What do you think?
Rate this book
The Great Housing Hijack: The hoaxes and myths keeping prices high for renters and buyers in Australia
The Great Housing Hijack reveals how vested interests pull the strings on the property market in Australia, and offers a solution for genuinely affordable housing for those who need it.
Everyone claims to want affordable housing, but no one wants cheap housing.
While Australians on regular incomes dream of lower rents and prices, the housing policy debate has been hijacked, sailing further away from workable solutions.
Leading economics commentator Cameron Murray reveals how property insiders shape the housing market and its policy settings. He explains what property developers really mean when they call for more supply in order to provide affordable housing. He shows why landlords and the real estate industry resist rent controls and why the tax and first home buyer policies of the main political parties achieve little for first home buyers. The hoaxes created by the Housing Cheer Squad hide the brutal for every winner in the property market, there is a loser.
For anyone who wants to truly understand the housing market in Australia, The Great Housing Hijack is essential reading. Drawing on the best housing policies around the world, Murray shows how Australia could create a genuinely affordable housing program without compromising the interests of existing property owners.
'If you're not sure you believe the official story of why house prices and rents are so high, read this.' - Ross Gittins
'The only book you need to understand the giant con we have fallen for. Nobody escapes unscathed. Read it.' - Michael Pascoe
'Cameron Murray unpicks Australia's housing market stitch by stitch and reveals the myths, falsehoods and vested interests that underpin the housing debate.' - Greg Jericho
Everyone claims to want affordable housing, but no one wants cheap housing.
While Australians on regular incomes dream of lower rents and prices, the housing policy debate has been hijacked, sailing further away from workable solutions.
Leading economics commentator Cameron Murray reveals how property insiders shape the housing market and its policy settings. He explains what property developers really mean when they call for more supply in order to provide affordable housing. He shows why landlords and the real estate industry resist rent controls and why the tax and first home buyer policies of the main political parties achieve little for first home buyers. The hoaxes created by the Housing Cheer Squad hide the brutal for every winner in the property market, there is a loser.
For anyone who wants to truly understand the housing market in Australia, The Great Housing Hijack is essential reading. Drawing on the best housing policies around the world, Murray shows how Australia could create a genuinely affordable housing program without compromising the interests of existing property owners.
'If you're not sure you believe the official story of why house prices and rents are so high, read this.' - Ross Gittins
'The only book you need to understand the giant con we have fallen for. Nobody escapes unscathed. Read it.' - Michael Pascoe
'Cameron Murray unpicks Australia's housing market stitch by stitch and reveals the myths, falsehoods and vested interests that underpin the housing debate.' - Greg Jericho
335 pages, Paperback
First published February 27, 2024
35 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Cameron K. Murray
2 books2 followersDr Cameron Murray is Australia's leading expert commentator on housing. He is an economist and co-author of Rigged, and runs his own think-tank, Fresh Economic Thinking. He has been a tenant, a home owner, and a landlord, and he has worked in property development.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 25, 2024
The Great Housing Hijack : The hoaxes and myths keeping prices high for renters and buyers in Australia (2024) by Cameron Murray is an iconoclastic take on Australia’s housing market. Murray is an economist who now writes a Substack and also hosts a podcast as well as doing his research. He’s also very active on Twitter and is very courteous to interact with.
The housing debate in Australia has become quite intense. While food and clothing are a smaller part of most people’s spending than before housing has not become as cheap. Housing in Australia is not close to the marginal possible cost and it Australians spend a similar amount on housing now as they did in the past few decades, even though prices continue to rise.
Murray starts the book by describing five house market equilibria; asset price, rental, spatial, density and absorption rate. It’s an interesting framework that is then referred to in the rest of the book. The book then goes on to describe ‘housing hijackers’ including politicians, academics, the media and YIMBYs. The chapters then take on an alliterative angle. There is a section on ‘Distractions and Distortions’ that does mention immigration, rent stabilization and other ideas. There is a section on ‘Hoax Housing policies’ that addresses ideas about supply, zoning and financial fiddles. Finally Murray gets into what he would propose and describes his system for ‘HouseMate’ which he models on Singapore’s home ownership scheme. It’s a genuinely interesting idea.
Murray has been consulted by the ACT government and makes the interesting point that he was told by people in the ACT government that they deliberately release new land slowly in order to make housing more expensive. John Stanhope, the former ALP ACT Chief Minister has also pointed this out.
