3 ms·
The experience of living in Sydney and working full-time as a senior engineer is truly mind bending. My parents were a teacher and a labourer and have always ow
by PebblesHD 3y ago
The experience of living in Sydney and working full-time as a senior engineer is truly mind bending. My parents were a teacher and a labourer and have always owned the houses we lived in, usually in a middle suburb on the western side of the city.
Adjusted for inflation, I earn multiple times their combined income and for me a detached house is almost entirely out of reach, and apartments with any more than 2 bedrooms are about the same.
The numbers really tell the story. My parents combined income was around $40,000 and the house they bought when I was born was around $120,000. Today, If my household is earning $160,000, an equivalent house in the same suburb is $1,500,000, and the numbers just don’t balance.
This wouldn’t be so bad if apartments were reasonably sized and built to be lived in. We have thousands of studios and 1 bedroom apartments that you could never raise a family in. What we need is 2 and 3 bedroom apartments in well located suburbs with access to transport, and a disincentive for developers to just build tiny studios to maximise profit.
I have put my money where my mouth is so-to-speak on saying Sydney is overpriced, and spend a few months a year living in Tokyo while I work out how moving there more permanently will work. It’s still expensive, but relatively speaking its decades of work more affordable to buy a house.
- thriftwy 3y agoNormally, a studio apartment is not an endgame but a stepping stone: once you have it and paid out mortgage, you can sell it and buy a 2-3 bedroom unit. Are these actually not available?
- PebblesHD 3y agoWhen a studio apartment costs $600,000 and a 2 bed apartment in the same building costs often double, there really isn’t a pathway to ‘step’ between them. The same is true of houses, where the gap in prices between apartments and houses has never been wider. It also doesn’t take into consideration that the would be homeowner is usually renting while saving their deposit, and that currently requires a larger share of their income than basically ever before.
- rainonmoon 3y agoIt also doesn't take into account that apartment dwellings are increasingly touted as the solution to supply. Speaking as someone who's trying to buy an apartment just because it'd be nice to have the security, I think it's delusional for anyone to expect to make money off these things when the supply of comparable housing is only increasing. Plenty of houses around me (Melbourne) have doubled in price in the last 10-20 years; anyone trying to use an apartment as a stepping stone to those is in for a rude shock.
- thriftwy 3y agoWow, that does indeed puts those expensive $300k, 100m² 3-bed apartments in central St. Petersburg into perspective.
- fatherzine 3y ago"adjusted for inflation" -- what does that mean if it doesn't include basic life necessities, e.g. shelter.
- harambae 3y agoYeah he clearly means CPI-type inflation overall but the terminology does seem off Adjusted for average housing inflation, average housing costs exactly what it used to
- PebblesHD 3y agoInflation in Australia is measured using what’s known as CPI, but is weighted with other goods, and is widely but not universally thought to downplay the effects of property pricing in spending.