It's all right old fella. Only two hours till that nice meals on wheels lady arrives.

I'd be careful about real estate at the moment Duritz [the smart money has already sold it at the peek]. Our personal overseas debt is a debt 'Road-Train' not a debt truck. All that money comes from OS and our debt covering ca lateral is starting to look shaky [or has been sold off]. Interest rates will go up with the increased risk to lenders [mostly Asian and Chinese].

Commodities are faced with the huge competition coming on tap now world-wide to flog to China [mostly]. They are no longer a captive buyer. We are heading for the financial sin-bin. Thank Howard for the illusion of prosperity for 10 yrs. based on a fake housing boom and real commodity boom [about to be hit with big competition finally].

Your not far from the mark there. This place is 'God's Waiting room' after all:-)

Thanks for the tip re real estate. Big interest rate rises would stop me from investing in another property. If that were to happen and if commodities were to crash I think I'd just put all savings in continually into my offset account for my house mortgage, let it earn "interest by proxy" by decreasing my interest payments. I've crunched the numbers on having savings offset against your mortgage - big savings down the track if you don't spend it.

Who knows, if this sys takes off I might buy an investment property outright!!! (nah, wouldn't do that...!)

My daughter is a real estate agent in Melb. Forget all the 'up' talk from them, in reality it's 'hitting the fan' with far too many people financially overexposed she says. The rental market is falling [through the floor] on inner city investment property that was way over-sold and over built. Even here in [small]Paynesville on the Gippsland lakes, there are over 250 properties for sale and over 50 perm rentals empty. The ass is out of the coastal 'sea change' market in most places.

2 commodities go up in economic downturns and recessions [for certain every time], gambling and alcohol. No, I don't mean drink and punt more [that's what everyone else will be doing], buy shares in those ventures ;-)

That's a super tip - makes perfect sense. I brew my own beer so I'll probably invest more in that ;P, but local beer shares (CUB?) may be a go - if there's a recession, people won't be buying the boutique beers no more!!!

Re the overexposure of real estate - our mortgage is very manageable. If it does really hit the fan re interest rates etc we'll probably wait a little then try to buy something as the prices inevitably fall, b/c the fall will only be temporary in the longer scheme of things.

It occurs to me that we may have gotten slightly away from the original topic of this thread.

Not much.... just a teency weency bit.

We got hit buying at almost the top of the 80's property boom [we bought cash with a bit of a windfall we had at the time]. It was a long wait of until 2004 until we go out with a decent profit. Worth the wait because we could afford it [no mortgage] but only doubled our original high purchase price.

Many sold at massive losses when interest rates reached 17% because they had too. They couldn't afford the mortgage payments. One woman we knew near us was paying $800 [80's] a month mortgage on an 1 bedroom apartment she could have rented for $300. Sold for half the purchase price because the payments were killing her.

People think that will never happen again. Oh it will and has before too.

Yep, another 'senior's moment' there I think. Now what is keeping those meals on wheels ladies [?] It must be lunch time soon !!