In 1964, you could buy a block of land in Engadine for £750.
At the time, the basic wage in Australia was £15 8s per week, or around £800 per year.
So back then, for the equivalent of one year’s salary on the basic wage, you could own a block of land.
And the deposit was a little over three weeks’ wages.
Fast forward to today, and the median house-and-land price in Engadine is $1.6 million — say around $1 million for a block of land alone.
The current minimum full-time wage is around $50,000, so you now need 20 years of wages to buy what you used to be able to buy with one.
Alternatively, using the RBA inflation calculator, £750 in 1964 is worth the equivalent of around $30,000 today.
So what would be worth $30,000 today if land prices increased in line with inflation, instead will cost you $1 million.
This is the result of decades of governments artificially restricting the supply of land for housing, combined with excess rates of migration over the past two decades - destroying the dream of homeownership for millions of young Australians, and fundamentally changing Australian society for the worse.
@JohnAndersonAC@Sargon_of_Akkad the same can be said of Australia. I believe we have one of the highest rates (per capita) of bureaucracy/government in the world.
@TopherField It's a very strange take from the family to say the least. And you are right, they are entitled to their opinion and so is everyone else and most see it differently.