The book has some really interesting takes on things. Murray makes many amusing points including the fact that Ed Glaeser, one of the authors of ‘Glaeser and Gyourko’ which is a highly cited paper on zoning lives in a Boston exurb and has opposed nearby development himself. Murray also makes the point that Houston, the city without zoning, has quite high property taxes that introduce a constraint on the yield of housing and act to lower prices. Murray also points out that another city many YIMBYs discuss, Tokyo, is a place where the average person has about 19 square metres of space, whereas the average Australia has about 80.
The Great Housing Hijack is definitely worth a read for any Australian interested in housing. It will make you think. Murray has a very different view to the standard economic view, held by Peter Tulip and Brendan Coates and others. It definitely shouldn’t be the only book read on the subject, Nolan Gray’s excellent ‘Arbitrary Lines’ would be another good book to read. But Murray brings up many points that are well worth considering.
The housing debate in Australia has become quite intense. While food and clothing are a smaller part of most people’s spending than before housing has not become as cheap. Housing in Australia is not close to the marginal possible cost and it Australians spend a similar amount on housing now as they did in the past few decades, even though prices continue to rise.
Murray starts the book by describing five house market equilibria; asset price, rental, spatial, density and absorption rate. It’s an interesting framework that is then referred to in the rest of the book. The book then goes on to describe ‘housing hijackers’ including politicians, academics, the media and YIMBYs. The chapters then take on an alliterative angle. There is a section on ‘Distractions and Distortions’ that does mention immigration, rent stabilization and other ideas. There is a section on ‘Hoax Housing policies’ that addresses ideas about supply, zoning and financial fiddles. Finally Murray gets into what he would propose and describes his system for ‘HouseMate’ which he models on Singapore’s home ownership scheme. It’s a genuinely interesting idea.
Murray has been consulted by the ACT government and makes the interesting point that he was told by people in the ACT government that they deliberately release new land slowly in order to make housing more expensive. John Stanhope, the former ALP ACT Chief Minister has also pointed this out.
The book has some really interesting takes on things. Murray makes many amusing points including the fact that Ed Glaeser, one of the authors of ‘Glaeser and Gyourko’ which is a highly cited paper on zoning lives in a Boston exurb and has opposed nearby development himself. Murray also makes the point that Houston, the city without zoning, has quite high property taxes that introduce a constraint on the yield of housing and act to lower prices. Murray also points out that another city many YIMBYs discuss, Tokyo, is a place where the average person has about 19 square metres of space, whereas the average Australia has about 80.
The Great Housing Hijack is definitely worth a read for any Australian interested in housing. It will make you think. Murray has a very different view to the standard economic view, held by Peter Tulip and Brendan Coates and others. It definitely shouldn’t be the only book read on the subject, Nolan Gray’s excellent ‘Arbitrary Lines’ would be another good book to read. But Murray brings up many points that are well worth considering.
June 26, 2024
Really interesting book; recommended for anyone interested in the housing/house prices debate. The best sections of the book are dedicated to explaining why basically everything we get told in this area is total bullshit and Murray’s explanations are well written and easy to follow.
Some interesting points he establishes are:
1. Rents are not actually out of step with historical norms at the moment; rents are generally a proportion of income (in Australia 20%) and if rents are cheaper people will generally move to better properties until they are paying around 20% of their income again—though very poor people and people on fixed incomes like pensioners are generally forced to pay more than 20%. He notes immigration makes it much harder for renters but ultimately the equilibrium comes back to 20% of income over the long term—but he notes the short term effects can be drastic for those affected. Murray also notes that rent controls actually work—if governments have the political capital and courage to actually implement them (though they do also depress prices which everyone claims to want but no one actually wants).
2. House prices are therefore mainly determined by income also and the various taxes and incentives don’t have that much impact on price (though they do have an impact on who bids for properties—negative gearing and low capital gains taxes mean more investors compete for properties against home owners but the price difference ultimately is less than 10%—these incentives have an impact on who owns property rather than the price as such—but should still be reformed so investors exit the market and sell to homeowners). A key point is that as incomes increase people tend to spend more as a proportion of income on property which pushes prices higher—people are prepared to sacrifice to buy the best possible house in other words. For high income earners this can be manageable but squeezes the lower end of the market. I don’t know how much I agree with this about the taxes—but regardless of this Murray thinks that the taxes should be reformed anyway because they are inequitable and prefer property speculation over income from labour, he just doesn’t think this is any sort of silver bullet to the problem.
