This week a friend who lives in Sydney posted a link on social media to the story of a terrace house on the market for $22m. She noted, with the exasperation that only comes from someone who lives in Sydney and wishes one day to own some property, that you could buy a castle in Europe for that much. And sure, this terrace house has a three-car garage and en suites in all four bedrooms, so it is not exactly standard. But still.
I thought of her when the latest dwelling price data was released this week by the Bureau of Statistics.
The good news is that $22m is not the median price for a house in Sydney. The bad news is that it is $1.4m. And while you might think that your friends from Sydney do go on a bit, just note that the median cost of a house in Sydney is 72% higher than in Melbourne (just a lazy extra $586,000)
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Over the past year though, the real surge in dwelling prices has been in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide:
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The average price rise in Sydney was actually less than the rise in wages. But in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane the past year was a terrible one for affordability. But don’t worry about feeling left out – the past decade has been terrible for everyone’s ability to buy a........