It’s time, Australia, to change the way we look at housing

Australia’s housing market has become so tight, so heated, that I think it’s time to become quite forensic in tracking all parts of the housing market. Including entry-level.

Australia’s housing market has become so tight that I think it’s time to become forensic in tracking all parts of the market.

House and home have long been important to Australians. The ideal of mum, dad and the kids in a suburban place of their own is central to the modern Australian story. Dame Edna Everage talked about it as early as the 1950s. Darryl Kerrigan effectively deified the concept in The Castle in 1997.

Yet the worrying cost of housing is now a topic of everyday conversation – especially in the post-pandemic world where there is a shortage of housing and a rising tide of immigrants in search of somewhere to live.

There are specialist consultancies that track home prices, that talk of supply, that speculate about so-called hotspots. And it makes sense: about two-thirds of Australian households own their own home; the remaining one-third rent. Access to housing is – or should be – a metric by which we measure the success of society.

There’s a problem, though: the cost of housing is often quoted in terms of the median house price, which is the midpoint in a range of values, and this can be misleading. In a global city like Sydney, for example, knowledge workers and business owners can cram into the upper end of the housing market, thus dragging up the median.

For those struggling to get into the market, this focus on the median house price is unhelpful. They are surely more concerned with price movements at the market’s lower end. Every Monday the media in many cities publish (or broadcast) the weekend’s auction results – often including, as a curiosity, the most expensive and the least expensive properties that changed hands. Why not also publish scatter maps of the 200 cheapest properties that changed hands? Plus, what is the midpoint in this pool of entry-level housing in each of the state capitals?

The specialist consultancies that track price movements surely have the capacity to measure all sorts of averages. They should add a new measure that tracks price movements at the entry-level end of the market. And, who knows, maybe this measure will show that Sydney’s cheapest properties actually bunch up close to the median. Or maybe it will show that there is a long tail to price points delivering some properties, in specific areas, to within range of the first-home-buyer market.

Regardless, Australia’s housing market has become so tight, so heated, that I think it’s time to become quite forensic in tracking all parts of the housing market, including entry-level.

And while I do understand the appeal of showcasing spectacular properties in each city – we all like to dream, I suppose – how about augmenting these up-market properties with examples of everyday housing?

We expect gazillionaires to live in waterfront mansions in every city. But how about also showcasing the houseproud and design-clever lifestyles of middle Australia, which I will helpfully define as a teacher and a nurse with kids living in places like Blacktown, Cranbourne, Caboolture and Baldivis?

It’s time, Australia, to change the way we look at and measure the value of housing. We need to seek out and better understand entry-level accommodation for everyday Australians.

Move over, Mr Median, there’s a better way of finding a more affordable home.