3. He demolishes the argument that supply is the problem. It isn’t—this is just what gets pushed by vested interests to keep the status quo. More houses would drop prices but that won’t ever actually happen (absent the government building houses itself) for the next reason…:
4. Planning regulations etc are not constraining supply—what constrains supply is the willingness of developers to develop their land and they—understandably—time their developments so as not to flood the market and crash prices. Even if planners let rip on development, if prices start to drop significantly more development will become unviable and developers will slow down. That isn’t to say that there isn’t significant room for reform or improvement, but again it’s not going to be a magic bullet.
Murray elegantly sets out various economic formulae which determine how rents and prices increase or decrease and how fast developers will add to supply of new dwellings. Interestingly Murray correctly predicted house prices would rise 20% during Covid whereas everyone else predicted they would fall by that amount.
More pessimistically Murray notes that in the absence of any external crisis (war, economic depression, etc) there has never been an example anywhere of prices falling (and most people do not actually want prices to fall). He notes that the most political gains are to be had from pretending to want to make housing more affordable but actually doing nothing about it. Also, doing anything to drastically lower prices would cause an economic crisis—and however beneficial this may be in the long term it’s not worth thinking about because no politician is ever going to do that, our entire politico-economic system is based on maintaining property prices and the construction industry.
Murray therefore proposes a version of Singapore’s public housing program be adopted here which he calls “HouseMate” and which effectively involves the government building housing and selling it to new homeowners at building cost only (ie the government gives away the land) on the basis that they must live in the property for at least 5 years and then can only then sell it to other people in the HouseMate program. Also you could use your compulsory superannuation to pay the deposit and direct your super to pay the mortgage because owning a home outright is better for retirement than any other metric (and the superannuation industry is just a ticket clipping industry that makes the poor poorer and middle income earners worse off and for young people it reduces your income when you need it most—when you’re buying a house and trying to start a family).
He thinks this might be politically palatable on the basis that it will create a parallel system and shouldn’t affect other rents and prices too much.
He also notes we should simply provide housing to homeless people and people on very low incomes and the cost of this—whilst huge—is tiny in the context of the overall government expenditure. He also notes the current Albanese Government home builder program is complete bullshit and if they were serious they would just build houses with that money. Overall though the book is almost totally apolitical—this policy just cops it because it’s the latest one and the Albanese Government is currently in power.
Murray’s thesis also is that immigration should be reduced to a point where it doesn’t cause short term increases to rents and prices and where governments are actually capable of building adequate infrastructure to keep up with the increase in population.
HouseMate is an interesting concept and I don’t think it’s perfect (it involves a lottery to decide each year who gets to be in the HouseMate program) but to be honest I haven’t seen a better idea yet. I think a combination of this idea with Alan Kohler’s idea of building high speed trains to develop more satellite cities around the capitals is probably as good an idea as anyone has got given the reality that the votes just aren’t there to collapse the property market. Regarding the lottery aspect—which has come in for a lot of criticism—what other solution is there to choose which deserving people get into the program, and Murray’s idea is that if enough homes get built then eventually all eligible people (ie non-homeowners maybe with an income/means test also) will be within the program sooner or later—which is not much different to how the Housing Trust program used to work anyway.
But the main crux of this book is explaining why everything else we get told is mainly lies peddled by vested interests—how the housing debate has been hijacked in other words. And it does that very well. The salient point here is that there is no easy answer due to the economic factors at play, and anyone who says that there is a simple solution (eg opening up planning, removing negative gearing, reducing immigration) is not being honest or has no idea what they’re talking about. These things all might help but ultimately radical action is needed for any real change to eventuate.
I would love to see Murray do a book on the superannuation industry next.
Some interesting points he establishes are:
1. Rents are not actually out of step with historical norms at the moment; rents are generally a proportion of income (in Australia 20%) and if rents are cheaper people will generally move to better properties until they are paying around 20% of their income again—though very poor people and people on fixed incomes like pensioners are generally forced to pay more than 20%. He notes immigration makes it much harder for renters but ultimately the equilibrium comes back to 20% of income over the long term—but he notes the short term effects can be drastic for those affected. Murray also notes that rent controls actually work—if governments have the political capital and courage to actually implement them (though they do also depress prices which everyone claims to want but no one actually wants).
