"Clearly the crisis in housing affordability is primarily a structural problem on the supply side, not a cyclical phenomenon, otherwise a recovery would already be under way.

"The situation requires a response from the three tiers of government in implementing policies to address the erosion in affordability."

It's getting harder and harder for young people to purchase a home in most metropolitan cities.

Not sure what the governments can do. Perhaps lowering stamp duty would be a start.

Housing affordability hits new record low | NEWS.com.au Business

I don't know Ozzie, those quotes are from that Silberberg guy and who says he is an expert on trends and causes?
I think that information is more to the point of being factual and it says, hey! what is the size of mortages people want to take on and and hey! this business of wanting a huge structure that might never be a home is a little crazy.
You cannot say it is a government responsibility to educate people on being prepared to start their married lives a little more modestly.

And there is a certain cyclical trend here that we have started, be it a forced one as initiated by media driven raising of expectations and that a government can be expected to provide all answers for where expectations are not achieved.

1. The glamorous world of being some sort of a high flyer and more and more people expecting that a university education will be the life probably means we have less people training to work in occupations where they may have to get their hands a little dirty - resultant shortage of trades people causes shortage of products and a higher cost for them.
The cyclical bit will come when young people might think hey!, this working with tools can be rewarding both monetarily and in job satisfaction.

2. There's an old saying "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" and applying that to housing, those who want to get into owning their own house will find a way, be it living in mum and dads garage or a caravan in the back yard for a bit and even Glen McGrath started off life in Sydney living in a caravan, and then even moving somewhere out in the sticks a bit where a shed is first home while one becomes an owner builder - cyclical in back to how it was!.
Maybe a bunch of married couple mates get together and form something of a cluster house co-operative could work as a modern approach.

What governments need to do in a big way is decentralise, break up government departments, put them in regional cities, offer tax breaks for living in regional locations and support regional governance more to provide the infrastructure and only if they agree to developing cluster housing rather than just create more urban sprawl in another location - this is all longer term but be a better long term solution than a knee jerk removal of stamp duty.

Another favourite quote of mine that came from a US President cut down in his prime was "think not what the country ought to do for you but what is it you can do for the country" and in this case I'll give you my own twist " and what is it you can do for yourself "

Going back about 50 years we had another saying here and it was a disparaging "those pommie whingers, now they're complaining on the wrigglers in the tank water" - Christ Ozzie!, we don't want to be known as those aussie whingers do we?

I read something the other day...

Someone who had a lot of money was saying what they did to get rich. The first thing was, "Rent, don't buy."

The point was something like this: People look at their purchase price, say $500,000, and compare it to the selling price, say $1,000,000, and think, I made $500,000! But they didn't. They paid interest, and more importantly, they probably spent a lot of money on that house in maintenance and upgrades. They probably bought something bigger than they needed and paid more for utilities because of the size of the place. They had to buy more furniture, and more curtains. Maybe they had to buy farther out, and upped their commuting costs.

If that money had been saved and invested, he contended, buyers would be better off. And that's the problem, because at least with a house, you have to sink money into it.

But you can come out better renting and saving the difference.

GDay You sure they weren't saying rent to those who don't want to buy or can't raise the finances to do so for there aren't probably all that many poor landlords about and they have had renters help them accumulate a larger portfolio.
The case of rent/buy is going to be a perennial one, and it depends on figures obviously of property values and rental market supply/demand.

One thing for sure though is rent other than for providing what can only be always considered a temporary roof over your head is burnt money and only the most disciplined would salt away any short term savings between renting/buying.
Sure you pay interest on a loan, maintenance costs can be next to negligible and size and furnishings are personal choice, the latter also to be made by a renter.

In twenty years time, taking your example of a $500,000 property, and even if total cost paid out (incl interest) has been $1M and the property is valued at $1M, the owner at least has an assett of $1M.
Lets say the renter on the other hand has paid out just $600,000 in rent and you think they are $400.000 in front, but unless it has been wisely invested and investments have been positive, it is hardly likely that the renter will have assetts of $1M, but likely that a sense pf permanency/security of abode will be lacking and that quite possibly a number of moves may have been necessary within that 20 years, and then there is the next 20 and the next 20 after that etc.

