Sutherland Shire property: How much you need to earn to buy a median priced house

How much you need to earn to buy median priced house in Sutherland Shire. Melanie Burgess reports.

Sold Home For Sale Sign in Front of Beautiful New House.

Sutherland Shire’s median house price is about 23 times the median local income, putting its first home buyers behind most Aussies trying to get a foot onto the property ladder.

This figure is higher than the national average of 12 times pre-tax income and higher than the Greater Sydney average of 19.

Corelogic data for the year to September revealed the median house price in Sutherland Shire was $1.2 million while Australian Bureau of Statistics data for the 2015-16 financial year showed the median income was $54,766 a year.

In March, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) suggested lenders limit their loans to six times a borrower’s income.

In Sutherland Shire this would mean an average maximum loan of $328,596, suggesting a single home buyer would first need to save an average of $921,404 for their deposit.

Alternatively, with a 20 per cent deposit, they would need to earn at least $166,667 a year to meet the APRA requirements for a home loan.

Home ownership would be all but impossible in this area for a typical single home buyer.

Nationally, the median house price was $567,650 and the median income was $47,692 so a typical single home buyer would need a $281,498 deposit or, with a 20 per cent deposit, a buyer would need to earn at least $75,686 a year.

In the year to June, this was about the average full-time salary for an industrial designer ($76,313), child welfare, youth and family services worker ($75,509), insurance broker ($76,518), pharmacy worker ($74,584) or fitter and turner ($74,547), national SEEK job ad data showed.

New ABS data revealed Aussies were increasingly taking on a second job or starting a business on the side to help supplement their income.

There were 39,500 more jobs in the Australian economy in the September quarter than in the June quarter, and almost half of these (15,900) were filled by people who had at least one other job.

Career expert and founder of Change Meridian Michelle Gibbings said the key to establishing a successful “side hustle” was to be realistic and practical.

“Assess if there is a market and whether you are going to be able to make money from your hobby,” she said.

“Work out how much time you have to devote to setting up your side hustle, and set a schedule and lock out time in your diary to devote to it.

“Set yourself some clear goals and milestones as to what you want to achieve by when.

“This also includes considering how much money you are willing to invest in getting your idea off the ground.”