au.news.yahoo.com/1150-per-week-affordable-housing-in-affluent-suburb-slammed-064703931.html?utm_source=Content&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Reddit&utm_term=Reddit&ncid=other_redditau_p0v0x1ptm8i
$1150 per week: 'Affordable' housing in affluent suburb slammed
PropertyNot to mention the inevitable someone 'hit back' article that follows.
Actually ‘slammed’ and ‘hit back’ are two of my favourite headline keywords. I get all my news from PornHub.
Somebody please award this gentleman
Ladies and gentleman he’s here all week!
It's usually backed up with 3 tweets and 2 reddit comments. A representative sample of the Australian population. SLAMMED!
My current fav is Sunrise newsreaders giving someone a “lashing”
Oooooo you tell ‘em Natalie Barr!
When I read “lashing” I think, “tongue punch in the fart box?”
I laughed too hard at this for a Monday morning 😂 Thanks for the chuckle
I cackled. If only I could upvote this more than once.
My favourite post for the day.
Gives a whole new meaning to Barring up
i see you've played that Margot Robbie/Jimmy Kimmel mean tweets vid a few times.
That phrase is burned into my mind. Terribly unfortunate
I think because a) it resonates b) it’s hilarious c) we would all do it.
“Breaks their silence” is a favourite of mine
The day after they were involved in something
Flip side, but "quietly" is also bad. You'll see it used in instances like "the Government quietly released this report", as though there is a devious and sinister motive.
You'll get slammed for that post, just quietly
I mean, not really. You can, and politicians regularly do, "quietly" release information.
They will do a press release for anything they want you to know. And just post anything they don't want you to know in a "publicly available source" with no traffic directed towards it.
My favourite recently was the Great Barrier Reef reporting. All these sensationalised headlines about how it was going to die off - yet the 2022 report shows record amounts of coral coverage and growth in the Northern & Central regions. You can always report the important bits quietly, when you want to sensationalise the lies.
I know it can be done sinisterly, just like how people can really get "slammed". I just think 95% of the time media use that language to make it sound conspiratorial when it's not.
Yeah I agree with you there, most journalists are just petulant children these days anyway. Couldn't write an original piece or headline if they tried.
It always reminds me of how in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table.
Yahoo, news dot com, SMH. Any of these your greed to see trash clickbait headlines.
Went to a house in Mosman that they were renting for $30,000 per month. Was nothing really special. It was the location (Clifton Gardens) that made it expensive.
For 30k a month I hope it came with a butler
And a batcave
And an trained tiger that escaped from Taronga.
30k a month is around 3.6% yield on a 10m property or a 2.4% yield on a 15m property (which seems to be the ballpark for values in said area).
A 25-50% overvalue and a more reasonably yield (for those who judge value on yield) of 4.8% on a 7.5m property would still make 30k a month seem okay.
I imagine very wealthy and/or high income people who are in Sydney for short term wouldn't mind paying that price.
Or their employer/company pay for it.
Or their employer/company pay for it.
i hope they get audited and questioned.
and a free daily bj
That's not a nice thing to say about Hunter Biden.
He makes the rent back by having open days at his garage with his dads classified files.
Who and for what reason would anyone rent that
Same reason why people would pay 600 a week on a 1m property. They might want to live in a certain area/type of property and are only there for a short time, want to invest in shares instead of buying or don't have enough for a deposit yet. It could also have been part of an employment/recruitment package.
But paying $600/wk on a $1m is perfectly reasonable long term even if you have $1m sitting there. $600/wk is $31k/yr in rent. As long as you can get a return above 3.1% you'd be better off investing your $1m and renting for $600/wk. Any index fund like VAS will return well above 3.1% pa over the long term.
Sounds like a bargain to me. Units in my block are selling for $600K and pulling nearly $700pw in rent.
Units often (but not always) have higher yields than detached houses.
Same thing with this properties in this area (Clifton Gardens surrounds). Have you checked before writing? The ballpark is 10-15m. The yields from a 30k/month are between 2.4% to 3.6% so I picked a round number in the middle.
Like you said. As long as you can get a return above 2.4-3.6% you'd be better off investing.
And it’s pretty much the same if you have 12million sitting there paying 30k month rent. It’s all relative
As well as rental income the landlord would also be getting capital gains so that probably means with a revaluation of the property value that the rent would definitely increase from that $600/wk you mentioned.
Given rents are also mostly determined by supply and demand it wouldn't surprise me if that weekly rental was $1000 in a couple years time.
any property worth 1 mil is charging way more than 600 a week
Overseas executive with a family
CEO from EU has been here for 3 years on a contract. I think his rent is paid by the company
Are you surprised that location makes property more expensive?
