Apartment rents now cost more than half a typical worker’s take-home pay in all Australian capital cities, report finds
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/24/apartment-rents-now-cost-more-than-half-a-typical-single-workers-take-home-pay-in-all-australian-capital-cities-report-findsOpen linkView original on lemmy.zip
22 replies
When our rent went over $40k a couple of years ago, I was marveling that it is more money than I earned as an IT worker in 2000.
There are still full-time jobs advertised for $50ish grand a year. Close enough that take-home pay wouldn't cover rent. It's a 3x2 townhouse with no yard for the kids before people start wondering what sort on mansion I live in.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that ~$800 per week? Fucking oof; barely a chance in hell to save up for a place of your own at that rate.
That's the point.
That's about the going rate for a decent place within the catchment of a good high school. We had to go from four bedrooms to three to find something we could afford.
And yes, despite being a professional couple with two above-average incomes, we are not making much headway in saving for a house.
This one is like turning an oil tanker
It will take a long time for those tax concession changes to show through
They will though. It’d be even faster if the states lifted public builds.
Or it's like putting a bandaid on an amputated limb expecting that to stem the blood flow and sew the skin. And it is now showing that.
The band aid isn’t a bad analogy I guess, probably more a third of a full successful surgery is what I’d describe it as. The analogy is okay though.
The reason why I say that is these tax concessions weren’t the only condition that caused the problem, just the one that ‘squirts the blood’ as you describe. There are two other key ones: the first public supply from the states, which has not just fallen from something like 10-15% of all builds last century to around 2 or 3 percent. Add to this, the removal of finance wheels and the restricting of entry criteria and a substantial section of the public no longer qualify.
The second one is the decay of trades and vocational training, caused by a privatisation of the employment and training services industries. This is the backbone on which all civil and construction work grows on and it’s been dismantled. All the apprenticeships and trades positions offered by state governments, gone as well. This privatisation has possibly had the most far reaching, negative consequences for Australia than any other has.
So yeah, your analogy isn’t too bad.
Yeah I almost absolutely agree with you, just on the fact that the "blood" hasn't been stemmed, I respectfully disagree. And it's salve for the soul to see someone so informed across the various topics causing the issue. It is and always was a multipronged attack. (That they're trying to distract us from, currently, by pointing to immigration)
Quite often I notice a policy put in place, and it does nothing for the actual issue, it's just that the people are screaming for change, so they have to do something, the policy merely looks in the direction of the issue, the person putting the policy in place touts it to be a grand thing that resolves 3/4ths of the problem, (when it doesn't even scratch the surface) the Murdoch media runs a massive scare campaign to the degree and equivalent to rioting and eliciting rioting. Imaging a puddle to be a catastrophic flood. Eliciting the emotionally immature to jump at these created shadows, and then change their tune and scream to return to the previous systems that were previously eliciting screams for change. And then said politician will say, I tried and y'all didn't want it, so we're going in the other direction and building more orphan crushing machines. Look that's what everyone is asking for. And I can't help but feel it's entirely coordinated.
I was studying an electrical apprenticeship when they were all cut by Tony Abbot, in his first run through of decimation. Julia Gillard got through a record amount of policies even though having a hung parliament worse than seen since, but she did that by selling us all down the river and catering to the elite that the Liberal party represent. If I believed in hell, it would be paved with politicians.
Hey look no argument here, it’s not stemmed yet, not by a long shot
The tax changes alone aren’t a complete dressing, it’ll still bleed without the others
Well clearly all those renters should stop wasting all that money and just buy houses. You don't have to be RIGHT in the city centre you know, you can buy 15-20 minutes out where it's affordable.
Lol wtf where do u live that it is affordable just 15-20 Minutes away from the city. In germany even an hour outside of metropolitan areas it is still expensive af. If you want affordable housing in germany u need to live in the middle of nowhere where u would need to commute like 2 hours by car or sth like that.
It was sarcasm. In Australia even the middle of nowhere is unaffordable. But older generations love giving us advice like that.
Yes, those “totally affordable” HOUSES 15-20 minutes out of the CBD. There’s millions of them, I have to swerve like a maniac on my commute into the office to avoid them scattered all over the road like bird droppings.
Duh, why didn’t I think of that?
Just do like I do and have one of your chauffeurs take you to work in the helicopter instead.
just crash on your rich friends house close to work.
Buy with what money?
Show me the reputable bank that will loan the entire cost of a house, to someone who obviously can never pay off that loan on their current income. And I'll show you a bank that's going to collapse from unserviced debts.
It's pretty sad that this kind of ridiculous advice is so prevalent that my comment wasn't recognised for the obvious satire that it was.
Definitely Poe's law coming in here. There's too many idiots on the internet so it's generally good to add a /s to be clear.
Clearly the solution is for people to stop buying food! Do you know howuch money you save when you stop eating?
But in all seriousness you raise an important point. Housing unaffordability has been raised as an emerging issue in healthcare. Housing costs are pricing healthcare staff out of the suburbs their facilities are in, creating issues with on-call times for emergencies. Hospitals only have a small amount of on-call rooms available so it isn't feasible for everyone on-call to stay at work.
Family of four, our weekly groceries are coming in at around $500/week. You jest, but food is genuinely a significant cost.
We rarely eat out. Because when we do, even a modest meal somewhere cheap and cheerful is going to set us back over $120.
Portuguese renter: "More than half? That's cute"
I don't care for bragging about suffering, unless you're fighting back. If you are, I'd love to know more.