2. House prices are therefore mainly determined by income also and the various taxes and incentives don’t have that much impact on price (though they do have an impact on who bids for properties—negative gearing and low capital gains taxes mean more investors compete for properties against home owners but the price difference ultimately is less than 10%—these incentives have an impact on who owns property rather than the price as such—but should still be reformed so investors exit the market and sell to homeowners). A key point is that as incomes increase people tend to spend more as a proportion of income on property which pushes prices higher—people are prepared to sacrifice to buy the best possible house in other words. For high income earners this can be manageable but squeezes the lower end of the market. I don’t know how much I agree with this about the taxes—but regardless of this Murray thinks that the taxes should be reformed anyway because they are inequitable and prefer property speculation over income from labour, he just doesn’t think this is any sort of silver bullet to the problem.
3. He demolishes the argument that supply is the problem. It isn’t—this is just what gets pushed by vested interests to keep the status quo. More houses would drop prices but that won’t ever actually happen (absent the government building houses itself) for the next reason…:
4. Planning regulations etc are not constraining supply—what constrains supply is the willingness of developers to develop their land and they—understandably—time their developments so as not to flood the market and crash prices. Even if planners let rip on development, if prices start to drop significantly more development will become unviable and developers will slow down. That isn’t to say that there isn’t significant room for reform or improvement, but again it’s not going to be a magic bullet.
Murray elegantly sets out various economic formulae which determine how rents and prices increase or decrease and how fast developers will add to supply of new dwellings. Interestingly Murray correctly predicted house prices would rise 20% during Covid whereas everyone else predicted they would fall by that amount.
More pessimistically Murray notes that in the absence of any external crisis (war, economic depression, etc) there has never been an example anywhere of prices falling (and most people do not actually want prices to fall). He notes that the most political gains are to be had from pretending to want to make housing more affordable but actually doing nothing about it. Also, doing anything to drastically lower prices would cause an economic crisis—and however beneficial this may be in the long term it’s not worth thinking about because no politician is ever going to do that, our entire politico-economic system is based on maintaining property prices and the construction industry.
Murray therefore proposes a version of Singapore’s public housing program be adopted here which he calls “HouseMate” and which effectively involves the government building housing and selling it to new homeowners at building cost only (ie the government gives away the land) on the basis that they must live in the property for at least 5 years and then can only then sell it to other people in the HouseMate program. Also you could use your compulsory superannuation to pay the deposit and direct your super to pay the mortgage because owning a home outright is better for retirement than any other metric (and the superannuation industry is just a ticket clipping industry that makes the poor poorer and middle income earners worse off and for young people it reduces your income when you need it most—when you’re buying a house and trying to start a family).
He thinks this might be politically palatable on the basis that it will create a parallel system and shouldn’t affect other rents and prices too much.
He also notes we should simply provide housing to homeless people and people on very low incomes and the cost of this—whilst huge—is tiny in the context of the overall government expenditure. He also notes the current Albanese Government home builder program is complete bullshit and if they were serious they would just build houses with that money. Overall though the book is almost totally apolitical—this policy just cops it because it’s the latest one and the Albanese Government is currently in power.
Murray’s thesis also is that immigration should be reduced to a point where it doesn’t cause short term increases to rents and prices and where governments are actually capable of building adequate infrastructure to keep up with the increase in population.
HouseMate is an interesting concept and I don’t think it’s perfect (it involves a lottery to decide each year who gets to be in the HouseMate program) but to be honest I haven’t seen a better idea yet. I think a combination of this idea with Alan Kohler’s idea of building high speed trains to develop more satellite cities around the capitals is probably as good an idea as anyone has got given the reality that the votes just aren’t there to collapse the property market. Regarding the lottery aspect—which has come in for a lot of criticism—what other solution is there to choose which deserving people get into the program, and Murray’s idea is that if enough homes get built then eventually all eligible people (ie non-homeowners maybe with an income/means test also) will be within the program sooner or later—which is not much different to how the Housing Trust program used to work anyway.
