The newspapers are filled with doomsaying headlines about how the property crash is about to leave Australia a post-apocolyptic hellhole where we all fight one another for petrol in the Thunderdome, so it’s nice when someone comes along and tries to spin it as a feel good story about opportunity.
Like, for example, that the drop in prices means you, the metropolitan housing enthusiast, will now be able to save for that deposit more quickly. Yay!
And that sounds peachy! Until you actually look at the numbers and go “…sorry, what?”
Housing is dropping all over but the biggest drop has been in Sydney, where the Domain First Home Buyers Report has announced that Sydney homebuyers have seen their saving-time drop by a whole five months.
Which means that if you’re buying a house in the outer bits of Sydney it’ll only take you a bit over six years. Or, if you want to live in the actual within-sight-of-Sydney” bit of Sydney, 20 years. Great!
Yes. Yes it does.
The larger reason for this is that this drop in prices hasn’t been accompanied by, say, a pay rise for anyone that might make saving a deposit, much less paying off a mortgage, easier for most working people.
So while the actual amounts may have smudged downwards, your purchasing power is not noticeably better than it was six years ago.
So: if you thinking on picking up that adorable Chippendale terrace for a song in the immediate future it might be better to direct that energy toward something more realistic, like growing wings or understanding MAFS.