I'm not sure how it's in Australia, but here in Canada, majority of people own their homes. It's not in their best interest to let the housing to depreciate heavily, so they'll go through anything other than letting it burst like in Japan. It also doesn't help when we're not really a manufacturing giant like them, where we could support our economy.

I also know people whose parents' entire retirement plan is just downsizing and using the extra cash to supplement their social benefits. So yeah, kicking the can down the road, hoping some bigger economies figure out a way out of this problem, so we'll just follow along.

And I'm saying this as a renter, who is just in the sidelines with no real desire to buy as of now.