Just got back from two months in Sydney mid December. For all you folks who aren’t aware, Sydney’s RE bubble is even WORSE than ours, far worse. Especially in the eastern suburbs and northern shores communities. If you think Manly is expensive Mosman will make you cry. I gotta preface my comments with, I lived in Bondi and only took the ferry to Manly twice.
As to your technical question, Sydney doesn’t have anything like redfin that I know of. Realestate.com.au is one source of MLS like info but I never found much better.
Australia’s economy is in decline same as ours, despite their protestations to the contrary. Their dollar strength and the strength of their entire economy is based on commodity exports. Think gold, copper, chardonnay etc. If you think those are going to come back in price then maybe Sydney RE can hold something near where its currently priced. I don’t believe there is a snowballs chance in hell thats going to happen.
Second don’t believe all the crap you hear about their lending being more strict. Every mortgage is a 5 year ARM in Oz (at most), there are no 30 year fixed mortgages.
Finally you should look for an article by the chief economist of ANZ put out in late november about the Sydney housing market. He uses traditional debate techniques to argue that Australia’s in general and Sydney in particular aren’t going to fall much. Ultimately he is wrong but his opening paragraphs are very important. In them he talks about how Australia has the same economic and debt issues that we do.
Sydney is a great place. One of the few in the world I could live outside SD, but it was a great place 10 years ago too. Don’t believe the hype.
One last thing, Oz seems about 18 months behind us in terms of RE pricing, denial and job loss, but its catching up quickly.
