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Listings from 1972 show unbelievable house prices in nation's most expensive city
A page of real estate listings from 1972 has left Aussies shocked at just how much house prices have increased in the last 50 years. In the nation's most expensive city — where the median home value is now more than $1.2m — property prices have increased by an eye-watering 5000 per cent since the listings were published.
The 1972 edition of The Realtor shows a page of homes located across Frenchs Forest, Belrose, Beacon Hill and Allambie Heights on Sydney's Northern Beaches. One three-bedroom home was for sale for just $23,950, while the most expensive property on the page is a four-bedder with 'room for a pool' listed at $44,950.
One of the homes in Beacon Hill, valued at the time for $27,500, sold in 2021 for $2.55m — a staggering increase of more than 9000 per cent, outpacing the growth in average wages which has been under 2500 per cent over the same 53-year-period.
Northern beaches realtor Mark Novak from Novak Properties told Yahoo News that even the smaller homes on the old listing page would be worth upwards of $2m now.
"You can see in that photo, there's the little fellas that are just one level three-bedders, they're about that $2.2m mark. And then you can see the two storey examples, they're probably in the higher end of that $2.7m - $2.9m mark," he said. "It's wild."
While these days you'd be lucky to get a new car for those 1970s prices, back then it was still out of reach for some.
The average weekly wage in Australia in 1972 was $85.50, according to data from the Reserve Bank of Australia. This would put the average Australian's annual salary at just under $4500 a year.
To purchase the cheaper three-bedroom home, a resident would be spending about five times their salary, though the interest rate was around 7 per cent.
In 2025, the typical Australian full-time worker earns just under $100,000. With the median house value in Frenchs Forest currently sitting at $2.2m, buyers would be forking out more that 22 times their salary to buy a home in the area.
While the increases feel ridiculously steep, Mark insists it's all part of the steady property trend that sees homes double in value every 10 years or so.
He described the area around Frenchs Forest as a "lovely, honest, Australian" neighbourhood, where the families work hard and care about their community. He said it's likely the people who bought their homes 50 years ago may not have been particularly wealthy, but are now sitting on a pot of gold.
But despite that, he made the interesting point that many of the homes on the listing remain relatively unchanged.
"The houses look the same. I think you'd find the kitchens and bathrooms have been changed, but structurally they're pretty similar from the outside.
"These are those guys where the furniture is the same. The cars are similar. They've kept everything. They bought once when they were real young and they never got in and out, or changed it. Whereas our generation and the newer generation, you're constantly evolving and changing, which costs money."
For those first home buyers overwhelmed by today's prices who think they'll never be able to afford a home, Mark says it is absolutely possible and offered a tip.
"Use your super. First home buyers can use their super, but not many people know that. They can voluntarily contribute to their super above their normal repayments and then pull it out to buy a property so they can save faster," he said.
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