But the main crux of this book is explaining why everything else we get told is mainly lies peddled by vested interests—how the housing debate has been hijacked in other words. And it does that very well. The salient point here is that there is no easy answer due to the economic factors at play, and anyone who says that there is a simple solution (eg opening up planning, removing negative gearing, reducing immigration) is not being honest or has no idea what they’re talking about. These things all might help but ultimately radical action is needed for any real change to eventuate.
I would love to see Murray do a book on the superannuation industry next.
December 4, 2025
Some good points!
April 30, 2024
* 4.5 *
Incredible and incendiary take on the current debate, borne out by a, perhaps not easily implementable, but wholly reasonable and sensible solution of a public homeownership scheme modelled on Singapore and prior historical examples.
Murray is at his best when taking apart the common housing debate arguments often uncritically put forward and recycled by certain powerful actors in politics, the media, business and property. As others have commented there are times when you’d love a fuller explanation of a particular economic downside, myth, or solution, and I think some chapters could use a stronger edit (the YIMBY one relies on some very essentialist generalisations for example).
But all in all, what a great great book to restore yer faith in housing reform as well as sharpen up your understanding of the complexities of policy change and property economics
Incredible and incendiary take on the current debate, borne out by a, perhaps not easily implementable, but wholly reasonable and sensible solution of a public homeownership scheme modelled on Singapore and prior historical examples.
Murray is at his best when taking apart the common housing debate arguments often uncritically put forward and recycled by certain powerful actors in politics, the media, business and property. As others have commented there are times when you’d love a fuller explanation of a particular economic downside, myth, or solution, and I think some chapters could use a stronger edit (the YIMBY one relies on some very essentialist generalisations for example).
But all in all, what a great great book to restore yer faith in housing reform as well as sharpen up your understanding of the complexities of policy change and property economics
August 14, 2025
I picked this up as a counterpoint to the ‘Abundance’ ideas from Ezra Klein. Murray lays out equilibrium concepts for housing, walks through the alarming power of the property industry in public debates, discusses ideas that might not be enough (ie: Abundance-style planning reforms) to solve our housing problem and gives some ideas about the scale of intervention required. Throughout the book you get a sense of how frustrated he is with the state of affairs in housing.
I share his concerns about the power of the property industry, and his skepticism of people who think the *only* thing needed is lifting zoning restrictions. I think his focus on absorption rates is useful, and agree that more public involvement in housing markets is needed.
However, there are clearly good things that can come from zoning reform, and labelling anyone advocating for this as a ‘zoning zealot’ - basically a property industry shill - is a petulant oversimplification. Even if, as Murray argues, it’s impossible to have any increase in aggregate supply above the equilibrium absorption rate, *where* houses are built can be impacted by zoning. As he argues on page 170: “The planning system regulates the location, but not the pace, of new housing development.”
According to Murray, if the inner city suburb next to me had restrictions lifted, it would mean a higher proportion of homes across my state in the next decade would be built there instead of in the outer suburbs. That would be very good for all sorts of reasons, but Murray is against this type of reform based on his skepticism about the link between zoning reform and house/rental prices.
However, there is evidence that there is a link between loosening planning controls and prices, at least in short term. Studies about Auckland for example do a good job of establishing this, even if it’s controversial. He doesn’t really rebut this evidence in the book, but does provide some case studies that seem to not support it. I wasn’t convinced that there’s no link, and wasn’t convinced zoning reforms aren’t worthwhile - even if I accept his argument about the lack of a link to prices.
I share his concerns about the power of the property industry, and his skepticism of people who think the *only* thing needed is lifting zoning restrictions. I think his focus on absorption rates is useful, and agree that more public involvement in housing markets is needed.
However, there are clearly good things that can come from zoning reform, and labelling anyone advocating for this as a ‘zoning zealot’ - basically a property industry shill - is a petulant oversimplification. Even if, as Murray argues, it’s impossible to have any increase in aggregate supply above the equilibrium absorption rate, *where* houses are built can be impacted by zoning. As he argues on page 170: “The planning system regulates the location, but not the pace, of new housing development.”
According to Murray, if the inner city suburb next to me had restrictions lifted, it would mean a higher proportion of homes across my state in the next decade would be built there instead of in the outer suburbs. That would be very good for all sorts of reasons, but Murray is against this type of reform based on his skepticism about the link between zoning reform and house/rental prices.
