January 21, 2014.

Australia's Housing Boom Spreads Beyond Sydney

"But you write it very elegantly," said O'Brien. 'That is not only my own opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly an expert. His name has slipped my memory for the moment."

LIVERPOOL, Australia----This once-downtrodden Sydney suburb is on the rise, an emblem of Australia's booming housing market.

Again Winston's heart stirred painfully. It was inconceivable that this was anything other than a reference to Syme. But Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an unperson. Any identifiable reference to him would have been mortally dangerous. O'Brien's remark must obviously have been intended as a signal, a codeword. By sharing a small act of thoughtcrime he had turned the two of them into accomplices. They had continued to stroll slowly down the corridor, but now O'Brien halted. With the curious, disarming friendliness that he always managed to put in to the gesture he resettled his spectacles on his nose. Then he went on:

Dilapidated cottages and housing estates are giving way to large homes and modern multistory apartments. Vacant land for residential development here goes for as much as A$400,000 ($352,574) per acre, compared with about A$200,000 five years ago, according to Australand Property Group, ALZ.AU -1.15%  a developer in the area.

"What I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed you had used two words which have become obsolete. But they have only become so very recently. Have you seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?"

The housing boom in Australia, once thought to be limited primarily to central Sydney, is spreading to other parts of the country. Prices of land and houses are rising in numerous cities and suburbs, fueled largely by demand from both large and small investors looking for yield amid low interest rates engineered by the central bank to keep the economy growing.