In the event, this helped Australia avoid the worst of the excesses in housing markets that subsequently built up in many other countries. The housing market was most “frothy” for Australia as a whole around 2002–2003, and it cooled noticeably in 2004 as interest rates rose.
While there were subsequent price increases in particular cities, the speculative element in the market had subsided considerably in most states by the time the global financial crisis hit in 2008.