>And then you've got pretty much the rest of the country which is reasonably priced. >I watch some American shows where they're house-hunting and get pretty muc

>And then you've got pretty much the rest of the country which is reasonably priced. >I watch some American shows where they're house-hunting and get pretty much mansions for 1/4 of the price of a normal house here, but, I suspect those are in semi-remote places. No they are not semi-rural places. They are literally 1/4th the price. I grew up in Logan, which is outside of Brisbane. My parents house was sold for $700k. It takes about 1hr 15min to get to the city in peak hour, and public transport isn't really viable. $700k is about 7.5x the average income. Homes used to be larger, within 30 minutes drive of the city during peak hour, and 3x average income. Taking 7 years to just save for a deposit and taking out a 600k loan and paying it off over decades is not affordable in any language.