Just got back from my vacation to NZ and OZ, and of course I couldn't help but check out the prices of real estate over there. In fact during many of the tours the guides would continually point out how "well" there market was doing. It was incredible, it was like being here in 2006. Nearly all the people I spoke with, if the topic of home prices came up just seemed to say all the stuff we heard 5 years ago. "it's different here", "price might level off, but I doubt they will fall" etc. NZ was by far the worst. The prices of everything over there is unbelievable. I dunno how they live. But the prices of housing was off the charts as compared to incomes.
Median incomes are comparable to the US, yet the cost of nearly everything was higher. Australia was not nearly as bad as NZ in that respect but in the two cities we visited things were quite a bit higher than here. Of course the cost of living in most large cities is higher than living in the burbs but I was not able to really check the costs out in the burbs. We did manage to get out into the burbs in Melbourne and the tour guide would point out housing tracts give us approximate costs. If those were correct they their prices are comparable to ours at the peak of our bubble. We saw shacks in the city that he indicated were well north of a million (and I do mean shacks!), in the burbs we saw small average looking tract homes that were $500k to $800k.
NZ and OZ are beautiful places and well worth a visit. But save your pennies cuz int aint a cheap vacation. Oh, and driving on the opposite side of the road is interesting too!