Oh dear... socialists think that can manipulate the market

[lisa jones]

Most of my friends who are newly married ( all in their late 30's ) .. have $1 million dollar mortgages right now. It's nothing new over here in Sydney.

Lisa, the current Sydney median is a little over half that price, meaning that nearly half of the market is around half the size mortgages your friends have or less. Which is still very expensive. What sort of incomes are your friends on? For a large percentage of working households, repayments on $1 million dollars would equal 100% of their total income. No food, no clothes, no car, no petrol - no anything except mortgage payments.

Clearly, the average house price across the board is not going to reach a million dollars any time soon.

What you're indicating to me is that you travel in the more upmarket circles of life in this country. I'm not concerned about house prices in upmarket places. What concerns me as that the average working John and Jane Doe can reasonably afford ownership of the roof over their heads. If an average earning couple like ourselves would struggle to buy the same shoebox again, despite a significant rise in our incomes over that time, then affordability is not reasonable. We would afford it per se - but it would be a life of debt peonage, living would be very much tighter, we would not be able to do many of the things we do now and any substantial rise in the general cost of living (petrol, food, utilities etc) would see us weighing up the issue of if we should just rent. Even now, the average rent - only around half the cost of owning - is more than we pay on our mortgage!


I think prices in general are unlikely to do any better than creep along at the same, heavily strained level of affordability, slowly increasing in line with broad real income growth - that I think is the best possible outcome for those who wish to see prices keep growing (outside the more upmarket section). More likely I feel, is a long, steady deflation as the primary driver for the amazing run up in prices over the last decade – quick, high capital gains for investors resulting from strong and rapid price growth – begins to wither as the threshold of general affordability is reached.

Left Winger .. the homes on offer at $1 - 1.5 million here in Sydney are pretty ordinary IMO. And this has been the state of play for 12 months now. NB I am talking average/above average homes in average/above average areas.

And a 1 million dollar mortgage is nothing new either.

I myself bought a home a month back. Guess what my mortgage is (hint: look at the line above this sentence).

[lisa jones]

Lisa, the current Sydney median is a little over half that price??????????

Huh?? WTF are you getting your figures from Left Winger?? That is NOT the case at all!

I am telling you here and now .. an old knock down job on an average piece of land is over $800 000. That's the situation here in Sydney .. and has been for some time now.

I personally wouldn't touch property like ^^^ that coz they're not worth developing. Why? The land size/shape tends to be wrong ie too small or badly shaped eg too narrow .. and also the position isn't good enough. Ya dig?

[lisa jones]

And I'm talking HOUSES .. not units/villas/townhouses. (I'm not into buying air space thanks).

[lisa jones]

And one other thing .. as far as I am concerned .. ALL home buyers are developers/investors to some extent.

There is no way anyone here is gonna convince me that people put themselves under a 30 yr mortgage noose expecting to break even at the end of it all.

We buy property so that we can improve/renovate/develop it in some way over time. And we all expect to make some money given all the hard earned after tax dollars we've invested in our home over a 30 yr period .. so that when we get old/die .. we have $$$ to fall back on to take care of us if we need daily care/pass on to our kids.

[Leftwinger]

Lisa, the average income earing couple would struggle to afford to eat when paying interest $1 million.

Friends of ours on the big coin here owe $750 000 on two properties. Despite having more than double the average income, I seriously doubt they would afford a cool million.

The median of the greater Sydney area is around $600 000. Around half are above that and around half below it. The reason that the median is not pushing the $1 million mark is that few people could afford that. Again, what sort of incomes are your friends on?

[lisa jones]

Greater Sydney area?? Huh??

As I keep saying .. I am referring to average/above average areas. Anything less and you're wasting your time.

Also I have purposely excluded affluent areas in my posts.

Read above and see what $800 000 gets you .. and where.

[Monkey Magic]

Greater Sydney area?? Huh??

As I keep saying .. I am referring to average/above average areas. Anything less and you're wasting your time.

Also I have purposely excluded affluent areas in my posts.

Read above and see what $800 000 gets you .. and where.

Ummm.... word from the wise guy for Lisa.... Median prices in Leftwinger's post IS a response to average areas in your post... so sorry you don't understand that.

And anyways... property has begun to loose its value in the median priced market.

Youse should look into commodities... that's where da action is at.

Silver is my friend.

[lisa jones]

You're not very knowledgeable .. are you?

[Leftwinger]

RP data...http://www.myrp.com.au/sydney_house_prices.do

I am referring to average/above average areas. Anything less and you're wasting your time.

Wasting your time with what? I'm not referring to people buying more houses than they can live in on the prospect of capital gains. I'm talking about the poor barstard who just wants ownership of the roof over their head so that the place where they raise their family and live out their lives can be called their own.

You still haven't mentioned how much the friends of someone who attended the same university as a prime minister's daughter are earning. I should think it must be quite solid to be able to reasonabley afford something that would see myself and a majority of other households parting with 80% -100% of their income.

Again, I don't care if people on big incomes have big mortgages. I only care that housing is reasonabley affordable to the average working couple. And right now, it isn't. Perhaps there are some investors out there who feel that their right to cash in big trumps the right of working people to simply afford ownership of the roof overhead and that "it's just life" when ever larger numbers of people struggle to achieve this very basic aim. So if the boot ends up on the other foot someday and investors see their capital gains evaporate through falling prices, why isn't that just life as well?

[Monkey Magic]

You're not very knowledgeable .. are you?

That's actually a very stupid statement.... particularly given that you know nothing of who I am to justify a claim such as that.