When you read articles about Australian housing affordability, it is often comparing the single average adult wage to house prices, from generations ago.
The articles generally say something like, ‘a house was worth three times the annual average wage back in the sixties and is now worth 10 times the average wage. This shows housing has become unaffordable.’
You can’t compare the two because back in the sixties it was one wage bidding on real estate.
The property market has been a one-way ticket to riches for most Australians. Not even the ferocity of the GFC in 2008 could put a halt to it And it cemented the belief that Aussie house prices only ever went one way — up. But as this amazing chart shows, we’ve been living a distorted reality for far too long…
‘Someday we’ll write about this.’
They were the words Dan Denning used to finish an email to me earlier in the week.
No, today’s headline isn’t a typo.
And I didn’t forget to put one in.
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