But it is very unusual in history for people to save as little from current income as they were doing by the mid-2000s. And it is very unusual, historically, for real assets per person to rise at 6 per cent or more per annum.
It is also very unusual for households actually to withdraw equity from their houses, to use for other purposes, but for a few years in the mid-2000s that seemed to have been occurring. Of course, Australia was not alone in seeing trends like this. There were qualitatively similar trends in several other countries, particularly English-speaking countries that experienced financial innovation.