You may consider yourself to be a little off-topic Pelican, but you have illuminated some important issues in working toward solutions to housing affordability.

You credit Banjo, among others, with having put forward some good ideas, but have you grasped the full significance of this point he made: "Also many, includung migrants, got a block and built a garage and lived in that and built the house as funds became available. Sure people were happy with a modest dwelling but you can't do the same on a block now days. Restrictions mean that blocks are only available fully serviced and they have to have a home constructed in X time."?

It may be that in attributing a substantial part of unaffordability to a seeming unwillingness on the part of many to 'do without', and thereby over-commit themselves by way of debt, you are failing to take into account that the alternatives are in large measure no longer lawfully available in the way they were in former times. Those alternatives are not unavailable because of any genuine shortage: they are unavailable because of governmental restrictions.

Let's face it, if, as a bank, you can vary the interest rate on loans at any time during the term thereof, and at the same time be lending to a market that is effectively prohibited from undertaking smaller borrowings (or shock, horror, even funding progressive building requirements from SAVINGS!), how could you help but do very well in the market? Your customers either borrow for a large up-market house, or they go without owning housing altogether! If an artificial shortage of housing was for one reason or other constantly maintained, you would be pretty well waterproof as a financial institution.

You would note, if you had any familiarity with the costs likely involved in implementing Fester's proposal, that there would, or at least could be, a greatly reduced role for debt as people eased themselves into home ownership by this path of inventiveness, self-discipline (of living in a container), and self-help.

We've had our rights stolen!

Hi Forrest

I didn't intend to suggest that government is absolved of responsibility in the housing affordability due to a heightened level of consumerism and take heed of your comments.

I agree with you that we have lost many of our rights particularly when government seems hellbent in limiting the options available and financial institutions have a vested interest in the status quo.

Forest said:

"Those alternatives are not unavailable because of any genuine shortage: they are unavailable because of governmental restrictions."

Which of course opens up the issue of 'who' determines government/council policy..and with what goals in mind?

I suggest that while some of it involved trying to maintain a semblance of 'order and standard'.. I'll bet that Real Estate agents on councils would prick their ears up very quickly at any motion that could impact on the turn over of property, or reduce the number of prospective property buyers out there.

END GAME.. we might not be there yet, but we are definitely heading towards a time when the 'endemic poor' who have no possibility of ever achieving a 'home'.. will band together and become like those 'landless squatter' movements in South America..
I guess this will always be dynamic..changing up and down...but we need to be aware of it.

ALTERNATIVE. Larger blocks (as previously stated) with extended families, enough land for vegy or a few sheep cultivation, relaxing rules about slaughtering at home, (do I hear the butcher shops screaming 'foul' there?)... I see light.

You've either been a mahout B_D, or worked close to one over an extended period!

You've not only recognised the 'elephant in the room', but started using the right language - "Which of course opens up the issue of 'who' determines government/council policy..and with what goals in mind?".

Its a pity you have cast real estate agents in the role of 'slave owners'. Nobody is forced by law to use them: agencies provide a service to one degree or another, and it remains the seller's choice as to whether that service is worth the fee asked. You could with much more justification have picked on banks, but even there, whilst banks have a seeming vested interest in the now stagnant Australian status quo, nobody is forced by LAW to seek a loan to purchase a home. Not even banks are slave-owners.

The natural tendency to blame 'vested interests' in this home ownership unaffordability problem plays right into the hands of those really in a position to determine government/council policy. It seems natural to think that having a vested interest equates to possession of power and influence, and most people seem to fall for this trap. It in fact works the other way around: if you have a vested interest created or enhanced by force of law, you are not the master, but the servant (slave?) of those who make the relevant law. So each of these 'vested interests' cosies up to 'government', in the belief that doing so secures their position. They delude themselves, but in the process "government' gets an easy ride.