And just as sure, sure don't pay anymore than you have to, one old quote being to always buy the cheapest house in a street, for it has potential with a bit of a make-over to be pulled up further in value than the already more expensive ones.
On commuting I've seen people in Sydney catching a train at about 6 pm to commute for something like 1.5 hrs+ and do that both ends of a day, it is surely to be avoided if at all possible - look at your work and what opportunities are there in a regional centre, less traffic, lower housing costs and overall a far better quality of life - did it myself from Melbourne when travelling time was 45 minutes and that was too much.

End of sermon!

I think there is a point to 'rent don't buy'. If you really did take the extra money you would spend on a house and invest it, you might do better. The thing is, no one would do that unless they were really disciplined. People are a lot more likely to make the mortgage payment. There's no guarantee, of course. I know people who bought an sold at the wrong times, and they had to pay to get out of their house. One couple I know had to come up with $10,000 to pay off their old mortgage.

I don't think your house should be your primary investment. You should get a place you can be happy living in, and not go overboard on the grounds that it is an investment. Take that 'overboard' money and invest it elsewhere, get some diversity.

i am total agree on your comments, i am 45 now and still did n't get my own home. Well i must say stamp duty must be lowered. I hope this can be happen in next summer or so

__________________
Get new hotel deals with cheap flights and we have various car rental deals for our loyal customers.

Shawn82Mike charlie Foxtrot Tango
So a new twist or dance (remember doing the twist days do we?) to getting advertising on board is it?
I do wonder why you bother though for your site is for US car rentals and of little interest here on a forum for Australia.

Hmm it's an issue but not too terribly bad. Housing affordability tends to skyrockets in metropolitan areas and the surrounding suburbs. More and more recently, new home owners simply have to find a home further away from the city to be relatively affordable.

__________________
Australian Credit Cards

It is a viscous circle in some ways or perhaps a spiral downwards to the plug hole you could say.

May not be too bad for those having been established in something modest for quite some time with a mortage down to manageable levels or paid right off, but overcommitmenting, relying on two, maybe three jobs and keeping up with the Joneses can be a millstone when either things go wrong at the workplaces, illhealth occurs or interest rates rise, and if some or all co-incide it can be concrete boots.

When you see footage of problem communities in western Sydney, it is usually McMansionville with double/triple garages and landscaped surrounds to create mortages of several hundred thousand dollars and more, a far cry from the more modest abodes of closer in suburbs where you would no doubt have a bigger mortage because of prices.

And then there is the modern day attitudes seemingly prevalent in so many of the younger generations, be it caused by plenty of money to splurge on discos, mobile phones, fancy cars and grog binges and the like, and then finding there ain't too much left for more responsible pursuits.
Sure, I can recall when I would have a few drinks with mates after a game of footy or a day at the beach, but it was not a case of drinking yourself stupid at every opportunity, something that seems well out of control with packs attacking ambos and police in doing their duty on Australia Day of all days.
That is just a discipline and law and order situation that requires a few heads to be cracked.

But for community planning, in my mind people at all levels, the public and all levels of government cannot seem to get their head around the concept of our two largest capital cities are already way beyond the size they should ever have been allowed to get to, and Perth and Brisbane have already reached greater than a desirable level.

You are not going to achieve decentralisation overnight, nor in ten or twenty years, but both federal and state governments need to lead the way both with planning to move government departments to regional centres, doing it with some thought on which regional cities should be encouraged to grow to 500,000 to a million based on available land (not using good quality farming land), water and power etc., and having incentive packages to get the public taking regional decisions too.

But it will not happen for governments are too soft and too concerned with self preservation and so they will continue to keep heads in the sand and above the clouds whilst utilising spin doctors.
And meanwhile there'll remain overcrowding, traffic jams, excessive pollution and billions being spent on massive roadworks and desalination plants which could be all very worthless to future generations when oil is flowing less well than it is starting to.

Bloody hell, don't we have great planners and government leaders, and yes the current head honcho is relying on his 20/20.