The Australian Dream Has Died, Housing Too Expensive

This is an article about how housing prices in Australia have reached high levels, and many people cannot find housing.

They say that the "Australian Dream" is over.


The year the Australian Dream died
by Tiffanie Turnbull, BBC News, Sydney, December 28, 2023
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67723760


The usual wacky Left continues to blame capitalism and the free market, but very little talk over how the nation's population has increased 51% over the last 30 years - that population growth entirely fueled by immigration.
But that couldn't possibly have anything to do with the housing shortages and competition bidding up prices sky high, could it.

While it may be true Australia has a large land area, about 65% of Australia's total population resides within 70 km of just four major cities, and over 86% of Australia's population lives in urban areas.


From the article:

At the age of 31, Justin Dowswell never imagined he'd be living in a shared room in his childhood home.
He had a full-time, well-paying job in Sydney, and had rented for a decade before an unprecedented housing crisis forced him to upend his life and move back in with his parents, two hours away.
"It's humbling," he says. But the alternative was homelessness: 'So I'm one of the lucky ones'.

For generations, owning a house on a modest block of land has been idealised as both the ultimate marker of success and a gateway to a better life.
It's an aspiration that has wormed its way into the country's identity, helping to shape modern Australia.
But for current generations the dreams proffered to their parents and grandparents are out of reach.

After decades of government policies that treat housing as an investment not a right, many say they would be lucky to even find a stable, affordable place to rent.

'The Australian Dream, it's a big lie,' Mr Dowswell says.

The average property now costs about nine times an ordinary household's income, triple what it was 25 years ago.

It's particularly dire for the three quarters of Australians who live in major cities. Sydney, for example, is the second least affordable city on Earth to buy a property, trailing only Hong Kong, according to the 2023 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey.

Australia has made home ownership virtually unattainable for almost anyone without family wealth. Last month the boss of a major bank, ANZ, said home loans had become home loans had become "the preserve of the rich".

Chelsea Hickman, a 28-year-old fashion designer, always imagined she'd become both a homeowner and a mother, but now worries that may be impossible.
"Financially, how could I ever afford both? The numbers just do not add up," she says.
She tells the BBC from her Melbourne shared house that despite working full-time for almost a decade, she can't even afford to rent an apartment by herself. Her friends are in a similar boat.

Tarek Bieganski, a 26-year-old IT manager, laughs when asked if he thinks he'll ever own property.

"It's just so obviously out of reach that it's not really even a thought anymore," he says. "And this is coming from someone that, really, has got it pretty good."

But with interest rates rising faster than at any time in Australia's history, even many of those who have scraped their way on to the property ladder now live in fear of falling off it.

The level of home ownership across the nation - while significantly dropping for young people - has overall stayed around two-thirds.
And those Australians are quite content to see house prices climb and their wealth grow.

Vacancies are at unprecedented, prolonged lows. And, with the greater demand, rents are skyrocketing.
The crisis is tipping people into homelessness or overcrowded living conditions.

Social or subsidised housing - once a safety net for those on low or moderate incomes - is not an option for most Australians either. The number of homes available is less than half of what is needed to meet immediate demand and wait lists are years long.

Melbourne woman Hayley Van Ree told us her rental prospects were so bleak that her mother raided her own retirement fund to buy an apartment and is now Ms Van Ree's landlord - eliciting what she describes as a confusing mix of relief, embarrassment and guilt.
"Friends who have parents who are in property have this kind of morbid knowledge that when their parents die, they might be ok," Ms Van Ree says. "I hate that it's my reality."

The government announced earlier this month that it would halve Australia's immigration intake and triple the fees for foreign homebuyers, both things they argue should help ease the strain.​

related threads:
Younger generation packs together with roommates because housing so expensive (in Economics, Nov 29, 2023 )
Rising rent costs force some Canadians to take on additional part-time jobs

 

Because we didn’t take in many migrants in the COVID years we made up for it last year with over 500,000 migrants. This put a huge strain on the infrastructure. But the biggest impact has been the rental market and the introduction of Airbnb. This has caused a rental crisis worldwide.

