A report from the South China Morning Post. "Hong Kong’s residential property market witnessed another weekend of dismal sales, as even double-digit discounts could not lure buyers to commit, in yet another sign that the world’s priciest flats have given way to a buyers’ market. Chuang’s China Investments, which offered discounts of up to 16 per cent for 150 flats of The Esplanade project in Tuen Mun, managed to sell three units at 5:30pm, five hours after the launch kicked off, agents said."

"'The market has turned soft,' said Midland Realty’s residential division chief executive Sammy Po Siu-ming, adding that seven units, at most, would be sold by the end of the day. 'No one is getting up early to queue, as they know that even if they were to come in at 7:00pm, there would still be enough flats for them to choose from.'"

"What a difference six months make. Developers were able to sell at least 90 per cent of their property on every sales launch during the first six months of this year."

"As many as 20 buyers were bidding to buy every available flat in Hong Kong as recently as May, before the government proposed a vacancy tax in July to force developers to put more apartments on the market. That was also before Hong Kong’s commercial banks finally bowed to rising interest rates and raised their mortgage payments for the first time in a decade."

"Developers’ sales weekends have gone from bustling shows to humdrum events, turning in recent weeks into deserted affairs. 'Such poor response has not been seen in the past 10 years,' said Thomas Lam, executive director at Knight Frank."

"Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, who has made housing affordability one of the top priorities of her administration, is showing no signs of easing the pressure."

"'At this moment, it is not appropriate to relax any demand-side management measures,' said Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan Fanhe in the city’s Legislative Council last week. 'Otherwise we would be sending a wrong signal to the market, and seeing it heat up again.'"

The Sunday Herald Sun in Australia. "Foreign buyers should be let back into the market and stamp duty cut in a bid to revive Melbourne’s stalling property fortunes. Market experts have warned politicians would need to consider radical ideas to avert predicted price drops for at least another 18 months."

"Real Estate Institute of Australia president Malcolm Gunning said the federal government’s tightening of lending had slowed house price growth and created an 'artificial credit squeeze.'"

"He said the result was that rather than cooling the market, they had sent parts of it into 'free fall.' But he warned even pulling back now wouldn’t renew price growth as buyers were spooked."

"'Last year, there was a fear of missing out. Now, there’s a fear of getting in before the market bottoms out,' Mr Gunning said. 'So now we have a stand-off.'"

"He said the government underestimated impact of the Royal Commission into financial services. 'This is all a controlled deflation of the market,' he said. 'But I reckon they have been blindsided by what’s coming out of the Royal Commission and by how quickly the public has ­reacted.'"

"Mr Gunning said the government was using lending restrictions as a brake but 'they have put it on too hard.'"

"Realestate.com.au chief economist Nerida Conisbee said increasing the population at an even faster rate and encouraging investors would help Melbourne recover. Ms Conisbee said the 'biggest problem' was investors had staged a 'massive pull back.' 'To return the market to strong conditions, they’re the group you would have to look at,' she said."

"Treasurer Josh Frydenberg defended the government’s efforts to slow the market through the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority. 'APRA’s intervention in the housing market is a targeted, proportionate and short-term approach, introduced at a time when prices were going up,' Mr Frydenberg said."

From ABC News in Australia. "Having just bought my first home, I was left wishing I could find a course on 'how to buy a house,' instead of having to learn by experience and blunder through with little understanding. Here are some things I wish I knew before I started looking to buy a home."

"Having visited a mortgage broker early in the research phase, it became apparent some institutions would have loaned double what my partner and I could afford to repay."

"The broker entered our earnings, expenses and a modest deposit amount in a program, which returned the different amounts institutions were willing to lend us. Some were offering to lend us well over $1 million, with repayments that would have been unachievable."

"It could be easy to fall into a trap where you borrow too much to buy a dream home, and then struggle to make the repayments."