‘Bleak’ map paints ‘depressing’ picture of how average families can afford to live in Sydney

The situation has been deemed “beyond hope” and “depressing” as dire new statistics show just how expensive the city has become.

Sydney’s essential workers are “locked out” of living in the communities they serve as the housing affordability crisis reaches “unprecedented levels” in the NSW capital.

That’s according to a new report from the Property Council of Australia’s NSW division, released on Sunday, which concluded that the landscape is especially “bleak” for teachers, nurses, police officers, childcare workers, and public servants, who should be able to live in the area they work.

Not only is the dream of owning a home “beyond hope” for most, but the ability to rent in these areas is also virtually impossible, with rental vacancy rates across the greater Sydney area remaining at a “critical low” of 1.6 per cent, the report found.

The NSW Property Council’s NSW executive Katie Stevenson dubbed the report’s findings “depressing” and has called for fasttracking housing projects in the state.

She also called for a serious review of the government’s extra costs imposed on homeowners.

“No essential worker living on their own can afford to buy or rent a median-priced home or unit in most areas,” Ms Stevenson said.

“For dual-income families with an average gross income of $160,000, purchasing an established home is considered beyond reach, and house and land packages are increasingly out of reach.”

Renting a house in Sydney is, well, hard.

Renting an apartment in Sydney is also hard.

The report generated maps — with the ‘hotter’ the area indicating the more unaffordable it is — across 12 local government areas in the Greater Sydney, Hunter and Central Coast, and Illawarra regions.

It used a hypothetical scenario of a family making $120,000 a year to see what areas they could afford to rent or buy in.

It noted that this was actually above average in terms of household income across NSW.

In the state, the median annual household income is $95,108.

And the results were stark.

This imaginary family were totally priced out of the Greater Sydney area except for a few “pockets” in Western Sydney and the Sutherland Shire if they wanted to own their own home.

When it came to renting a house, they could only nab places on the “outskirts”.

The map became less hot when looking at renting a unit, however still most of it was in the orange zone by consuming more than 30 per cent of their total income.

Buying a house in Sydney is just a sea of red, according to this report.

Buying a unit is marginally more possible.

And when the analysts moved outside of Sydney, the unaffordable nature of housing didn’t let up.

Buying a house in the Hunter or Central Coast for a family making $120,000 is “largely non-existent”, as is houses in the Illawarra coast.

Units are not widely available in either region, but where they are, they are thankfully affordable, the report noted.

Ability to buy property in the Hunter/Central Coast region.

Ability to buy property in the Illawarra/Shoalhaven region.

In more extreme scenarios, for a household on an even higher income, at $163,000, there were only two places in the entirety of Sydney that was affordable — Liverpool and Penrith.

“Even if essential worker household incomes rose significantly, say to $200,000 per annum, most would still find the dream of home ownership out of reach,” the report added.

And richer households are also struggling, with the report’s authors warning that a family raking in $400,000 every would “still find it difficult” to live in an in-demand, affluent area like Manly, Randwick, or inner Sydney.

“The housing affordability crisis of 2024 is strikingly similar to the crisis of 2007, but with one critical difference: it’s worse,” the report warned.

A lot of areas are deemed ‘beyond hope’.

The current situation is worse than the 2007 crisis, according to the report.

The researchers blamed the NSW government for its heavy-handedness in dishing out property-related fees and charges, which accounts for almost half its $45.8 billion tax and royalty revenue in the latest state budget.

They also warned against the oversimplification of calling for higher wages for essential workers.

“For wage increases to have a meaningful impact, they would need to be both substantial and sustained over time. However, the kind of wage growth required to match the steep rise in housing prices over the past decade is unlikely,” the report added.

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Originally published as ‘Bleak’ map paints ‘depressing’ picture of how average families can afford to live in Sydney