But don't the people determine indirectly, through their selection at elections of the persons and policies on offer, what government policy will be? And can't they change it if enough of them want change?

Only if it is only genuine real eligible people each voting only once in any election. If once there exists a significant (say 5%-20%) batch of 'proxy' votes, you have the recipe for a secret tyranny.

Genuine change can always be negated therein.

Back to B_D's suggestion of 'larger blocks'. Brings to mind an old saying: "invest in land, they ain't makin' any more of it". In its own superficial way that saying is a bit of a worry, inasmuch as you have to ask yourself where these larger blocks are to come from, but, shudder if you must, they exist beyond the outer suburbs, if you must think in metro-centric terms.

They also exist in far greater number very much closer to regional centres and small country towns.

In the majority of cases, these land titles (larger blocks) have very little inherent agricultural, pastoral, industrial or environmental heritage value. Their value, such as it may be, exists in their suitability for one form or another of rural residential use, and the viability of that residential use is very much dependent upon proximity to employment, or the possession of an independent (usually retirement related) income and the attractiveness of such a location to the purchaser. Yet the restrictions upon rural subdivision (owner-subdivision, not developer subdivision) and land use tend to be far more stringent than circumstances would appear to require.

As an example, in NSW it is in many (all?) cases permissible with council approval to construct FREESTANDING 'granny flat' accommodation on a suburban residential block. Yet on non-urban blocks, with perhaps from five to 100 times as much land area available upon which one could build, there is total prohibition upon any such accommodation unless it is INTEGRAL with the (generally only one) dwelling permitted on the land title in question.

Why such intensified restriction? Governmental fear that if once physically built, the logic and argument in favour of a future subdivision of such rural residential land would be irresistible! Why should government fear such an outcome? Inability to justify 'developmental levies' (no additional services are needed), downward pressure upon title prices (affecting stamp duties), but above all showing that residential real estate prices are in large measure what they are because of the maintenance of artificial government-created shortage.

Government's plan? Divide, conquer, enslave!

I have just done some alternative calculations. I have commenced with B_D's assumptions.

Young Couple, no kids. Each on $650/wk, Total $1300/week.

Renting while saving.

RENT $260/week.
FOOD $200/week.
BILLS $100/week.
TRAVEL $100/week.
SUNDRY $100/week.
TOTAL $760/week

Remaining to save=$540/week =$28,080 in the first year.

Renting while saving and fitting-out container accommodation in second year.

RENT $290/week - includes $30/week container site rental for the year.
FOOD $250/week.
BILLS $120/week.
TRAVEL $130/week.
SUNDRY $100/week.
TOTAL $890/week

Remaining to save=$410/week =$21,320 in the second year, plus $850 interest after tax on savings,TOTAL with prior savings $50,250 less container purchase, delivery, and fit-out of $9,000 (which they now own outright) leaving $41,250 in cash.

Living in own fitted-out containerised accommodation, renting site space only, in third year.

RENT $30/week.
FOOD $250/week.
BILLS $120/week.
TRAVEL $130/week.
SUNDRY $200/week.
TOTAL $730/week

Remaining to save=$570/week =$29,640 in the third year, plus $1,700 interest after tax on savings, TOTAL with prior savings $72,590

Now, if only our hypothetical couple were living, in their adapted container, on a site large enough to permit them to position, work on, and fit out another container (or containers), while continuing to enjoy a long term rental arrangement for the site only at advantageous rates. The modularity of these items would permit the relatively far less expensive development of quite acceptable additional living space.

It could even be that, on household income of say, $750 per week, their position might be:

RENT $50/week.
FOOD $150/week.
BILLS $120/week.
TRAVEL $100/week.
SUNDRY $100/week.
TOTAL $520/week

Remaining to save=$230/week =$11,960 in the fourth year. After having spent, say, $22,000 on further container(s) and fit-out, our couple would have savings of around $64,200 and a much larger living space which they own valued at $31,000 minimum.

To be continued.