 

Bowerbird, do you think it might be possible Airbnb is just a scapegoat, to try to divert blame?

The explanation that Airbnb could be responsible just doesn't seem very logical, when we step back and think about it.
Why would Airbnb be any more responsible for housing shortages than ordinary hotels would be? Think about that.
Sure, people staying in Airbnb displaces people from housing, but that would also be true of construction of new hotel buildings, wouldn't it? And we would not even expect there to be that many people staying in Airbnb accommodations compared to regular rental housing. What percent of the population is on vacation or taking a short trip at any one time?
It just makes no sense to me.

 

The fact that the “rental crisis” is worldwide suggests that the Airbnb effect is real.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09...-rentals-housing-crisis-regulations/102810804

https://www.forbes.com/sites/garyba...b-effect-on-housing-and-rent/?sh=4abc22022260

It’s a world wide problem

 

IMO the renter society is equatable to slavery. There is a legit market for rentals, but when that market expands to include a sizeable number of people who would prefer to own, but can't because all the housing is rental, that's where the 'company store' culture starts. In America we started that direction with all the federal land that no one can own. I dunno if theres a lot of federal land in Aus, but I understand Aus is very progressive in its (lack of) use of fossil fuels for energy, which limits how much fresh water can be made available to its deserty interior, thus making that large area effectively uninhabitable for people and reducing who gets to own property. This is a common problem worldwide- lots of land, but none of it for people to own and live on, condensing them to apartments where their rent is constantly increased to match their income, and they can never really prosper from their labor, perpetually 'owing their soul to the company store.'

 

Where to start with this level of…..

OK perspective let’s start there.


Now that “deserty interior” that you are accusing us of not pumping enough fresh water to - you DO understand distances involved don’t you??


You get that they are in the interior of the continent yes?
And it isn’t just a matter of lack of rainfall


There is also the fact that an awful lot of it is about as fertile as a ****ing billiard ball!


I have BEEN there. Two minutes after getting out of the car the phone quit because it was too stinking hot!

 

The PROBLEM is a GLOBAL one, two thirds of Hardworking Americans CANNOT afford to buy their own home either.

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2016/02/03/even-americans-cant-afford-the-american-dream

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2016/02/03/even-americans-cant-afford-the-american-dream

 

How hot is it? The BBC seems to have forgotten...

Top 10 hottest places on Earth, ranked - BBC Science Focus Magazine
spoiler- some of them are quite inhabited, none of them are Australia...

And here's some pipeline ideas for you:
The world's longest pipelines are12:

• Colonial Pipeline, which transports oil and gas from Texas to New York, with a length of 5,500 mi (8,850 km)2.
• United States pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 91,067km (56,587 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 333,366km (207,145 miles)1.
• Russia pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 38,419km (23,872 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 92,831km (57,683 miles)1.
• Canada pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 23,361km (14,516 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 84,682km (52,619 miles)1.
• China pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 27,441km (17,051 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 76,363km (47,450 miles)1.

Google maps says its ~500 miles from the ocean to the center of Australia. If only you had enough energy to desalinate seawater and pump it there...

 

Heat is NOT the ONLY thing that makes a place UNINHABITABLE.

Try living WITHOUT water. It cannot be done even if you live somewhere where the temperature averaged 72F year round.

 

Here's some pipeline ideas:
The world's longest pipelines are12:

• Colonial Pipeline, which transports oil and gas from Texas to New York, with a length of 5,500 mi (8,850 km)2.
• United States pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 91,067km (56,587 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 333,366km (207,145 miles)1.
• Russia pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 38,419km (23,872 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 92,831km (57,683 miles)1.
• Canada pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 23,361km (14,516 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 84,682km (52,619 miles)1.
• China pipeline network, which consists of oil pipelines with a total length of 27,441km (17,051 miles) and gas pipelines with a total length of 76,363km (47,450 miles)1.

