Inflation results earlier in the week have dampened expectations of any rate cut by the RBA on Tuesday. As we all know, it's getting harder and harder to get a foot on the property ladder. In the past five years once affordable suburbs have seen sky-rocketing growth. Now, experts are warning that government schemes for new buyers are often making the problem worse.
00:00This townhouse is about to go under the hammer and it's shaping up to be a hot auction.
00:13First auction, pretty stressful, you can kind of feel the tension in the air.
00:17Yeah, an auction you just don't know what the price range will be and the interest,
00:20but there seems to be a lot of interest.
00:22Yeah, lots of people here today.
00:24To end up with 20 plus registered buyers at an auction for a townhouse in Mountain Cravat
00:28and the south of Brisbane, just extraordinary.
00:32In online advertising, it was listed among properties under a million dollars.
00:36As bidding kicks off, it's clear it'll go for much more.
00:401.50, maybe straight to 1.2 with some confidence.
00:43In the end, it's a duel between two young couples.
00:46Man, have I got your absolute best? 1.5, 2.7, 500 we are.
00:50The winners are thrilled, but even they didn't expect the final price tag of more than 1.5 million.
01:01It's not that high, but yeah, hey, the market's crazy.
01:05So, yeah, we're happy, you know, we're just glad to be able to move here.
01:11Pretty insane, a big competition.
01:13But yeah, we went for a lot more than what was expected.
01:23The south Brisbane suburb was not too long ago an affordable area, but that's changed.
01:29The median house price here has dramatically grown in just five years, from 731,000 to about 1.3 million.
01:38Ten years ago, it was only 555,000.
01:44Housing affordability is a problem across the country and worst in Sydney,
01:49where buyers agent Kitty Parker sees many losing hope.
01:52Hello, Kitty Parker of Kitty and Miles.
01:55900,000 price guide.
01:58I'd estimate you're probably, off the top of my head,
02:01you're probably looking at about 1.2 million.
02:08We're meeting in the inner west suburb of Dulwich Hill,
02:10where one of her clients just missed out on a simple two-bedroom apartment guiding for 800,000.
02:17We thought it was a bit of a shoo-in, until it wasn't.
02:22And what did it sell for?
02:24It ended up selling for just shy of 1.1 million.
02:29Kitty says she's routinely seeing properties sell for well over guides and reserves.
02:34It's getting substantially worse, and especially in the first homebuyer cohort,
02:40that budget demographic, I think, is really lifting quite fast.
02:44In Dulwich Hill, the median unit price is $973,000.
02:50In 2010, it was just $545,000.
02:54And in 2000, it was only $265,000.
03:00Amanda Buchanan leaves in the area with her 16-year-old son.
03:03Even with a well-paid job, she's ruled out home ownership any time soon.
03:08I can get a deposit together, I can get a mortgage, but the total cost is just unreasonable for a single income.
03:17They need to stay in this area so her son can continue to access key therapies.
03:22If we move far enough out to be able to afford a property, we actually lose all of the things that give us our quality of life, particularly for my son.
03:29She's looked at first-time buyer schemes to get in the market, but properties are still too expensive.
03:35Most of the ways that government has tried to help first-time buyers around the edges with these first-time buyer assistance schemes,
03:42the general impact of those has been to make inflation worse rather than moderating it.
03:47A recent analysis found in the year 2000, the average home was worth about four times median incomes.
03:56Today, it's more than eight times higher, and up to ten times higher in Sydney.
04:02If we're doing this well and it's still challenging for us, it really worries me for a lot of other sole-parent families.
04:09The struggle for those who've been priced out.
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