‘Confronting’ house price prediction for 2050 emerges
A seriously confronting prediction has emerged showing what Australia might look like within the next two decades.
There is no denying the Great Australian Dream of owning a home is increasingly feeling out of reach for young people.
With house prices continuing to skyrocket and smash new records, many have wondered just what the country’s real estate landscape might look like if things continue to go in the direction they have been heading.
Well, data compiled by Australian property payment platform, Coposit, has revealed the answer - and it’s not pretty.
The company used data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, CoreLogic and YourMortgage to find the 2025 median house prices in four of our capital cities.
Coposit then applied a long-term average four per cent yearly growth rate to project prices to 2050, with truly confronting results.
Sydney’s median house price, set at $1.55 million for 2025, is predicted to more than double in the next 25 years to $3.88 million.
MORE: What your home will be worth in 2030
Shortly after this was posted, new data was released revealing Sydney’s median house price has now risen to a whopping $1.75 million.
For Melbourne, the median house price of $953,000 is projected to skyrocket to $2.56 million and Brisbane could go from $1.06 million to $2.84 million.
The data has Perth’s current median house price at $895,000, with it predicted to hit $2.4 million by 2050.
While these figures may seem absurd at first glance, they align with long-term growth trajectories seen over past decades, back to 1990.
Speaking to news.com.au, Coposit CEO and co-founder, Chris Ferris, said that, even for those in the industry, seeing those numbers laid out side-by-side is “confronting”.
“It shows just how quickly affordability is slipping away, particularly in capital cities and major employment hubs like Sydney and Brisbane where the gap between wages and home values continues to widen,” he said.
MORE: The cities where house prices will soar by 2026
The prediction paints a particularly grim picture for first home buyers.
The average age of first home buyers is now 37, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
“We are creating a generation of renters who no longer believe owning property is an option for them,” Mr Ferris said.
“If this trend continues, we risk losing the idea of property ownership as part of the Australian dream.”
The CEO said that, when it comes to breaking into the housing market, “timing is everything”.
“The longer people spend saving for a deposit, the faster prices move ahead of them,” Mr Ferris said.
“That is why we built a model that lets buyers secure a property with $10,000 and pay the rest of their deposit over construction.
“It gives first home buyers a way to step in now rather than watching from the sidelines while the market keeps moving.”
Property prices in Sydney have reached the point where young people feel they have no option but to leave the city in order to become homeowners.
In the June 2025 quarter, Sydneysiders accounted for 60 per cent of the net outflow from all of the country’s capitals into regions, the latest Regional Movers Index report states.
Regional NSW and Queensland welcomed the largest share of people leaving capital cities, with 34 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively.
While many young people feel it is unfair that Sydney’s real estate landscape has become so out of reach, one young landlord has said being able to buy a first home in a major city like Sydney should not be an expectation.
Well-known property investor, Jack Henderson, sparked outrage earlier this year after claiming that only rich people should expect to own a home in Sydney.
“If you’re not rich, you can’t live in Sydney,” the 28-year-old, who has a $40 million property portfolio and runs buyer’s agency, Henderson Advocacy, said.
“Every country evolves, their populations get bigger, and cities get more expensive.”
Mr Henderson argued that if you’re an American, you’re likely not complaining about not being able to afford to buy an apartment in New York City because there’s an understanding you need to be really affluent to own property there.
He said people need to accept that Sydney is becoming like New York City and that it is unaffordable.
“Be rich or don’t live here. If you’re not rich live somewhere else. Australia’s a big f**king country,” he advised.
Mr Henderson’s blunt advice, unsurprisingly, didn’t sit well with a lot of people, sparking a wave of furious responses.
“You’re so out of touch,” one said.
“Obvious rage bait,” one Aussie critiqued, while another said, “this is the problem”.
One added: “Societies don’t function with only ‘rich people’. Rich people don’t want to live in a city where only [rich] people live because many services they want and need won’t be there with no one to provide them.”
