Victoria pulls ahead

So cheaper Victoria is pulling ahead of property price-gouging NSW -- and yet heightened demand in Victoria isn't escalating house prices through the roof! Very interesting.

NSW is losing the economic race to Victoria, with residents fleeing high property prices and dragging down the state's economic growth.

About 25,000 NSW residents leave for other states and territories every year. And the exodus is constricting the state's economy, with NSW slipping behind its southern neighbour, new analysis by the ANZ's head of Australian economics, Tony Pearson, shows.

Mr Pearson said the Victorian economy had grown twice as fast as NSW's in the last two years, in part due to demographic factors.

"What stands out is the much poorer economic performance of NSW against its peers, particularly relative to Victoria."

Victoria pulls ahead

Housing affordability hits new record low

Those hard-working pollies who 'manage the economy' (or so they keep telling us) are at it again, fixing up the housing affordability problem. Anyone would think they just swanned around for a living delivering speeches, attending openings and taking credit for other people's work, and playing political games with developers, big business, and anyone else with loads of cash. The key words are 'tangible policy action':

"The Australian economy is performing well yet an increasing number of Australians are now being left behind as the degree of housing stress being felt by both mortgage holders and renters continues to intensify," Dr Silberberg said.

"The longer we go without tangible policy action, the worse the situation will become, and that's without higher mortgage rates."

Housing affordability hits new record low

Ten's company: what the rental squeeze means for owners

More on the housing/renting/apartment overcrowding debacle -- this is what happens when you leave housing in a capitalist free market with laissez-faire politicians 'running' the country -- out and out exploitation of overseas students, rampant unaffordability, and horrible life experience. When was it decided Australia was the land of the 'fair go', and by whom, particularly since it has become populated with property developers and landlording piranhas, the 'fair go' mums and dads of yesteryear.

Ten's company: what the rental squeeze means for owners

Home ownership now an 'unattainable dream'

HOME ownership has become an unattainable dream for many low- to middle-income earners in Australia, a new report has found.

The Beyond Reach report, undertaken by the Residential Development Council (RDC), examines the cost of owning or renting a house or unit for six household “types”, comprising different family and wage structures, in 16 metropolitan locations across the country.

It shows owning a median-price home in almost any location in Australia requires a combined household income of about $100,000, while the average annual wage for workers is $55,000 a year.

According to the report, not one of the 16 locations studied offered a median-priced home that was affordable on that level of income.

In calculating affordability, the report used two different measures - that no more than 30 per cent of household incomes should go on housing costs, and a property should cost no more than three to four times the median household income.

RDC executive director Ross Elliott said the research provided a more human angle on the affordability crisis.

“If key workers necessary for society and the economy to function are being denied entry to the housing market, or if the option of a single income family is now completely shattered by the price of housing, we are faced with obvious long-term social and economic consequences,” he said.

Home ownership now an 'unattainable dream' | The Daily Telegraph