Google maps says its ~500 miles from the ocean to the center of Australia. If only they had enough energy to desalinate seawater and pump it there...

 

We can put a man on the moon and have unlocked the mysteries of DNA but we can't figure out how to pump water into interior Australia...
Right....

Somehow the Aborigines figured it out

 

The center of OZ was ONCE an inland SEA that EVAPORATED.

What is to STOP that happening AGAIN?

 

This I HAVE to SEE!

Prove that the Aboriginal people PUMPED water INLAND to the CENTER of Australia.

 

Water... They figured out how to get water. Obviously they must have because they lived there and humans require water to live.

How hard can it possibly be to run a 500 mi pipeline?

 

VAST difference BETWEEN finding watering holes in a DESERT and using a PIPELINE to CREATE an INLAND sea.

What they found was SCARCE and DIFFICULT to locate.

https://www.resources.qld.gov.au/__...aboriginal-peoples-manage-water-resources.pdf

.

 

Oh! Diddums! A “Top ten list”! Wow! I mean how to win a science prize! Mind you the BEEB might have just forgotten about us - wouldn’t be the first time but I suggest you google “Oodnadatta” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...er recorded,2022 at Onslow, Western Australia.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/history/temperature/
And - mate do you REALLY think no one in Australia has thought of this before?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_...roposals have been,has been modelled as small.

Yes, see - there is the real kicker - it is not just the heat but the evaporation rate and, as I said, land itself that would make Martian soil look fertile. 3/4 of the continent is arid and semi arid. Oh! And temp alone is not a killer. Arid heat is more survivable than “wet” heat.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/10/1028172/climate-change-human-body-extreme-heat-survival/

 

This lot never seem to have heard of the phrase “evaporation rate”. I mean we have been pumping mega litres out of the Great Artesian Basin for years and haven’t made a dint in the deserts

 

Ever notice how SHALLOW the responses are to COMPLEX issues?

Housing shortage becomes Victim Blaming because the kids DARED to go to COLLEGE because that was the ONLY way to WEALTH and PROSPERITY according to the scumsucking Wall Street Casino Banksters as they RIGGED the salaries of College EXECUTIVES.

Water shortage becomes JUST pipe GAZILLIONS of gallons of water from the Colorado River watercourse until it DRIES to a TRICKLE but the Wall Street Casino Banksters are WEALTHIER than ever.

Never a single thought given to the CONSEQUENCES of their ACTIONS even AFTER it BITES them in the ASS.

 

One wide enough to bring enough water to overcome the very very considerable evaporation rate? A few years back (2019) cyclone came down the Gulf of Carpentaria and dumped mega litres of water into the Diamantina-Georgina basin and that water flows to Kata Thanda Lake Eyre

https://media.bom.gov.au/social/blo...15 m, surpassing the peak,it peaked at 9.45 m.

watch the video to get a bit of an idea how much water flows into this area - that water rarely lasts more than a year or two before evaporating/ soaking into the ground

 

I call it “magical thinking”. Think an idea, wave wand and Phoof! Problem solved!



To “green” a desert you don’t need a two inch pipe - you need a constantly flowing river!

 

I don't believe evaporation is a very big deal inside of a pipeline or a water tower.

 

This is how much water it takes

 

Don't forget some of these EZ-Answers-R-Us types believe that they can Terraform Mars after they have TRASHED our planet and LOOTED everything of value from it.

 

This is interesting to me...the underdeveloped of the outback....because the center is arid but much of it on outer areas and near the coast is not. And with desalination of salt water....communities and industries could be supported there. I wonder if it's just lack of motivation rather then lack of resources. I read that 85% of Israel was supported via desalination water...I would think targeted communities could thrive in outback with desalination in place. Seen pictures of those remote beaches...perfect for tourist industry.

 

Lols! I remember reading that after one of the big cyclones so much water was dumped around Camooweal that there was an estimated 9 cubic kilometres of water flowing over the Qld/SA border of which only 4 cubic kilometres reached Lake Eyre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_...roposals have been,has been modelled as small.