The Chaser Report - Housing Market Crash in VR

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Dom shows Charles and Andrew the ABC's chatbot which lets you role-play being rejected on the housing market. You too can live out the dream of being a victim of the housing market on the ABC's chatbot here, or just continue to experience it firsthand in this hell-scape we unwillingly live in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. I'm Domney. Charles Firth and Andrew Hansen are here as well. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you, Dommy. Hello. How's it going?

I'm all right. Me too. You don't seem very happy to be in America, Charles. I have to say, it doesn't seem to be. Like, it's pleasant weather. Australia shits. And look, I'm aware that we have probably several hundred listeners who live in L.A., mostly expat Australians and things like that.

So I do apologize. But L.A. is shit. You would never want to live here. Like, it's fine. Like, it's sort of fine to sort of pass through as a passing curiosity. But there's just homeless everywhere. The place stinks of urine and marijuana. The, like, it's just horrible.

It's just a horrible place. Like, it's 41 degrees every day. You can't walk around. You wouldn't want to walk around. You'd be murdered if you walked around anyway. It's just had no regard for the fact that, you know, humans have to live in this place. Like, it's a city built as if you're just an extension of your car. Well, I've thought of a way to make you less homesick, Charles.

The ABC News has released a wonderful game. Oh, yeah? Simulating people's experiences of the Australian property market. So what that is they went and interviewed 40 or 50. Real Australians about their experience, you know, trying to find a place to live in Australia. Oh, okay. And I want the two of you to just talk me. It's a chat bot.

I'm going to get you to make some selections and then I'm going to put that into the chat bot and see what happens. Okay, okay. And as if we're like honest answers or we just make up an answer? Honest answer. You can choose whichever answer you want. And just your goal here is to try and actually live somewhere sustainably without being miserable. Oh, God. We'll probably end up in L.A.

All right, Charles and Andrew, here we go. Pick your property journey. This is a real thing that the ABC is published this week that I'm going to talk you through. So you come home from work to find a letter in your mailbox. Your rent is increasing, okay? You're not sure you can afford the increase, let alone save for a house of your own. But the rental market is tight and options are limited. What are you going to do?

Your options are stay put or find somewhere new to live. I think this is like the world's most depressing choose your own adventures. It is exactly that. I don't think this would have sold very well in the fighting fantasy game book series. That's an impossible choice. They said, you can't afford your home. Are you going to move out or are you going to just not afford it? Things can always be worse, Charles, is the general rule of these train property market.

Do you take the risk? I'm going to take the risk of just moving somewhere else. Okay, I'll find somewhere new to live. So, okay, I've put that into the engine. Let's move. You've decided the rent increases too steep and you're not going to renew your lease. That means you've got to find somewhere new to live. Are you going to continue renting or do you think you have enough to try and buy your own home in this hypothetical world?

Which are we going to do? Well, nobody can afford their own home anymore. Although it would be interesting to see what happens if they try. You've got to calculate your mortgage rate as if it's going to be 20%, which will in a couple of years. Well, it says I want to buy a house. Shall we try and see how far we get or should we keep renting? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea.

Because we might be able to afford somewhere in Burke or something like that, wouldn't not. So I want to buy a house, all right. You've crunched the numbers and believe you, stumped up enough to purchase a place of your own. Oh, but the housing market has changed. Prices have risen of so of interest rates. What are you going to buy? Your options are, I'll live in regional Australia or I'll live in the city. Anyone can play this game at the ABC website, by the way. Let's go, you know, let's be ambitious and we want to live in the city. All right. I'll live in the city. You and your partner have decided to look for your first time in the outer suburbs where you believe you'll have a better chance of getting your foot in the door.

You both have a steady salary and have been saving hard, but property prices have reached record levels. That means a deposit you need is increased to your 20% isn't that much anymore. Okay, so what are my options? Isn't this fun? After years spent saving. This is of no surprise to anyone under the age of 30. This is their life.

You don't have to codify it in an engine. You can't get 20% deposit. It's impossible. So you're going to try and get it with 15%. Okay. You have done your homework. You found a bunch of places in your price range. How?

How do you? Because you have to pay extra mortgage. The interest rates are higher. Okay, so you've got your eyes. Nobody can get 15. I don't know. Because no one's got a steady job. There's so many assumptions.