If you were lucky enough to find a 2 bed unit renting in Bondi for $500 per week in 2023 with Miele appliances, a sea view and a LUG one of two things, or both, would happen
- 100 people would rock up on Wednesday morning to view the place & all things being equal the owner would then need to make a decision based on the most colorful cover letter.
- The successful person would likely never ever let it go, effectively forever removing the property from the pool of availability.
There are quite a few places in Bondi which get rented out by people who have a primary residence elsewhere. They become a place to stay when they need an escape or can't go home to the family after a night out. Owners don't mind as the wear and tear on the property is minimal.
People equate anti-rent control as “pro landlords” and “against affordable housing”
The answer to affordable housing is to simply create more affordable housing. Grants for builders, maybe less tax and restrictions on developing land. More government housing, etc. Keeping the building companies that folded due to covid up and bailing them out probably would have been a good start. Complex issue, lots of ideas, but not all of them are necessarily good ones.
If you were lucky enough to find a 2 bed unit renting in Bondi for $500 per week in 2023 with Miele appliances, a sea view and a LUG one of two things, or both, would happen
Can people also please learn that this is precisely what rent controls will do i.e magnify existing issues? They don't seem to get it that smashing landlords in the face doesn't create more houses or make them want to.
Compare the toilet paper crisis of '20 to the housing shortage. If the government had forced a 50% off sale while the shelves were already empty, who would this have helped?
Thank you. I hate the rent control bs. I currently live in a city that has it in a lot of areas and guess what? It’s still expensive to rent.
It disincentivises investment any and all into the property, incentivises landlords to jack the price right up when someone does leave, disincentivises landlords to cater to tenant requests and maintenance, and is a golden handcuff for the tenant who can never leave.
It makes renting for new entrants into an area much more expensive at the sake of assisting a small number of people - many of whom aren’t poor/destitute because the control is tied to the property not the tenant.
No one. But the government also isn't effectively guaranteeing returns for people on toilet paper. I don't think rent controls are the tool that will save renters. The only thing that changes anything is to remove the government driven protection for real estate assets and the ridiculous incentives in place for people to make poor investments.
The govt isn’t guaranteeing returns for landlords either. In fact they are taking most of the returns. There are far more taxes on property than toilet paper and really anything else.
Most landlords (60+%) made a loss precovid. This year it will be significantly higher as costs have increased significantly faster than rents (as much as 18x faster).
Further, government taxes, fees and charges account for 30-50% of the upfront cost of a house. Then a significant proportion of costs ongoing on top.
I didn't literally mean guaranteeing returns. I'm referring to the protections they offer investment properties (tax, depreciation, negative gearing etc etc) that stand to protect the value of investments, and protect returns even when landlords make terrible investments into properties that aren't returning a positive rental return.
Most Landlords made a nett loss of 60% pre-covid? Source please.
What costs have increased faster than rent? Again, source please.
Please detail your 30-50% of upfront costs.... the upfront cost of PURCHASING a home is not eaten up by 30-50% of government costs. And the cost of building a home is also not in line with your comments.
Source for your comments above would be appreciated.
Governments guarantee principal places of residence much more, what with the first home owner grants, land tax exemption, capital gains tax exemption, and pension assets test exemption. Plus no stamp duty when you inherit the family home.
If you want property prices to come down, look firstly to the ridiculous protections that family homes get.
You're so far off the mark it's not funny. Helping low and middle income earners get their first start in the housing industry, is not driving up the cost of housing.
If the issue was "it was too easy for FHOB to get into the market" we wouldn't be having this discussion.
There are over 3 million investment properties. The negative gearing benefits attributed to this cost over $12.7bn per year. If you want, we can compare the financial "benefit" given to FHOG's versus the financial benefit derived from negative gearing, asset depreciation, tax deductions, interest offsets and the rest, I'm more than happy to go through that exercise with you.
Through financial structures and poorly allocated benefits, our government more or less ensure the growth of property values. Anyone with half a brain knows they do this to protect their own interests. A market crash would also have disastrous impacts for our Superannuation.
The second housing became a profitable investment - any chance of "affordability" existing in our markets became non existent. You quite simply cannot have Housing as a primary form of personal investment - whilst making it affordable. The only morons who think that, are the same morons who think bringing 700,000 new immigrants to the country won't impact housing supply.
I didn't limit my enquiry to first home buyer subsidies, but rather the very many subsidies that accrue to all homeowners whether it's their first home or not.
The only morons who think that, are the same morons who think bringing 700,000 new immigrants to the country won't impact housing supply.