However, there is evidence that there is a link between loosening planning controls and prices, at least in short term. Studies about Auckland for example do a good job of establishing this, even if it’s controversial. He doesn’t really rebut this evidence in the book, but does provide some case studies that seem to not support it. I wasn’t convinced that there’s no link, and wasn’t convinced zoning reforms aren’t worthwhile - even if I accept his argument about the lack of a link to prices.
November 18, 2024
A very informative read, and as the author states, there is unfortunately incentive for authors, policy analysts, peak bodies, property developers, and politicians to not take meaningful action to tackle the housing crisis.
Even for "regular people", it seems like we've taken on a collective state of learned helplessness, that we can't imagine how a different system could ever come about where housing isn't an investment class and the family nest egg to protect against destitution in retirement.
Housing should be a humanity right and I believe public expenditure should be spent on building public housing. We should not rely on the private market to deliver essential services and infrastructure.
The policy proposal at the end has merit, and like policies proposed by anyone other than the major parties, will suffer from the fact that we can "only tell, not show" if we're not in government, and might need something huge like a war or massive natural disaster to be a circuit breaker on "housing as usual" to stimulate any systemic changes.
Even for "regular people", it seems like we've taken on a collective state of learned helplessness, that we can't imagine how a different system could ever come about where housing isn't an investment class and the family nest egg to protect against destitution in retirement.
Housing should be a humanity right and I believe public expenditure should be spent on building public housing. We should not rely on the private market to deliver essential services and infrastructure.
The policy proposal at the end has merit, and like policies proposed by anyone other than the major parties, will suffer from the fact that we can "only tell, not show" if we're not in government, and might need something huge like a war or massive natural disaster to be a circuit breaker on "housing as usual" to stimulate any systemic changes.
July 3, 2024
Very insightful text on the housing crisis of Australia (of course depending on which viewpoint you look from). The book delves deep into the 5 market equilibrium that affects house prices and deconstructs the myths and rhetoric bandied out by politicians and casual punters much like the other panel members and audience during his appearance on abc's QandA.
It's quite dense regarding the economics he delves into but it is still accessible enough for people with no economic background to wrap their heads around why house prices are high. The main criticism is the not so feasible plan to solve the housing issue but he tries his best to propose a solution similar to Singapore's housing market. A fantastic read for all the property nerds and geeks out there and of course we are no closer to solving any of the issues that are presented in the book as it keeps getting "hijacked" by people with vested interests.
It's quite dense regarding the economics he delves into but it is still accessible enough for people with no economic background to wrap their heads around why house prices are high. The main criticism is the not so feasible plan to solve the housing issue but he tries his best to propose a solution similar to Singapore's housing market. A fantastic read for all the property nerds and geeks out there and of course we are no closer to solving any of the issues that are presented in the book as it keeps getting "hijacked" by people with vested interests.
November 21, 2025
Murray's proposal of introducing a widespread, universally accessible public housing system as a solution to housing affordability is really interesting. Much like other sectors of society that have parallel public and private systems like education, healthcare, roads, and retirement, the universal public housing system would not replace the private real estate market, but it would provide affordable housing whilst also driving down private rental prices. There would also still be plenty of room for investment and capital growth in the private system. In theory, it just wouldn't be as out of control as it is today.
He does a good job in the first two sections of the book explaining the economics of housing as well as the competing interests of different parties involved in the national property debate.
He does a good job in the first two sections of the book explaining the economics of housing as well as the competing interests of different parties involved in the national property debate.
April 9, 2024
The author is an economist and seems to know what he is talking about but I struggled to understand some of his arguments. He's spot on when he asserts that many players in the housing game are deliberately trying to rig the industry to suit their purposes, e.g. developers and estate agents trying to maximise their profits by spreading disinformation and misrepresenting their motives. He also blamed the media for their poor reporting of the property industry due to ignorance and a need to sensationalise.
His proposed solution is radical but well worth further thought. I'm looking forward to the next Quarterly Essay to read the replies.
His proposed solution is radical but well worth further thought. I'm looking forward to the next Quarterly Essay to read the replies.
