When you write about bricks and mortar, it inevitably attracts a lot of hyperbolic attention: you tend to be typecast as a preternatural “bull” or “bear”. To be clear, I am neither: my task is to try to accurately anticipate what will unfold.

After explaining that Aussie house prices would have to correct by 15-25 per cent if (heaven forbid) the RBA ever lifted its target cash rate by 100 basis points or more, some readers responded that they had never seen us predict price falls before. While I will address this misperception later, let’s first deal with the future direction of the $9 trillion residential real estate market.