The purpose of conducting and publishing surveys relating to property in Australia should be to inform, a real estate expert has claimed.
Terry Ryder, founder of hotspotting.com.au, wrote in a piece for the Australian newspaper that this, however, is often not the case.
He explained that many of these property-related surveys aim merely to generate publicity.
"Because the shortest path to free publicity is a negative finding on an emotive issue, profile-hungry businesses are inspired to generate material that screams crisis," Mr Ryder wrote.
He said that, at the moment, the favourite tactic from firms aiming to gain publicity is to speak unfavourably on the issue of housing affordability.
Mr Ryder went on to say that one organisation with no particular agenda is the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Earlier this month, Tim Lawless, director of property research at RP Data, wrote in a piece on smartcompany.aom.au that housing affordability will improve over the course of this year.
Posted by Craig Francis