Any Aussies who are too dumb to keep up with migrants deserve what they get
Most landlords made a loss (60+%) precovid.
LOL.
Now that would have been a bubble popper but the bubble is still inflated because Government interference & conflict of interest keeps pumping disguised housing regulations that are favourable for investment & immigration deals straight into it, i.e. guaranteeing safe return of investment.
Only if you are mortgaged to the tit on housing. Which is exactly the problem that is inflating demand. People are buying houses as investments with debt and successfully passing on the cost of their shitty financial decisions to the people renting their "investments". The only entity who really wins in this situation is the banks raking in the mortgage interest and the cash investors watching the value of their portfolio sky rocketing.
If housing wasn't incentivised as an investment and treated more like a utility / necessity we probably would have this issue. Houses per people is a tiny part of the demand creation at the moment, most demand for housing is being created by investors buying up the sector.
The alternative is the houses don’t get built because people have to wait 10, 20, 30 years to save up enough money to pay with cash.
There are plenty of communist countries that treated housing like a utility/necessity. They consistently have the worst, lowest common denominator standard of housing out there. No one wants that. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
The rba has written at length about the cause of the recent increased demand. It’s primarily households splitting since covid and people are spending more time at home and wfh and want more space. In fact, investor demand has been in decline - ironically one of the reasons for increasing rents.
There are kinds of rent control that make sense like removing fixed term contracts and allowing it to roll onto a month-month with a maximum rent increase attached. This reduces uncertainty for renters and doesn't force renters to constantly keep moving when landlords decide to unreasonably raise rent.
This dishonest argument comes up every time rent control is discussed, to the point it's bordering propaganda.
Using terms like "smashing landlords in the face" is misrepresenting reasonable measures that could be taken to address the housing crisis.
"Rent control" can have many different forms. And while the New York models, which you are talking about, has some serious problems. There are of course better models and ideas we could build a fair system off, to curb the inhumane rent increases we are currently experiencing.
One system to build off, which has been working very well, could be the Dutch system: https://www.government.nl/topics/housing/rented-housing
How does rent control solve anything in the short term? If vacancies are nearly non-existent then it just means first in, best dressed. Even without the hyperbole, it is still a discouragement to building new investment properties. The only short term answer I can see is to incentivise multi tenancy either actively (e.g. subsidies) or by letting high rents take their course. Longer term, government can build more social housing to increase supply and if they monitor rental conditions and adjust the flow of social housing builds it will naturally control rents.
In the short term? it will reduce the rate at which rents increase. Making housing, a basic necessity, less unaffordable.
The example I gave is rent control that does not discourage new property investments. If we switch our landlord focused paradigm, we can state that our lack of rent control did in fact, not result in a supply of sufficient housing.
we can state that our lack of rent control did in fact, not result in a supply of sufficient housing.
Not really though. Before 2019 we had high immigration but more than sufficient supply. Rents were stagnant and unit prices were even declining. There were even talks of an oversupply associated bubble bursting. Tenancy laws had less rent price intervention then compared to now.
One system to build off, which has been working very well, could be the Dutch system: https://www.government.nl/topics/housing/rented-housing
There is no housing shortage in the Netherlands?
There is a housing shortage in almost every livable, Western country. This is due to external, global factors like post pandemic housing needs and inflation.
The Dutch rent control has worked well for decades, protecting renters and keeping inflation in check.
In fact, it's a great example because I know both rental markets first hand, and Australian renters, without their basic protections, are absolutely worse off
The Dutch rent control has worked well for decades
At first glance the systems doesn't seem that different from the Australian system in writing other than the rent ceiling and the fix proportion designated for lower income residents. I'm not against that.
Just looking at the outcomes pre-2023 (because the data isn't there yet).
Housing costs for Netherlands was around 27-30% of disposable household income (post tax) for renters and in Australia this was around 19-20% of gross household income.
The average tax rate for single workers is 23% but lets be generous and call it 25% for households. This would translate to a rent to disposable income ratio of 26.6% for Australian households. Quite comparable and even possibly the lower end of Netherlands range.
https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/2023/107/article-A003-en.xml
In another dataset besides my workings above, it shows Australian renters pay a much lower percent of their disposable income compared to the Netherlands.
https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC1-2-Housing-costs-over-income.pdf
In this document you will also find the actual rents as a around or just under 20% of final household consumption expenditure in the Netherlands. This compared to the latest figure of 20.76% for Australia shows that the outcomes aren't very different at all.
https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/2023/107/article-A003-en.xml
Seems like the dutch system doesn't prevent overbidding either.
You are comparing apples to oranges as in the Netherlands, the rental market has higher quality homes and a lot better tenant protection laws.
