On a structural basis there's nothing so extreme in Australia but dodgy loan practices, of course, especially when there's commission and discretion involved. When we went for a mortgage the lender did all his calculations on my gross income. My net income, after taxes and HECS, was under half of that; in the end we had to put the brakes on how much we took out - I think the bank guy would have given us anything in order to meet his targets for the month.

Then again, in research on separated mothers we found that the only way some got an extension on their mortgage loan was because they had known their brokers and bankers since high school, and the guys knew they were good people who would try to pay it back. So they were kept out of a brutal rental market, though at a pretty high cost - many were struggling to make the repayments.