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

The top stories for the week ending 24/02/08:

Mortgage crisis hits wealthy east
The Daily Telegraph
A story from Sharon Labi presents eastern suburbs residents typically spend 38 per cent of their household income on mortgage repayments, have credit-card debts of between $8000 and $20,000, pay private-school fees and are more exposed to the volatile share market. View Story »

Borrowers lose interest in 100pc home loans
News.com.au
Craig Binnie writes that GE Money, which is one of the lenders with the most defaulting homeowners, said it had been told to scrap the loans by its mortgage insurer because they were too risky. Loans for 100 per cent or more of a property’s value can help borrowers with no deposit get into the market. View Story »

ANZ shock puts shares into tailspin
The Age
“It found that 15% of households with mortgages had paid no deposit on their main mortgage, while a further 8% had put up less than 5% of the sale price, and borrowed the rest.” reports Marc Moncrief and Tim Colebatch in an article on some of the bad news coming out of the and for banks. View Story »

Melbourne’s property boom cools off
SMH
The Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) has told Fairfax newspapers the property market had peaked and prices were easing. View Story »

Auctions slump signals end of boom
Herald Sun
Tony Rindfleisch and Eleni Hale write that Melbourne’s rampaging property boom has finally cooled after years of soaring prices. Auctions failed to fire yesterday and the Real Estate Institute of Victoria last night declared the market had peaked and prices were easing….Even “bargain” homes offered at foreclosure auctions failed to sell. View Story »

Australia finds itself in a boom and bust cycle at the same time
The Age
Marc Moncrief writes: Australia may be facing a two-speed economy between the miners and the financiers, breaking a happy symbiosis between the economy’s largest and second-largest sectors to which the country has grown accustomed. View Story »

An Introduction to Inflation
myfinancereporter
Yep, as inflation creeps it’s way into the nooks and crannies of the worlds economies and makes it back into regular headlines for some it may be handy get an introduction to inflation, what causes inflation and the role of central banking. Enjoy.