Should I be buying now?

I agree. Hold off unless you find a bargain. Even then bargain harder. If you get a good price for a property that does not go up for sale often then it might be ok to jump now.

whiteknightoz,
                         I think the general opinion of most is now is not the time to buy.
You only buy if you can get capital gains and an income to cover your expenses. Do you think you will get capital gains at the moment…. most likely not.    Will your rent cover your cost of borrowing…..most likely not.

             If you have some money then put it in cash and get 8% instead of buying a property and loosing say 5% .

Wait a few months , your cash will increase, properties will decrease, you cannot go wrong. Or put your cash into an offset account on your last loan till you can see property prices increasing….this may take a while…

            Good luck whatever you do.

How the people on this forum have changed. When I posted ( about 6 months ago ) that buying would be suicide , they all said "you can always buy, property always goes up". Now that it's too late they realize their mistake they made 6 months ago. Property will crash 50% within now and 3 years.

By that definition, a bargain must be at least 50% cheaper than what you think it's worth now.
People live in a bliss , in a dream , in a world of endless credit. That's all come to a halt now, people, businesses, banks are going bankrupt. What you should be doing is sell all your crap to people on this forum who still think they can 'make a bargain' and then buy 3 houses for that in 3 years, if by then you still think Property investing is a good thing. ( in time, and this won't take long, people's opinions about property will change from 'oh my god that's the best thing in life' to 'oh my god you bought a house ? Just hope that you don't go bankrupt then'.

Sci Fi Horror flick,

In Scamps defense the interest rate thing hasn't finished yet….

In your defense, yes, the reasonably leveraged should survive.

Interesting seeing this from the UK, about to put my own UK house on the market again after a messed up sale a few months ago. The idea is to emigrate to S.A.
Long story short, a gazundering offer we received only a few short months ago, before the recent financial storm, now looks like a missed golden opportunity…. Going back further, 2 years ago I could have sold my small house in the UK and with the relative property values and exchange rate – if I'd understood the market at that time – we could have practically retired to Australia into a decent sized house and a very small mortgage. Can't do anything like that now! Wondering how safe Australia is economically, surprised to see such a lack of confidence after such bullishnesss even recently, but I guess in the end this credit crunch really is hitting us all.
Even with the mining boom and much better fiscal controls on the banking industry Australia is still not totally immune it seems.
I still think you are safer than us Poms though, and good luck to you, we're in bad shape and just starting to realise it.

Strangely, your pessimism about your own property market gives someone like me the faint hope that if a bit of luck goes my way we can still "Pommiegrate" to your great country, will need to be careful with the exchange rate timing, and hang in for your own property market to slide a bit.

Watching Steve McKnights recent videos, your recessions of the 80's and 90's timed in exactly the same as ours. I seem to remember they lasted a long time over here, not a couple of years, but several long years.

Whiteknight, with regards to commercial property – firstly you do not have the protections afforded by the residential tenancy acts/tribunals (if you call them protections either for tenants or lessors).  The assumption is that if you are able to own a commercial property, you are able to afford a solicitor to prepare/review your lease, you have the waywithall to understand commercial dealings, undertake due dilligence etc.

As for risk, each class has an associated different level of risk & consequent return. That is, capital city residential may have a lower rental yield but have substantial capital growth potential whereas commercial property will have a higher yield but lower capital growth.

Vacancy factors are more closely related to market conditions eg recession will lead to longer term vacancies (unlike resi where people will always need somewhere to live), unrelated factors can cause vacancies eg a manufacturer moving offshore and all of the related suppliers not needing to be located near their main purchaser.

The other factor to consider is that the LVR is also much lower ie you will require at least 30% equity to purchase and your rate for borrowing will also be higher (possibly 1-2%).

I have to say,  Don't listen to misinformed people,  Or people who have a ulterior motive

Firstly I have to say that its quite possible that property might fall 50% like Scamp says,  Unlike what most people assume will happen if there is a crash,  Property prices won't go down to a more realistic value,  They will go down beyond there true market value,  It will swing as hard down as it did up,  You will see property at totally unrealisticly cheap prices.

As for buying now,  anyone who recommends that is telling you lies,  Remember the rule:  Buy low,  Sell high

you only need look at a chat of property prices since say 2000 and it will clearly tell you that you should have sold your house half way through 2007,  Now is certainly not the right time to buy,  The charts don't lie!  only people do.

Someone noted how well our banks are doing at the moment,  But the elite money masters of the world at the privately owned RBA are putting there plan into 5th gear,  Interest rates will continue to fall,  But that won't result in a recovery in the property market,  Inflation will rise,  jobs will be lost and people will start defaulting on there debt in continuing greater numbers,  Banks profits will shrink up and eventually they quite possibly could go bust,  People don't realise how similar to the americans our story is folding out,  We are just a few years behind.

How many people on this forum know that the Rudd government has commited to spending 4 billion dollars of tax payer money towards backing so called "AAA" Mortgages ?  The government told us that intervention was needed to allow banks to continue to loan out more money !!!   Do people realise how this works ?

Those 4 billion dollars that back private banks will turn that into 10x that figure through the magical process called "Fractional reserve banking"  So basically the banks will create 40 billion dollars   "Not necessarily more home loans,  But anything the banks wish to do with that money" through 4 billion dollars of current debt.

This is what a strong ecconomy is all about ?,  Debt compiled apon debt and more debt and more and more,  Everytime its compiled its 10x greater then the last.

Anyone who wishes to make money in these critical times should look at investing in gold,  Everything points towards gold hitting a minimum of $1500 in the next 6 months,  And its arguably been one of the best returning investments in the past decade.

You make a valid point on how low house values will go. If they were to drop on average 50% then in most case this would be far below there true value. They would just be suffering due to the current climate. When things improve and sentimate changes to a more positive outlook. Then values will head back up and more likely than not pass current peaks.
 It just spins me out when some gloomers are jumping on this like it is a new thing and they want pats on the back for calling it first. Its crazy. Good times lead to overvaluation. This brings on a slump possibly leading to undervaluation. So what. This is not a new thing. Just be prepared and dont over extend in times like this.