You get better isolated homes with better access to public transportation and better security in terms of rental rights for that money
The argument that "overbidding exists in the Netherlands, the Netherlands has rent protection therefore rent protection did nothing to prevent overbidding" is, of course, ridiculous.
Easy to handwave the empirical outcomes as apples to oranges once you have them side by side. Interesting that your argument is now "higher prices = higher quality" despite your initial argument being "keeping inflation in check". Many of those differences be explained by the denser accommodation stock and different building codes (which I agree needs work) rather than the tenancy system. If everything is so "apples to oranges" why is the system applicable as an example in the first place?
The argument that "overbidding exists in the Netherlands, the Netherlands has rent protection therefore rent protection did nothing to prevent overbidding" is, of course, ridiculous.
Please quote me where I made such an argument.
User deleted comment
9mo
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/15/netherlands-housing-crisis-dutch-elections
Literally the first result from a google search you dumbass.
Was the insult necessary? I was questioning the understanding of that person's claim that said system "has been working very well".
No, but the TP situation does parallel the growing greed we see in Australian real estate, FOMO has turned y’all LOCO. Wait / weren’t there restrictions on how much toilet paper you could buy because some people tried to hoard it all? Guess it really is like the TP situation
Ok so rent controls magnify existing issues
What's the alternative?
The term 'affordable housing' is defined by the NSW government - less than 30% of gross household income for households up to and including 'moderate income'.
'Moderate income' is also defined by the NSW government as households between 80% and 120% of the relevant median income for Sydney, based upon a formula for number of adults and children living in the home.
That puts the Sydney household income eligibility limit for 'affordable housing' at $193,400 for a couple with four children, for example.
The property needs to be let at a discount of at least 20% versus market rent (as per the NSW Government Rent Report).
Do with that information what you will...
How could a couple on $190k afford $1100 a week though??
If they each earn half, their combined after-tax weekly income is $2,757. $1,100 a week rent would be 40% of that. It's higher than the strictest recommendations, but it's definitely doable.
Yeah great point. 190k sounds like a lot of money (and globally in the scheme of things it is). But after tax is like 2.5k/week. That’s still 44% of that family’s income. We haven’t even gotten to what it would cost to have 4 kids!
- Affordable
- Affluent
Pick one.
The model of chucking some "affordable" appartments into a luxury development is an unworkable gimmick. It's a shame that the public laps it up uncritically.
That’s about what I take home per week.
So you’re saying you can afford it?
RAISE THE PRICE!
User deleted comment
9mo
au.news.yahoo.com/1150-p...
The bigger issue here is the use of government subsidies to fund the development of these so called affordable housing units which are very clearly never intended for lower income residents.
There is also the same thing in Ryde and mq which are listed as "affordable housing" yet no one who qualifies for it would be able to afford it.
That’s why we need to build more housing in these areas
It's one of the most desirable places to live in the world.
Isn't affordable housing supposed to be for essential workers so even they can live in affluent suburbs cos you still need nurses, firemen, teachers etc there?
User deleted comment
9mo
I don't think anywhere near Bondi is affordable though, especially for said professional salaries
User deleted comment
9mo
still quite a bit ask actually. Marrickville median rent is 550pw and average salary for nsw teachers is 84K. That's about 45% of weekly income spend on rent, much higher than recommended 30% (not going to specific circumstances like graduate teachers get paid less, sharing room an option, not including kids etc)
User deleted comment
9mo
My point is there should be affordable units dedicated to essential workers based on their salary. I don't think there is any near Bondi. It used to be that you can commute nearby, but even that is no longer possible as nearby suburbs become out of reach of essential worker incomes, in the average sense.
I feel like you're expecting workers to commute 1h+ to Bondi which sounds completely unreasonable
You don't need to live in Bondi Junction to work in Bondi Junction though?
Someone further up used the example of Ryde, Ryde is around 1hr from Bondi Junction on public transport, and the affordable housing is still not affordable, how far out are you expecting people to live? If people end up too far out any savings in affordable housing is nullified by travel costs and times.
Travel 2 hours a day to serve people coffee and not even make as much p.a. as it costs to rent this "affordable" housing.
Your comment will surely be upvoted, but if you used exactly that logic with buying a place, you'd get hung. People seem to think they should be able to buy premium land anywhere in Sydney.
User deleted comment
9mo
Not really, this sub has a very very very large base that does not want to venture out West of Marrickville and feel like they are entitled for affordable housing in the premium suburbs East of it.
User deleted comment
9mo
You should be able to buy premium areas in Sydney.
