the figure of $52,000 was not one ever in my working life. there had been periods of unemployment in my life, but until I was fortunate in finally obtaining a public service position at age 45, it was only then that I had some disposable income. four years later, I happened to marry to a lady from the Philippines, and still happily married 20 years on, but no longer resident in Australia.

We decided to move here primarily for my son's education, and along the way bought a modest 2 story house for under $52,000, and for the first time ever, moved from renting to owning. It's a huge difference, and something that would have been quite impossible in Australia.

It's a pity that most young people will seem to be permanently excluded from home ownership throughout the Commonwealth, that the deck is stacked against them. That sort of retrograde policy will have serious social consequences later on, if not already (for instance, according to The Age of 6 April, 2014, the leading cause of death for people between 15-44 is suicide).

I would disagree with your cost of housing. In South Australia in many areas you can get a comfortable house for $250,000. Even in the top end and the Kimberley, one of the most expensive housing areas in Australia, you can get a 2 bedroom unit for under $400,000 and wages are higher there.
Part of the problem is higher expectations in people these days. My married life began in an old caravan, then we upgraded to a condemned house, furnished with salvaged goods from the tip and repaired.
I was widowed young, finished raising 4 children alone, and didn't buy my first home, ( a tiny 2 bedroom unit) until I was 50.
And personally, I think we need to return to building some very basic, 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, no frills houses which would allow couples more opportunity to get into the market.
But would they live in houses like that?

I didn't start earning a decent wage until my mid forties, I have lost well over a $100,000.-worth of gear to theft-no compensation, could not obtain a loan to buy property till I was in my late 50's yet when I talk to young couples I find that they expect more at 20 then what others accumulate over a lifetime. When harvey Norman changed the australian way of life with get it now pay in a couple years, things changed. Credit cards with huge limits were thrown at the unemployed etc. Now we're copping the result of that nonsense.
Penalty rates compound the dilemma & to top it all off we have no national Service.

Sorry Ross, I have to disagree with some of your theory, & agree with
Big Nana. My first house was a farm laborers 3 room cottage, moved to a block on the edge of the bush in Fairfield. It had a chip bath heater, & a 2 plate pot belly stove to cook on & even that in 1961 cost 2.5 times my salary.

My next house, an ex housing commission house in Riverwood, a far from favored location near Bankstown, cost just over 5 times my salary, & I was considered to be fairly well paid. Homes in any of the more desirable locations were way outside my means.

I do agree with you that far too much is loaded onto housing by the various levels of government, but while we expect government to pay for our every life requirement, I guess they have to get it from somewhere.

I can't fault the idea that developers should pay the full cost of the infrastructure their development requires. I really see no reason why I should pay for sub development I don't need, & definitely don't want in my district.

However you did miss a major change making a 5 times salary house price much worse than in the past. When buying that second home, my interest rate of 3.25% at a major bank, made it much cheaper, but more important was my take home pay.

In 1965, on about average wage, I was paying only 7.5% tax. This made an enormous difference in home affordability, & paying personally for the things government now does, was much cheaper than paying public servants to do it.

<Take a modest house of say $400,000>

Why would you do that if you were on a low income when there are so many properties listing for less?

Even so, I know a forty-something woman who has been a shop security guard for one of the major retail stores for years and she has managed to amass a property portfolio of inner city apartments. She tells me she started when she was in her early years and still at home with her parents.

However, where is it writ that society is obliged to ensure that every person is gifted home ownership? What is wrong with people renting? For many it is their default choice since they either refuse to work and indulge themselves in the immediate gratification such as booze and paid entertainment, that prevents them from saving for anything.

I agree with the main thrust of this article, that we should remove many of the hidden taxes and regulatory costs that damage affordability. But I also agree with the many posters who point to inflated expectations as part of the problem. I know no other country in the world where a brand new 3 or 4 bed detached house is regarded as the normal starter home for people on modest incomes. It most surely wasn't for us.

The housing problem is not due to inflated expectations by home buyers, but to the inflated cost of the land the house sits on. Currently about 70% of the cost of a house/land package is just for the land, even though the median block size has shrunk

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/03/construction-reform-will-not-drop-new-house-prices/

Big Nana or Rhian could buy a block of land, put up a wretched little shack on it, and pay almost as much as for a McMansion. Building costs haven't changed much in real terms over the past 30 or 40 years.

The real problems are due to government policy. The various layers of government have restricted supply by refusing to release land for housing, allowing developers to land bank (without punitive taxes), and refusing to implement decentralisation. As it is, people can't take advantage of the low land prices in country towns because there are very few jobs.

While restricting supply, the government has also increased demand by running one of the highest population growth rates in the developed world through its immigration policy. We are growing at 1.8% a year, enough to double the population in 38 and a half years. Our own fertility rate has been slightly below replacement level since 1976. While there is still some natural increase through demographic momentum, it only amounts to about 25% of the population growth. The rest is due to immigration (60%) and births to recent migrants. All the government charges on land are there because the politicians want to shift the cost of a lot of the infrastructure for the new residents onto them, rather than taking it out of general taxation on existing residents, which might provoke a revolt, as people see that they are paying a lot more while getting the same or less.

While there are distributional benefits for the folk at the top, there are no significant per capita economic benefits from the population growth, so there are no offsetting benefits for ordinary people

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/05/oecd-lukewarm-on-benefits-of-immigration/

what we earn/we learned..to yearn for.
you over there you learn..or earn..[preferably min imum wage so you get so deep in credit card debt/you never will afford to buy a home/let alone a auto.]

there was an impulse..that we got for free
ie wasnt given to me/i recieved no inheritance/i own no shares/i hold no super..used to own my house till the kids mortgasuged it..andf speres put a lien on it...

anyhow im over it
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200
years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage." -- Alexander Tyler

I lived in a caravan park in order to save up for my first house which my parents were never fortunate enough to own. It was a modest 3 by 1. Today the expectation is far to high. I still see fast food joints packed. Once people sacrificed to get into a home while now many just whinge.

DEAR RUNNER/those days are gone..[i did the same]..when renting got too expensive..37 dollars wasted rent/everyweek..so we bough a 1200 dollar luxury van..and moved into the caravan park for two years as we paid it off and save deposit/got 25.000 'houising commision loan/fixed at ten percent/at a time when intrest was testing ever lower/but after the time of great highs/hose value/doubled..the second year..doubled again by thetime we sold..ten years later..when we bought a block for 65 grand built a 40 thousand dollar steel frame and brick/[well..i call it..a shed]..but from the outside it looks like home

point being mum lives in a mobile home thing..and these 'mobile homes rent out at 800 to the tourists/a weel..all the vans chased away long ago/toilert blocks and parks gone and now all theM MOBILE HOME thingies/no kid could afford to rent

anyhow day 1 of stike.back by slowing down paybing back
[vote none of the above.