I started listening to Martin when his data started to get mainstream airtime and his property crash predictions got him even further air time. That was about 5 years ago. Over this time he had made two big predictions of up to 40% price corrections on the back of his data. Both have come to nothing and in fact prices have grown substantially since this time.
For the record there is no problem in making predictions based on mortgage stress, but given it clearly hasn’t resulted in any significant downside risk, as any good analysts should, they need to reassess their data or potentially draw a different conclusion.
You see the risk here is that some people could believe such ‘headline’ grabbing predictions and act accordingly-so anyone who sold on the advice is now significantly worse off by hundreds of thousands of dollars and potentially not able to get back in to the property market, causing even more financial pain. (The ABC has a similar poor track record of claiming pending doom, on the back of such data and reports released by Martin.)
Fast forward to today and the tone remains one of sunk costs bias and guest with a left political agenda or more excuses as to why the predictions weren’t wrong, because they didn’t factor in any alternative variables, such as government support. That should be considered in any market where so much is at stake economically.
I’ll keep checking in on this podcast from time to time, because as an investor one should never get complacent and one should continue to listen to alternative views, but vet such claims against other data both current and historical.
