coolshadows

"The challenge of housing affordability will mean that in the future we will see a trend towards the construction of smaller, more sustainable homes."

"with only a limited release of land in outer fringe areas and land values on the rise many buyers are now also seeking the alternative higher density apartment and unit living."

"The trend predictions are based on recent studies, which have revealed that Australia has amongst the lowest housing affordability in the civilised world."

"When compared with major property markets including the US, Canada and UK, Australian capital cities were found to have amongst the lowest levels of affordability, with Melbourne and Sydney offering less affordable housing than major international cities London and New York."

By Greville Pabst – Certified Practising Valuer FAPI FRICS, CEO & Director, WBP Property Valuers

moneypenny20

Oh.

ABCDiamond

A load of terraced and semi detached houses to be built in some areas ?
That would bring the median price down.

pomtastic

Think about it. The developers have come up with an idea to make more money. Brainwash the Aussie public into expect smaller houses, terraces, units, tiny blocks and they can maximise profits. Charge a 'reasonable and affordable $350K' for what is essentially a dogbox as long as the advertising is slick and the public fall for it. Traditional homes aren't selling in many parts of Aus because they are too expensive and there is a whole market of cheap small homebuyeres that are untapped.

What the developers forget is that most migrants come to Aus for a 'better' lifestyle which includes having a larger house than they could afford in UK *expecting the inevitable abuse*. Whose going to leave life long family and friends if all you are moving for is better weather, you're only a cheap airfare from warmer climes in UK and don't forget the different cultures in Europe.

Expect loads of newspaper articles plugging the smaller home option from now on. Photos of smiling families living in their units and grabbing a surfboard to go down the beach. The advertising will be on the lines of ' No worries about back yard maintenance - spend your extra time surfing/dining out/playing footy with kids at local park'. The Aussie public will lap this up.

coolshadows

pomtastic

Bloody cashed up foriegners.

fish.01

As long as you place the small home in the inner city you've sold me....where do I sign

pomtastic

Won't happen, too many NIMBYS in Aus inner cities.

ABCDiamond

The British only make up a small % of total migrants, sorry if you consider that to be abuse but MOST migrants don't have a clue what a UK house is like, let alone want one that is larger.

84% come from places other the UK, according to:
ABS 3401.0 Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia
Table 12: Permanent Movement, Settlers

Many other migrants can get a "larger house than they could get in their own country" very easily.

With a larger number now coming from China, the new Chinese migrants now influence the Australian market more than the new British migrants.

The British migrants are actually now in 3rd place, getting very close to 4th place with India closing fast.

With you mentioning getting abused by posters, I do feel sympathy for you; it is pretty bad when some posters resort to abuse to get their points across.

pomtastic

This situation suits me fine as I'm living in a Pommie enclave, The Perth Northern Suburbs. Very few Asians, Indians and others move here, UK migrants are the main drivers of property prices here, although that could change at some point.

I'm guessing the majority of Indian and Chinese migrants are mainly students with a few millionaires buying up here. There are unversities set up for purely foriegn students, especially in Melbourne and Sydney, perhaps that's why the Chinese buying is all over East right now.

Don't feel sorry for anyone, if you go on a public forum then you have to expect the abuse sometimes. People hide behind avatars and write things they would never have the guts to say in real life face to face. It's the way of the web.

fish.01

Luckily there are already lots of small homes already in the inner city...just got to find the right one that I can afford and I'm there

ABCDiamond

I would rather have feelings, than be one of those that do not care about others.

koalakim

Might be a smaller block but they still charge you the same for it!

Like anywhere depends on where you are. The house we are building still represents good value compared like for like with houses in the SE of England. Basically (going back to 1.80 to the pound when we bought our money over) we've swapped a 2 bed flat for a 3x2 house over here in a nice area. Even looking at our old 3 bed det house it's basically swapping like for like although the new house has extra living area and ensuite so I guess we are still winning apart from the current exchange rate now means we are back to square one on the mortgage!

Where we live there aren't very many flats - for smaller housing there are older units or new mini-estates like you get back in the UK, although they do pack them in so you basically get a courtyard for a garden. They've built a lovely trendy apartment block in Mornington - I would have loved one of them but it was more than the house - and you should read the uproar in the local paper!

It's much like the UK, houses on big blocks were great where there was heaps of cheap land about but as time goes on and the land fills up the blocks become smaller or you pay loads more for less.

Bigger houses means more housework...

moneypenny20

We don't have a big house but we do have the land and thankfully the council won't allow anyone along our road to subdivide so they have to stay acreage plots. They have just cleared a large hillside nearby which was heavily wooded to build god knows how many houses, it's going to look horrible and they'll have no views unless they like looking at the motorway and the local Caltex but I think they call it progress

lapin_windstar

Well, for statements of the bleedin' obvious (people will live in smaller houses if prices go up), it ranks right up there.

But, in Sydney at least, there's another important factor: the city is going to grow substantially in population and not in land size. The sprawl can't go on for much longer, and density is going to have to increase everywhere else.

Luckily, this won't actually be too hard so long as everyone MTFUs and recognises reality: there's a lot of fairly low density single-storey housing built around that can be replaced by units, there are a good 4/5 CBDs that Sydney CBD can be dispersed to (they should start by moving all NSW agencies out of Sydney CBD - some progress has been made with police, water etc already), and light rail can be rolled out cheaply to quite a few locations.

The big problem will actually be the older Aussies in all this: the young won't mind moving into units and many (most?) immigrants will be coming from places where most people live in units in towns anyway. Longer-opening shops, supermarkets etc will also soften the blow. But those who live in low-density bungalows/federation homes etc and those who want to will not take it so easily.