The weekly recap of mortgage, home loan and housing news in Australia.

The top stories for the week ending 29/07/07:

Housing crisis: we did it ourselves
Sydney Morning Herald
OPED by Ross Gittins presents “The true problem is that our homes are at the centre of our materialist ambitions. As our incomes grow in real terms over time we want to put much of the increase into our homes.”

Bid for cheap homes near CBD
Brisbane Times
Lord Mayoral candidate Greg Rowell wants the state government to set up affordable home zones around the CBD of Brisbane.

Talk to the hand
Sydney Morning Herald
Lesley Parker takes a look at ‘Easy money’ and questionable lending practices with a detailed article on mortgage borrowing with a Mortgage Stress Test that is well worth a read.

I can’t guarantee rates won’t rise: Rudd
Moora News
“No government can make any promise in relation to interest rates, what you can do is make sure … the budget policy takes as much pressure off the Reserve Bank as possible,” Mr Rudd told the Nine Network.

How to beat rising interest rates
Sunday Mail
How to beat rising interest rates by Nicki Bourlioufas - article includes 10 basic steps to reduce interest rate costs.

Buying a first house has never been easy
The Australian
Rudd’s summit falls flat because there’s no crisis to fix reports the Australian, far from getting an opportunity to blame the federal Government for the woes of home buyers, Mr Rudd was forced to take a reality check that high infrastructure on-costs were largely to blame, and for this the finger is pointed firmly at his state Labor colleagues.

Rate rise shouldn’t bring the house down
Sydney Morning Herald
Annette Sampson takes a look at the possibility of interest rate rises and that it may need not be all doom and despair for everyone.

Private sector to compete for public housing
The Age
The Government wants the states compete with the private sector for federal funds available through the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement.