I thought it was a city least affordable for it's residents. Doesn't that mean we need to increase the income?

If we are a global city then we shoud compare house prices against other global cities and then wages and find out where the real difference is.

Sounds like, feels like, looks like we are all underpaid.

I am leaving Sydney anyway, the stress and the traffic and the rude people for little salary is not worth it.

Thank you, Damian Jeffries.

Your article is a very good start to an understanding of the atrocious state of the housing market today.

To put my cards on the table, I regard the decisions made by all Australian governments, in recent decades, to move away from a policy of providing publicly owned housing as appallingly bad, not only for social equity, but also for our economy.

On the one hand we had the Housing Trust of South Australia, which provided all sectors of South Australian society, and not just the 'deserving' poor, good quality and affordable housing. In all its decades of operation the HTSA never cost taxpayers a cent.

On the other we have a complete shambles of today's private housing market which has only served as a means to transfer wealth away from many hard working Australian into the pockets of land speculators, property developers, banks, mortgage brokers and real estate agents and caused a commodity that was once easily affordable by ordinary working class Australians to be now even beyond the means of many double income middle class families.

It is especially gratifying that Damian Jeffries has pointed out the link between population growth and housing inflation :

"The current level of immigration is effectively pumping demand and preventing the normal supply and demand pricing mechanism from operating to lower prices. The resulting prices unfairly disadvantage the current generation of Australians trying to afford what we should aim to have as a basic right."

In fact, property speculators are quite aware of this link and openly advocate even higher immigration levels as little more than a crude device to drive up further the already obscene housing prices.

In doing so, they show little regard for many current residents of this country, and, with water levels already insufficient even for our current population, no regard for future generations.

Whoops! My apologies, Damian Jeffree for mis-spelling your name as 'Damian Jeffries'.

Pericles... was starting to miss your 'jibes' at me :)

Can you indicate where I am trying to deny women the right to work ?

I actually advocated a 'shift' in workplace from the politically charged, stress submerged, emotionally challenging 'work place' work to "work from home".

The advantages are numerous. Having done this (my wife worked at home for years.) I can tell you ..

a) No child care costs ! (how much does this cost now ! ?) How much of that 'work in the office' paypacket is bled dry by child care costs ?

b) No stress from the nurturer not being there for the kids.
c) House work can be fitted in as convenient.
d) In the (certain) event of child related health or other problems, there is someone there to manage it first hand.
e) Can be approached as a 'new business' (Hampers/freelance writing?) or simply process or clerical or creative work

In the end, you can say "I made this" (as the Movie company promo says :)

Then, as I've clearly stated in other posts, for a woman who has a higher qualification, she can resume her career when children are old enough to manage for themselves.

I honestly think this 'I have a career to think about' is utter selfishness ME ME ME... in contrast to looking at the bigger picture of bringing the next generation into the world and giving them a good start in life. It doesn't matter squat if Mrs gets that next promotion (which usually means more time after hours) if her children are screaming out for attention love and nurture.

How many have had this experience.. 'Promises' made by the boss, "I'll slot you into sales (from production) in the near future" only to watch as he employs someone else in that position totally blocking your hoped for and promised 'next step' in your career ?
Or the new purchasing officer who comes in claiming a 'wealth of industry experience' and uses that to tell you your job and push u around? (because "obviously" YOU know nothing)

Winston Smith, I think that you miss the point. There is no such thing as a free market in a pure form, all markets are affected by government intervention for better or worse. Capitalists and governments need each other whether they like it or not. Most free marketeers I have heard of actually do want some form of government regulation, as long as they can dictate how it is done. If you change government policy to reduce the benefits of having capital invested in property, the likely result will be a flight of capital, a fall in house values (to the detriment of many owner occupiers causing their consumer spending to drop and debt defaults to rise with flow-on affects for everyone), and a likely rise in house rentals. I believe that few would support this move, least of all the federal government. Free markets as a philosophy is tosh anyway, but that is an argument for another time.

Boaz, yep, I confess I misread your intentions on this one.

Mind you, it will take the best part of a generation before working-from-home, either male or female, becomes an accepted means of conducting business. There are simply too many entrenched positions out there in corporate-land, especially amonst that strange breed, middle-management. They like to be physically surrounded by the people who give their position validity. Sad.

I'm not convinced though that it will have the domino effect that flows through to house prices that you describe. In what way - apart from the possibility that there is less money chasing property, given the lower pay packets - will property values decline?

If it is only a lowering of the wages that is needed, I'm sure our brave and patriotic captains of industry would heed the call immediately, without the necessity of their having to manage a bunch of outworkers.

PK, you've totally confused me by reversing what I thought was your position on the impact of meddling with CGT and negative gearing. Turning these levers is going to cause pain, which kind of rules them out, don't you think?

The only way a government can push house prices down is by making the electorate poorer. It isn't political, in the sense of ideologically canted one way or another, just pure and simple economics.