Coast residents face nation's hardest struggle to buy home

HOMES on the Sunshine Coast are more unaffordable than in any Australian capital city, a new report has revealed.

Sunshine Coast residents have the highest ratio of home prices to household income. Picture: Kevin Farmer

HOMES on the Sunshine Coast are more unaffordable than in any Australian capital city or Queensland regional centre, a new report has revealed.

The Queensland Productivity Commission's Housing in Queensland: Affordability and Preferences study found the Coast had the highest ratio of median home prices to median annual household income, with a home costing 9.3 years worth of a family's income.

The next most unaffordable was Sydney, with the median home costing 8.4 times the median annual household income. The Coast had the fifth-highest percentages of home ownership, of about 78 per cent, and the third-highest percentage of home owners who had paid off their mortgage (36 per cent).

The Coast and Cairns were the only regions in Queensland where home ownership increased in the past 10 years.

The report noted the decline in home ownership across Australia was most prevalent in the younger demographic. "Home ownership is lower among younger and lower-income households, and is falling, but it remains unchanged for households over 65 years."

The Coast has a higher median age (44 years old) compared to Queensland as a whole (37), and the report's authors said this could have affected the statistics.

"The lack of affordability in the Gold and Sunshine Coasts regions may be overstated, to the extent that these regions have relatively older populations, who are comparatively income-poor but asset-rich."

NEED FOR SOCIAL HOUSING CRITICAL

COAST 2 Bay Housing CEO Andrew Elvin said statistics consistently showed the region was an incredibly difficult place in which to buy a home.

"It's the worst area to actually do that, across all the growth areas and city areas across the whole country."

Mr Elvin (pictured) said the availability of social housing was severely lacking on the Sunshine Coast.

"What that means is that there is not enough housing for the disabled and the elderly and those that have difficult circumstances, compared with other areas."

He said that meant the more affordable areas of the housing market were highly competitive, and so many people were unable to secure a place to live at all.

"We've got a very intense set of market conditions here," he said.

He also said the Sunshine Coast's high rental prices also made it incredibly difficult for renters to save money for a deposit.

"It is a real conundrum... and it will need concerted action at a whole range of levels for the demand and supply to come back into a more sensible balance."

He said the most single most effective step to be taken was a change in planning frameworks that would allow for a better range of housing density and types of housing.

"That's really an issue for the state governments and local governments to address," Mr Elvin said.

"There's some movement there, but not enough."

PRICE MATCH

Ratio of median dwelling price to median annual household income

Sunshine Coast:9.3

Sydney:8.4

Gold Coast:7.7

Melbourne:7.1

Adelaide:6.2

Brisbane:5.7

Source: Queensland Productivity Commission

Originally published as Coast residents face nation's hardest struggle to buy home