I thought house prices in Australia would fall... of course politicians would try to try to prop them up, because falling prices would be fatally unpopular for them. But you can't keep funding housing prices forever...<p>...unless you have a source of money. Australia aka 'the lucky country' has tremendous mining resources. Now these, being commodities (e.g. copper is the same wherever you buy it), are typically cyclical in price, over a decade or so. But a strange thing has happened: Australia is currently one of the few sources of many metals in the volumes needed (by China, predominately): Australia has a 'monopoly' on these 'commodities'.<p>Thus, the sustained metal prices are propping up the housing market.<p>I don't know how sustainable this 'monopoly' is - whether e.g. higher prices will justify other countries opening up mines, or accessible reserves will be discovered elsewhere etc. I doubt it can continue indefinitely.<p><i>disclaimer: this is based on information gathered over years, and might be out of date in some respects.</i>