‘It only gets worse': How it got even harder to buy a home
It's also jumped from 4.5 times the wage in 1975, 6.5 times in 2000, nine times in 2015, to 13.9 now, according to new longitudinal data.
There's even little relief in sight when home prices are matched to median household disposable income. In 1981, when those figures were first collated, home prices were three times the size of income; now they're eight times more.
AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver, who compiled the research, said these are deeply disturbing results. 'It's awful, and we complain about it, but it only gets worse,' he said.
'House prices compared to both wages and income are now around record levels and, while there was a bit of a dip last year, it's now bounced back again.
'Some states are pulling the ratios down, like Victoria and Tasmania, but other states are pulling them up, and now prices are rising across the country, it's likely to get even higher.'
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Oliver's study, using figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cotality and AMP, delivers grim tidings to potential property buyers. First time home buyers, he estimates, would only be able, on average, to borrow $520,000 to buy a house.
When the median house price in Sydney sits at $1,722,443 and in Melbourne $1,063,719 on the latest Domain House Price Report, many would be unable to get into the market, without additional funds from, for instance, the bank of mum and dad.
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