now is as good a time as any to break a 3 month posting drought.

I'm trying to do an assignment in relation to residential real estate and I need respite. I recently inspected a home that I thought might be worth a quarter of a million, but I've now had to put on a value of close to $300,000.

This is for a not particularly special house, on a not very large block, in a northern suburb that isn't particularly pleasant.

The same house may have sold five years ago for $150,000.

This isn't really news to anybody. It's common knowledge that the last five years have seen a residential real estate boom.

Incidentally, "Real estate boom" is the terminology you use when you don't want to say "Hyper-inflation in the housing sector". Of course when prices double over five years without an improvement in quality, hyper-inflation is exactly what you've got.

Much of what happens in real estate takes a while to make its presence known. Right now my parents' house may be worth $350,000, but that matters not because they bought it for $110,000. Accordingly, the hyper-inflation hasn't increased our cost of living.

The housing element of the Consumer Price Index does not consider house valuations, but the average of what people actually part with every week. This amount increases with every first home that is bought.

Interest rates are rising and hyper-inflation makes interest rates rise further. This is coming at a time when one could throw a dart out of the window and hit an Australian who is in thumping, elephantine debt.

BOOM.

I predict that there will be bankruptcies. I'm not talking about a few written off credit card bills.

I foresee the kind of bankruptcy that Jesus talked about.

There's a part of me that wants the Liberals to win the next federal election. That way, the cruel and unusual punishment of recession can occur on their watch, with no previous government to blame.