Of all the stupidity Australians have accepted as “normal”, our relationship with house prices may be among the most ridiculous.

This nation is in the grips of a media panic over a small blip in house prices. This blip apparently deserves wall-to-wall coverage and dire warnings of impending doom.

Maybe – shock – the current 0.4 per cent decrease in national house prices (not a typo, it is less than 1 per cent) COULD reach 8 per cent. MAYBE 10 PER CENT. Get the army ready – society itself may be about to collapse.

It is very rare that we see these numbers put into context. A fall usually follows a rapid rise in prices and Australia has seen more of a rapid rise than most.

Let’s go from 2000, a nice round number, which also happens to be when John Howard and Peter Costello’s ideological war against the capital gains tax kicked in. Since then, house prices have increased fivefold.

The average home has increased in value by about $70,000 a year over the past five years. Again, that is not a typo. That’s about $350,000 in five years.

The people who have benefited from this increase did nothing but have the luck and means to own a house. If their home was to decrease by even 10 per cent, they are still doing OK – their homes will go back to what they were worth at the end of 2024. Back when media was wringing its hands over what could be done about the unaffordable housing market.

Because there is the duality of this ridiculousness. When things communally used by all of us go down in price, we usually see that as a good thing. We expect our government to intervene when petrol prices increase. We expect the government to intervene when our supermarket monopoly makes groceries too expensive. We celebrate sales or bargains. Except when it comes to house prices.

The cries of “but that’s an investment” can already be heard,........

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