June 5, 2025
Very interesting, nice to read a very Australian perspective and get a better understanding of the different policies currently in place and how they actually affect the housing market. It sometimes feels a bit like a conspiracy theory - my twitter follower “housing market expert” said this, those YIMBYs are all hypocrites funded by big property etc so you should disregard any of their studies, and it definitely has some controversial ideas, sparking more than a few heated discussions in my house.
Overall though I feel like I learnt a lot, and relatively easy to read even for someone with very little knowledge about economics.
Overall though I feel like I learnt a lot, and relatively easy to read even for someone with very little knowledge about economics.
September 3, 2024
Murray has a particularly effective way of deconstructing popular beliefs about economics slowly and calmly. Using relevant examples, he adeptly exposes just how much Australian belief in property is a narrative, not an economic fact.
I think this book should be mandatory reading for the political class and widely read in Australia. It offers actual solutions to housing provision in Australia that are politically viable and broadly implementable. It’s most valuable though is that our current housing outcomes are a choice, not an inevitability.
I think this book should be mandatory reading for the political class and widely read in Australia. It offers actual solutions to housing provision in Australia that are politically viable and broadly implementable. It’s most valuable though is that our current housing outcomes are a choice, not an inevitability.
March 31, 2024
This book cuts through the vested interest’s view of housing and provides insights into how the housing market really works.
The downside is now when you hear a politician talk about solving the housing crisis, you’ll bang your head against the wall in frustration at their regulatory capture.
Has a few neat suggestions for solutions too that look remarkably similar to Australia’s world leading healthcare and schooling systems…
The downside is now when you hear a politician talk about solving the housing crisis, you’ll bang your head against the wall in frustration at their regulatory capture.
Has a few neat suggestions for solutions too that look remarkably similar to Australia’s world leading healthcare and schooling systems…
July 25, 2024
An excellent book. I hated it.
Whilst superb with it's breakdown of the distorted housing narrative. Explaining market equilibriums and myths in equal measure.
The let downs came when politics, the vehicle out of the housing mess, seemingly took a backseat throughout. With actual solutions only really being given the last 20 odd pages. His tweets, comments and social media interactions littering the work. It seems they must have really got under his skin.
Whilst superb with it's breakdown of the distorted housing narrative. Explaining market equilibriums and myths in equal measure.
The let downs came when politics, the vehicle out of the housing mess, seemingly took a backseat throughout. With actual solutions only really being given the last 20 odd pages. His tweets, comments and social media interactions littering the work. It seems they must have really got under his skin.
September 25, 2024
Everyone concerned about our housing crisis and what to do about it needs to read this, but they probably won't! Sadly, too many people are very happy about the current state of affairs of housing as a wealth generator. I don't agree with everything and how it is presented (eg Chapter 2 not the clearest), but the hoaxes are real! With a background in economic geography, I appreciate the focus on the spatial and density equilibrium.
July 19, 2024
I thought that this would be a fascinating read due to my interest in economics but it's a bit long and tedious in places. Could have been a shorter pamphlet.
Ultimately, we all know that some kind of publicly funded housing scheme is needed, and Murray has one of his own design. That's the climax of the book, if you want it.
Ultimately, we all know that some kind of publicly funded housing scheme is needed, and Murray has one of his own design. That's the climax of the book, if you want it.
June 23, 2025
The truth behind soaring house prices in a rigged system, Cameron explains everything that keep property prices high in Australia. I have published an Article explaining the some of the concepts Cameron has covered in the book.
https://australiapropertynews.com.au/...
https://australiapropertynews.com.au/...
October 6, 2025
I lot of very eye opening and opinion altering facts and information in this book but the arguments were incoherent and I was never sure what argument was being made and where the Author stood on the topic or why. The Author seemed to switch between different arguments simultaneously. It would've been a great read for the information and new perspectives but it was difficult to enjoy.
August 6, 2025
Look I just could not follow this. His arguments were littered with academic speak and I just couldn't understand most of them. I'd say this reflects me more than him but nonetheless it didn't impact me like I wanted it to.
September 20, 2025
I really enjoyed this, but I read it twice and I still don't understand housing economics
January 2, 2026
A very impressive book. It does not overly simplify the complex economics at the core of housing markets. This means readers that really grapple with the first set of chapters will come away with a much deeper understanding of housing than the analyses given by most PhD economists and policy wonks in the literature. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to start understanding housing and why it seems to always be in a state of "crisis".
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews