Headlining Harry Dent in Australia

At the risk of making this a meta article, I have to point out that the Sydney Morning Herald and associated Sun-Herald (not to be confused with the Murdoch owned Herald Sun in WA) are owned by Fairfax Media. They seem to be taking a different stance on the bubble than their rivals.*

I can just imagine the editor saying, "find the biggest bear you can and just print what he says."

Deflating speculation on the property bubble
The article opens with lots of CYA coverage of Dent's miscalls, then just let's his point of view have free rein for most of the rest of the article.

For Dent, this [Japan] is a preview of what's in store for the US and Australia.

"Prices will drop 50 per cent maybe. Not as much as the US but it'll be closer than you think, because you had a bigger bubble," he says, comparing the Australian boom to California's.

"At the top of the boom, Sydney and Melbourne were very similar to Los Angeles and San Francisco but they've dropped substantially. Now Sydney is the most expensive in the world outside China when you compare home prices to income. This is a global real estate credit bubble as the baby boomer generation put pressure on real estate around the world, especially in places where [land] was scarce. Interest rates were the lowest in a lifetime."

He also calls for the declines to continue in the U.S. which I'd agree with. The only thing slowing things down here are the Australians, Chinese and other foreigners scooping up what they think are great deals.

*Murdoch's News Corp does appear to still own 7.5% of Fairfax Media.