The entry price into a Sydney home is too high for anyone on the median income and it could be a decade before that changes for the better. This implies the supply of housing has to increase faster than demand but the latest news on that front says the Albanese goal of 1.2 million homes by 2030 will fall short by, wait for it, a quarter of a million!
The SMH’s Josefine Ganko looked at the research of Mustapha Bangura from the University of Technology Sydney and Chyi Lin Lee of the University of New South Wales and “found that there is nowhere in Greater Sydney where someone on the median part-time or full-time income can afford to buy a property.”

According to the 2021 Census, the median income for someone in Sydney was $117,716, while the latest average income found by PayScale was $82,000. This news comes as we learn that Sydney’s median house value has climbed to almost $1.5 million, while Canberra ($986,000), Brisbane ($953,000) and Melbourne ($949,000) are all above $900,000.
The only way to beat the house price/income challenge right now is for a homebuyer either to be on an above median pay or they have supplemental income, and that’s where the bank of mum and dad has become crucial.

“While we expected the issue of housing affordability to be severe for part-time employment, we found that full-time employees are also significantly affected,” Lee told the SMH. “This highlights the widespread housing affordability crisis and the need for comprehensive policy solutions.”

The researchers think the problem will persist until the 2030s, however, that has to rest on a big improvement in the supply of housing compared to the increase in demand. And that’s where the Albanese Government’s goal of 1.2 million homes built by 2030 is a high priority. But the SMH’s Shane Wright says the latest predictions say this goal will come up 260,000 short.
That’s a big miss in on anyone’s count and it shows how we need politicians, who are housing champions at both national and state levels to make sure heaven, hell and earth is moved to get more homes built.

Wright today has revealed that “…forecasts from Oxford Economics, released on Monday, show that despite the housing construction market enjoying a pick-up from next year as the Reserve Bank starts to cut official interest rates, the government will miss its ambitious home target by more than 20 per cent.”

This revelation underlines how the Government’s commitment to getting inflation down is not only important to help the RBA to cut rates but to get young people into homes of their own.
What is a huge worry is that Oxford Economics says the Government’s $30 billion plus spend on its housing policy, along with an extra billion dollars for the states to fast-track infrastructure such as sewers and roads, $9.3 billion for more social housing and its $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, won’t be enough to effectively get rid of the housing crisis!
So, the next question is this: who nationally and at a state level is going to do something about it?

If Peter Dutton doesn’t come up with a credible policy to fix our housing mess, then he mustn’t want to be PM bad enough. This along with the cost of living, could be a critically important issue at the next election.