Banks are to blame for Australia's housing bubble

Australia's housing bubble is real and banks are to blame, says author

But in his mind, it's everyone else who is living in a "Disneyland" delusion by failing to spot a bank-led property bubble that shows no sign of deflating. "No one in the Western world has ever done what we are doing." It's "the sheer size of the loans relative to the incomes here" that troubles Mr David.

The median house price to income of Sydney is nine times, compared to 6.2 times in New York and 7.3 times in London. Even Adelaide is more expensive than New York on price-to-income basis. He is particularly troubled by the surge in asset values in his Sutherland Shire neighbourhood, where land is changing hands for more than $1 million. "I have never seen so many Range Rovers in the Shire. It's a small world out there and you know they haven't become millionaires overnight. It's eerily similar to Miami [in 2005 before the sub-prime crisis]. It feels like Groundhog Day," he said.