Oz housing costs pushing families to fringe

Australian inner city housing is more affordable for singles and couples without children on incomes over $60,000 than it is for families on incomes of $100,000, a study shows.

Developers have twigged to this and have been busy transforming inner-city areas with an apartment boom as a result, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute study says.
The research into housing affordability found families with annual incomes less than $40,000 were forced out of buying a home altogether.

Those with incomes between $40,000 and $80,000 could only afford homes in the outer suburbs or growth areas, the study based on data from Adelaide and Melbourne found.

''Not until household income exceeded $100,000 was there much ability for families to purchase in the inner city and middle ring,'' the report, A New Lens on Housing Affordability and Market Behaviour, says.

And Australia's housing affordability problem was worse than expected, the study found. A very large proportion of households - 31 per cent - had little capacity to save or to buy beyond what they needed for a modest lifestyle after meeting housing costs. And 14 per cent suffered major financial and well-being pressures.

That lack of spending power had broader implications for the economy, not just housing.

''If we already thought it [affordability] was bad, it is actually worse,'' the report's co-author, Professor Terry Burke, of Swinburne University, said.

Renters, and more particularly the elderly, had the most severe affordability problem. Families with younger children under five also struggled, partly because some parents left the workforce to look after the children.        

Source: Sydney Morning Herald