Australian home ownership is at an all-time low as the country’s 26-year property boom continues undeterred with only 45 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds owning homes.
In Sydney, home prices have increased over 140 percent in 15 years making it the second most expensive housing market in the world — surpassing both New York and London. The city of Melbourne, the world’s “most livable city” according to the Economist Intelligence Unit for the seventh year in a row, isn’t far behind; it’s now the sixth most expensive housing market.
The affordable housing crisis amounts to “a huge social problem” where younger generations are not able to accumulate wealth in any similar way to how previous generations did, according to Bloomberg News. This means timelines for life events like marriage or childbirth will be altered for “Generation Rent” — the young adults unable to buy homes — as well as a burgeoning geographical disparity between where city services are offered in comparison to the distant neighborhoods where people can afford to live.
Grattan Institute housing policy expert Brendan Coates told Bloomberg it would take “at least two decades to fix” Australia’s affordable housing crisis.
[Bloomberg News] — E.K. Hudson