But this is like SimCity. It's a simulator, right? Okay. So you've got your eyes on a three bedroom, two bathroom home that's going to auction today. Are you ready to make an offer? It's the only option that they've got here. Yes. Yes.

There's definitely make an offer. go. Here we go. I'm sorry, your bid was unsuccessful. The property is sold for $200,000 above expectations. You'll have to increase your budget if you want to get into the market. Are you willing to go higher on another place? It's the other option. Let's do it. Yep, let's go higher this time. All right. This is for boomers to explain to boomers what it's like to be. Yes, it's a simulator of being their children. Yeah, right. So you've researched property prices. You're You're bidding 100,000 more than you can really plan. You think you can just about afford it.

And congratulations, your offer's been accepted. Let's move in. What happens now? This is exciting. All right. Oh, you love your new home. You've been trying to pay down the principal, but the market's changed. Rate rises have happened faster and more frequently than many anticipated.

So what have I got to do now? Oh, dear. Oh, it's $750 more per month. You don't think you can make it work. You sell the babies? Between two salaries, you think you can make it work. But you know that if you find yourself out of a job, your financial situation could change overnight.

Andrew, I think you're going to have to get a second job. You have to work nights and days. All right, I'll get a second job. I mean, the alternative we could also sort of become Mormon and just marry another three or four people. That's a very good idea. Also to work for the same house. Oh, I like that. Yeah.

So, sort of... What is it called? Polygamy. Pelagamy. Polygamy. Still on those gummy bears full of marijuana you can buy in Los Angeles. Yeah, I think, I reckon that the housing market's going to become dominated.

It's not a bad idea. It's all going to be. Mormons are going to be the only people who can afford a house pretty soon in Australia. So, just to get back to the chat bot, the options are read a real-life depressing story about people in their mid-40s who can't afford to buy a house or say, I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah.

Congratulations, you live in regional Australia. I think, no, I think you've got to, because you sometimes work at the ABC Dom, you've got to tell your ABC people to put a third option, which is Andrew's idea, which is just marry a few more people. It's a very good idea. Just hook up, because it's sexy times when you're under mortgage stress. That's when, you know, your libido's highest. I mean, I'm presumed by the end of the year, we'll all have to live in the same house.

Can we live in the office, Charles? Is that possible? Oh, no, the rent's going up on the office. I don't think we're going to be able to afford it anymore. I appreciate the national broadcaster just, you know, using this cutting-edge technology to simulate everyone's real life in 2022. Oh, yeah. You should have given a content warning at the beginning that it was essentially, like, virtual reality.

I presume the people who made that game can't afford to buy a house and decided to share it, share it with everybody. Yeah, I don't know what you do. I read the long article accompanying the whole thing that explained all the context. And it seems as though every single aspect of this process is bad. Very easy. Just if you own two homes, we just get to eat you. Yeah, I'm hungry.

And you don't own the home anymore. Because you're hungry to eat those people. Yes. It would free up a lot of homes and it would also provide a lot of free meals. And it would mainly be things like politicians and stuff like that. Like it's the top end it down. A lot of them own a lot of houses, don't they? Yeah, they're not people that you necessarily want to eat.

Not the most appetizing people, but still. Well, maybe we turn them into shoes. Yeah. Turn them into shoes. That's probably a better. It could be turned into shoes or something useful, yeah. Turned into houses. I mean, if we could gather enough of these.

That's a, now you're thinking. Property investors. How many property investors would you have to sort of glue together to make a house? Not met. A meat house? There'd be a few hundred. Yeah. You can use the bones to sort of.

It's very European. Europe's full of all these ossuary sort of places built of bones. Well, apparently small houses are fashionable. Oh, I'm thinking big houses, Dommy. I'm thinking grand mansions made in these investors' bones. A McMansion. Yeah, like, just knocked down Malcolm Turnbull's Point Piper Mansion and rebuild it using the bones of him and his friends.

Problem solved. Put that in the chatbot. This has been very uplifting. All right, thank you for playing the ABC chatbot, which has absolutely no solutions to the terrible situation we all find ourselves in. Thank you, Chubborn. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you.

Comey. Aggier is from Rodwood, part of the Icast Credit Network. See ya. See ya.