Australia’s median house price has just surpassed one million literal whole dollars for the first time ever, after inching closer and closer for months.
Trigger warning: this article is filled with nothing but bad news for renters.
Buyers across the country paid a median (the middle point of all sales when listed from cheapest to most expensive) of $1,066,133 to secure a home over the past year, according to Domain’s latest House Price Report.
This is an annual increase of 25.2 per cent, or a rise of 6.5 per cent since the last quarter.
House and unit prices have increased in every capital city except Darwin, where unit prices grew but house price remained level.
This is because Darwin previously experienced the highest growth rate of any city since the pandemic began.
Darwin prices rose 30.1 per cent in 2021, but appears to have peaked.
In Sydney, house prices rose roughly $1,100 a day over 2021, a total rise of almost $400,000, to a new record of $1.6 million.
So if you’re thinking of buying a house in Sydney, maybe stop?
This is the steepest annual rate of growth on record, at 33.1 per cent. < Oh yes you are reading that correctly, 33 per cent price increase in 12 months ha ha ha.
Meanwhile in the same period, minimum wage increased by 49 cents per hour, from $19.84 to $20.33.
An extra 49 cents per hour, translated across a year of full-time work — 2080 hours — adds up to $1019.20 in wage growth.
So in 2021 the average Sydney house price rose more in a single day than minimum wage pay checks grew across the entire year.
Not to mention grocery prices are rising three times faster than minimum wage.
Let’s go one step further to see how much JobSeeker payments increased last year, shall we?
The fortnightly payments increased by $11.90. This is a rise of $309.40 per year.
Basically the government is laughing at us.
Canberra is now the second most expensive city to purchase a house after Sydney, which I guess is called a contact high (too high) due to its proximity.
Canberra house prices soared by almost $1,300 a day over the December quarter — a total rise of roughly $119,000 to a new record of $1.178 million.
In Melbourne, house prices reached a new record of $1.1 million after the strongest annual gain since 2010, at 18.6 per cent. They rose $660 a day over the quarter, which is the steepest increase on record for a single quarter.
Perth remains the cheapest capital in which to buy a house with a median price of $612,348.
Great, the most affordable state to buy a house won’t even bloody let us in.
It’s also the only city that didn’t break a price record this quarter. Its market peaked in 2014 but has been steadily rising since the pandemic and is almost at that peak again.
Domain chief of research and economics Nicola Powell said the market is “extremely challenging” as wage growth is nowhere near as close and that basically young people are screwed.
“People who don’t own a home yet are faced with such dramatic rises in prices in such a short time [and] at a time when rents are also rising. Wages growth does not keep up with that,” she said.
“If you don’t own a home, if you’re a parent, how on earth will they ever afford it?”
“If having the stratified median national house price pass $1 million doesn’t put housing affordability on the agenda for the government, I don’t know what will.”
Amen, sis.
She also said house prices have NOT. YET. PEAKED. but there are signs of growth slowing into 2022.
“We haven’t reached peak prices yet. Overall, they’re likely to still go up from here but not by as much. It’s more about that wave of growth, that really super strong momentum we saw … that’s what has peaked,” she said.
Time to buy bigger pots for your plants because there’s no way these babies will ever taste actual ground soil.