It's affordable if you're a beurocrat that was in charge of robodebt, then got a sweet new gig paying $900k a year from your mates in the purple circle.
Sorry but the idea there should be $250-500/wk ‘affordable’ rentals in absolutely every pocket of Sydney is both delusional and entitled. I don’t like the way our housing situation is headed but it’s completely normal to have a handful of affluent suburbs in a city, that’s life.
A better angle for this article would’ve been criticism of how lazy the blanket rule for affordable housing is, as shown particularly in this instance. There’s clearly going to be suburbs above median prices where it’s not worth wasting time on - ie Bondi. The fact the government can’t be assed to even tailor a scheme to be more effective is all the proof needed that they have no intention of ‘fixing’ things. This article turned to shit instantly in the name of clickbait…
Sorry but this is garbage old school thinking. If you look at any first world city e.g. London, you'll find that 30% of every new development is affordable housing. There is no such thing as rich suburbs like here, even Mayfair has a ton of public housing.
Keeps the community more connected and workers closer to jobs. You don't get as many rich right wingers with f you got mine attitudes when the old lady across the road is on Centrelink
People in Mayfair public housing are not included in mayfairs community. When did you last live in London? Houso's are avoided at all cost and sadly ignoring them is just part of life for londoners
User deleted comment
9mo
They live together in a rats nest. Easy peasy.
Not sure if /s…
Excellent question.
Had a friend who's parents moved to double bay or Bellvue hill or some shit.
"But boring out here, not much to do, have to go elsewhere to go out for dinner etc".
Yeah no shit, nobody that lives here has kids working in hospo and nobody working in hospo works around here.
Rich people build enclaves where the lowly underlings who staff events and create art can't live, turning them into barren suburbs with little culture other than complaining your neighbours didn't take their bin in quickly enough.
People don’t need to live in the same suburb they work in
User deleted comment
9mo
The significant majority of Australians do not work in the same suburb they live in (excluding WFH). Very unreasonable to expect that everyone can live within the same suburb they work in and if you want to do that AND have a lower income job then the person would need to live in a lower COL area. Even wealthier people don't live in the same area as they work.
User deleted comment
9mo
If I told you 9 phones cost $10,000 and 1 phone costs $8,000 which is the affordable option? All 10 are expensive but compared to others in the same category it is affordable. Why should someone living in Bondi pay the same rent as someone living in Mt Druitt?
In all my life I've never met anyone who has worked in the same suburb they lived in. My first few jobs as a teen, I drove 30 minutes + and so did my work mates. That's just what happens...that's life
Just because something has been some way for a long time doesn't mean it should still be that way.
Saying it's just life is a cop out.
Not really.
It's reality.
A suburb which they can afford
They’d commute? That’s just how housing works in the entire planet. Some neighbourhoods are more expensive than low paid people that work there can afford.
Where do hospitality and service sector workers for Bondi live now?
User deleted comment
9mo
So it doesn't really matter anyway. There are still services and hospitality staff in Bondi.
We also don't really need to worry because prices of property in Bondi are currently also based on what services are offered in that area. If service workers are pushed out from providing services due to rising costs then the area become less attractive, loses value and costs come down. It's all priced in.
User deleted comment
9mo
That's a... textbook explanation. Do you really think that's how it actually works?
4% of waverly council households are public housing. Although i have a feeling lots of them are oldies who got in in the 70's so not hospitality workers.
There are a shitload of 1960's redbrick apartments that are small 2 and 3 bedrooms, 1 bath and depending on the landlord haven't been renovated since the 60's. You can get a room in one of those for $300-$350 a week.
Not far away is UNSW which has about 4000 students who live on campus and some of those would have jobs, plus kingsford and kensington has probably 10,000 more students.
Just say you don't want the Poor's near you. You want your own little pocket of extremely rich and out of touch people and slums for the poor, away and out of sight.
Lots of people don't want to hear it though, however logical it might be.
What's worse, the idea means that governments will waste money subsidising crap like this in order to meet some KPIs and appear "fair" instead of putting money into far more affordable suburbs that are still within sensible commuting distance of the city and getting 3-4 times to result.
I will say I'm lucky enough to have a job that allows me to work remotely internationally but the only way to get affordable housing is to leave the country at this point..
Sure, you can live in some random suburb in the countryside of QLD for moderately cheap but you can live in the middle of Tokyo for under $1000 per month for your own apartment or around $500 per month for the middle of Osaka for even cheaper.
Japan is considered "Expensive in Asia" aswell lol.
The only way I'm able to escape this exploitative system is to live overseas and I'm completely ok with that.
