Housing affordability in Australia continues to plummet

Housing affordability is something that I've become passionate about, and the amount of coverage the issue got during the 2007 election was great to see. It's obviously an issue that plays on the mind of many Australians, a fact that was reflected by the popularity of my previous posts on the issue.

Despite the widespread interest, housing affordability in Australia continues to go from bad to worse.

Demographia has released its 4th Annual Housing Affordability Survey (PDF), and as last year Australia is well represented in the top 50 least affordable markets. There have been a number of changes, however:

• Mandurah, the Sunshine Coast, and the Gold Coast are more unaffordable than Sydney;
• Bundaberg, Cairns and Mackay are in the top 50;
• Bundaberg is as unaffordable as New York City;

It appears that the reason Australia features so prominently compared to last year's survey is the simple fact that Australia now has more markets surveyed. Only 8 Australian regions were surveyed last year, as opposed to a full 28 this year.

Time will tell if the Rudd Government's promised policies can have any effect. Any solution needs to focus more on land supply rather than increasing buying power, and fact that I'm not convinced will actually happen. Australians as a whole aren't short of a coin or two - reflected by the interest rate rises by the RBA attempting to slow inflation.

Don't give us more money to buy houses, make more houses available for us to buy!