Whilst I’m sure you are right, I’d like to see some examples of listings in Timoteo for $1000/month/$12,000/year. I’m sure they exist but I’m not sure many would want to live in those circumstances.
On the other hand, maybe what we need is more dwellings that are Japanese style for service workers who want to be close to work. It’s going to be well located, affordable but tiny. It’s inevitably the trade off. Or 6 people living in a 1 bedroom apartment.
Edit: Tokyo
I'm assuming you mean Tokyo, but yeah it does depend on your standards of living and if you need the space.
For me personally, I don't need much and will most likely be outside most of my time there anyways so I can live a fairly simple lifestyle in my apartment.
Here are a few examples in Tokyo:
Cheaper end (Near Ikebukuro)
Higher end of 1k (Near Shinjuku)
I don't think any studio apartments can be comparable here in Sydney and are usually much older and disgusting somehow.
Are you serious about those prices? Are they crappy apartments? Shit, I need to look.
Absolutely serious.
The ones in Osaka I found where built in the 2013 for 50k yen, you can get cheaper for older ones ofcourse.
Tokyo ones are hit or miss but you can find fairly decent ones for 10k, the cheaper ones in Tokyo are mid 80 ones that aren't the greatest I'd say.
Size wise they're as big as our studio apartments in Sydney with better utlities.
Shit. I knew they weren't a lot but I'd assumed they'd increased like the rest of the big capital cities around the world.
Now I just need to find remote work and I'm set.
No one wants to live 10 minutes from the city anyway. But there sure is a lot of "Have an hour long+ commute there and back, idiot" statements here. If people cannot afford to live anywhere near work don't be surprised if services dry up, or costs go up. This limits teacher/doctor and industry quality in expensive locations as a greater supply and variety of skilled labour physically will not make it to their potential place of work. Hopefully the satellite cities continue to grow and absorb misplaced workers.
Satellite cities don’t work.
Just build more housing where people want to live.
If you're renting you don't get to choose what suburb you live in.
But in a well-functioning society we need to ensure those who work in these suburbs can afford to live at least within 45min of work. If not, these businesses will either go out of business or have to raise prices so those who work there can be paid more.
Without greater supply, the latter option won't achieve much other than increasing rents further.
You literally do if you can afford it? Or are you saying renters are second class citizens who should not be able to provide a service you? Who will pour your coffee, teach your kids, treat your ailments? If you have less supply of labour that's not great for your city, unless it is severely oversupplied or something. Plus the reality is, a lot of jobs are in the city. Lost travel time is lost productivity. Just saying "too bad so sad", doesn't fix these issues.
User deleted comment
9mo
Yes as long as you are happy with costs going up its "fine". Less fine for industries with lower supply of workers, but probably costs will just increase more there to. But that's still not a great outcome, workers spend more time/money commuting, and locals have to spend more. Seems like we could address that somewhat with better transport and smarter planning, not that its an easy overnight fix.
Renting in Bankstown, Cabramatta or Liverpool is more affordable, why would you want to move to Bondi if you can't afford it then blame? Definition of Affordable in wealthy suburb is different from average ones.
Saw a listing over the weekend down the Peninsula here in Melbourne for $1600pw.
omfg people don't need affordable housing. they need social housing.
Can I rent my house out and apply for this social housing? Serious question
There's already a 5 year waitlist in NSW for studio/1BR places. 10+ years for anything bigger. Best of luck!
Mf to affluent people it probably is why you mfers tryna live in affluent suburbs when you got no money
I saw something like this with community housing in Brighton - WTF.
My husband works in a Pilbara ‘city’. He will be there for the next three years, for the gas plant expansion, flies in on Monday out on Friday. We were looking for suitable accommodation, furnished. $2,100 to $2,250 per week. So he doesn’t need to come home every weekend. Currently living in caravan park cabin, with no kitchen.
Fully furnished, WI/WO. Instead of buying furniture in town.
Easy.
Run a company, pay yourself a low salary.
Work pays for a car for "local client visits", client entertainment (meals out), staff/supplier meetings (coffees), client and supplier meetings away from home (holidays), working from home costs (internet, huge 4k screen, etc.).
No doubt, this is how it's done. Pay for very little from your miserly salary to take advantage of government assistance.
In my local area not in Sydney or Melbourne a 2/1/1 Villa rent is now 500+/ week
struggling to find a place to rent and saw this and tbh got pissed off. It's so hard to find something good at the right price now
Don't look in Sydney's eastern suburbs if you aren't a high earner or already wealthy? How do people find outrage at this? It isn't a secret it's pretty much the most expensive corner of the country
But I want all the perks wealthy people have without spending any money. Why won’t someone give me everything I want?
And yet wealthy people expect the same services as the rest of us. Where do the cafe workers, cleaners, teachers, nurses, police all live?
Not to say people deserve to live in somewhere like Bondi, but a lack of affordable housing has social implications. Why would a teacher work at Bondi primary school and have to commute 2 hours a day when they can work at a school near their house?
You are assuming that there are teaching jobs readily available near their house. Plenty of people commute 2hrs a day in Sydney traffic to get to work.
Teaching and nursing are in a skills shortage as it is. I’m sure a teacher living in western Sydney would have no issue finding a local role, why commute 2 hours.
If that was the case then there would be no public schools in eastern Sydney because they would have no more teachers.
That’s a good point but this is an issue that’s only really started to become an issue in the last 10 years or so. What happens in 10 years when the cheapest rental in the eastern suburbs is $1200 a week?
It’s why you need a diversity of housing options, otherwise who’s going to work to make coffee in these places?
London is already facing similar issues.
Yep exactly. No one will be working in those cafes.
Unless there is a severe undersupply of teachers, which won't happen due to increasing migration, people will end up commuting longer to work or take up shared accommodation to reduce rent.
Don't work there if you are a teacher than. Work wherever you want to work. Wealthy people can then pay a premium for whatever they want to attract people to them. You know, kind of how a free market works.
Public schools can't offer more than the award and there still public schools in wealthy suburbs.
Yeh except teachers don’t really get that option. You can get the same pay at any school. Even private schools don’t pay much more.
Ok, still doesn't force you to work at a school you don't want to. If noone will go there than they will either pay more or close down? Not up to anyone to do shit they don't want to do. Fact is people would rather do something and then claim they are a victim instead of just doing the simple sorting out their shit and getting on with their life
If service workers cannot afford to stay and provide services in a certain area, then those areas will be less attractive and prices will go down. Not a problem, everything is priced in.
Prices now already reflect how willing workers are to travel to and provide services to expensive places.
It's not really that difficult. It's just a victim culture people like to try and make a thing. Like simple, don't do it if it doesn't pay enough for what you think you give. Either people will or they won't and the market will adjust.
Yea, everything is priced in. If services are an important part of the price. Then a decline in services will see a decline in prices. If a decline in services does not see a decline in prices, then maybe services aren't such an important part of why people pay so much to stay there. Right now we're seeing neither a decline in prices nor a dearth of services.
Perks? Not wanting to live in a shithole is a perk I guess.
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9mo
Or the government needs to implement appropriate policies avoiding opal tower situations and encouraging affordable and liveable housing with adequate public transportation because that is their job and that is what they are paid to do.
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9mo
Everywhere is a shithole.
It’s not normal to have a standard of apartment where you can touch the ceiling if you stand on your toes, where inadequate bathroom ventilation means black mould is a certainty, where kitchens are only large enough for a microwave and a sink, and where the appartment has only one window on an unusable balcony looking out straight into an identical apartment five metres away which gives the feel of a small cardboard box with the end cut out.
It is not an unreasonable expectation to want to live in an apartment with a little bit of light. And it’s not like it’s different in the wall to wall houses of western Sydney either.
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9mo
Well the non shithole areas are only like that because they were able to price out the trouble makers. How else would you propose filtering out problematic people?
You’re both right. A 1br appartment in surry hills has never before cost $1M on average. I’ve seen multiple going at prices like that in the last 18 months, or ones which go for 750 for 1br that will need at least 250 worth of renovations.
Yea: expect to pay more to live in popular areas because of supply and demand.
Also yea: there’s something quite wrong at the moment with prices that do not represent quality or liveability.
Prices simply reflect what people are willing to pay. We shall call that the 'market'
Just because it is wrong to some, it's is perfect quality and liveability to whoever does purchase it.
If you don't like it, look where you do. It's very simple and the vast majority of the population does exactly that, while the amount who think they can control what other people do seems to be growing, it is still a really small minority of the real world, no matter how much you think it is big in your little echo chambers you live in on the internet
Look we all know the whole ‘it’s worth what people will pay for it’ thing, but if you ignore the problematic policies around housing you’re the one in ‘your little echo chamber’.
Regulation is poor, the whole Jean Nassif thing didn’t come from nowhere. There is a completely crooked element running the extortionately profitable property development racket that underpins the supply in australia. Land banking by developers and controlled releases are exacerbating the affordability of housing.
Regulation is also poor: properties being built have low standards. The standards being imposed do not consider liveability, they are at high risk of defects, and even though I have tried - most banks put a red flag on them and won’t give finance for them unless you put in a hefty deposit. Because they are at such a high risk of failure and subsequent loss on resale.
Regulation is also poor at the federal level. Land and environment court basically rules in favour of developer each time. This means large developments ‘in public interest for housing supply’ get built quickly with zero accompanying public infrastructure.
Regulation on councils is poor - anectdotally the 50C shot boxes in the west are built because of council requirements, they’re poor quality and a public health concern. Nobody with half a brain would live in an oven on a flood plain.
Overall this isn’t an east/west problem because it applies across Australia. The same thing is happening in Newcastle Sydney Melbourne Wollongong, anywhere people can get a job house prices are nuts. And it’s because of the incentive to own investments over homes.
O diddums. If people are buying them, than that is what they are worth. If you aren't purchasing than you don't need to worry about the choices and risks others are making with their own money/investments.
Mate your poor grammar, and idiotic tone are clear indicators of your intelligence and thus capability to understand complex markets.
Some one is taking then piss anout this being called affordable.
Did that hit a nerve or are you just taking this way too seriously.
Sure, but do you want to be in hospital in Randwick or Bondi Junction and have your meds monitored by a nurse or junior doctor on a 12 hour shift, already exhausted from the 1.5 hour commute each way as they can’t afford to live near work and public transport is broken?
Disparate housing is not good for anybody in that way. This is a finance forum and we should support solutions which are good for productivity. Health workers not being able to afford to live where they work is not good for efficiency or productivity.
Nurses have $80k base salaries, and make more through shift work and overtime. Randwick has a median 2br apartment rent of $773 at the moment. $40k a year is comfortably affordable for two people on $80k - 25% of the gross income - and those are median apartments. More luxurious apartments are also affordable - a household income of $160+k isn't bound by the 30% rule of thumb. If people with those incomes choose to spend a bit more on housing, so be it - that's a lifestyle choice. Again, that's median. Half are cheaper.
Rents are having a moment right now. But they were stable or falling for many years in Sydney.
Here is Bondi Junction, that the article talks about.
Rents became far cheaper over the 2010s in real terms. People aren't used to the idea of rents being anywhere near the real cost of housing because investors went nutso and invested at very low yields. That's abating a little bit, and so there's a lot of complaining. But it's only just reverted to mean, and is maybe overshooting for the moment.
But then the lowest paid workers just received a 5% (or, after re-classification, an 8%) pay increase. You'd expect rents to capture some of that. No one likes rapidly rising prices, just as no one remembers nearly a decade of stable or falling prices. But this isn't some structural challenge to hiring. People paid more as proportion in the past, this isn't a new development.
I dont care about Bondi or randwick because it isn't affordable to me. I assume my own risk/well being and don't assume what anyone else can or can't do or should or shouldn't do.
People travelling 1.5 hours to or from work and a 12 hour day isn't a big deal to many, and to those it is, I assume wouldn't do it.
Life is all about personal choices. People can choose to look for whatever job they want to do in whatever location they want to. If there isn't opportunity that makes them happy they need to readjust their expectations and go from there.
This is a finance forum, for people to learn actual life things, not to beg for the world to be gifted to them in the way they want it to be
REA could also you know not advertise it as affordable
It is affordable comparatively for the area
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9mo
Colloquially people looking for low cost housing won't be looking in the most expensive corner of a country
Low cost is relative to the area.
Affordability is relative.
Around $1000/week for 2 bedders with new appliances and an ocean view in a premium suburb within one of the most desired cities in the world?
If anything, that's a decent price compared to what you'd be paying for a 2 bedder anywhere else in Sydney.
Were you expecting to pay $500/week to live in a 2 bedder in Bondi, maybe try living within your means.
Sorry mate, what were you expecting?
You are looking at probably the top 10 in demand area in the WORLD.
I feel sympathy that you can't afford to live in a suburb 5 mins walk to the beach, 10-15 mins to the CBD and have access to hundreds of cool bars and restaurants.
You could always just live within your means.
…they’re trying to.
Then perhaps try something other than Bondi Junction.
OP hasn’t said they were specifically trying to live there. They saw an article about an “affordable” place that isn’t actually affordable. It’s not that deep.
If they're not looking in Bondi why do they care about apartment prices in Bondi?
tbh got pissed off.
thats what they want, the more pissed off people they can gain the more traction the article gets and the more clicks it gathers. These articles are all about funneling as much ad traffic/revenue into the website as possible.
Its an expensive area at the best of times so its not really all that much of a surprise. We are in a shit situation at the moment but that doesn't mean affluent/expensive properties shouldn't exist at all.
Where are you looking exactly
I always laugh when I see 'slammed' in a headline.
It's also a good way to instantly tell that the article will be clickbait/ragebait.