"Well that's where you're wrong . 50000 back then was a lot more ,a whole lot more than 550k now .Some people were earning $40 a week"
I am not sure what date you are talking about, but nobody other then a junior was earning $40/week in 1970, when I re-entered the workforce having completed year 12. I think I was on about $55-60 then. In 1966 I was earning $12/w but that jumped to $16/w on my 16th birthday. In later 1968 I was getting $40/w working as a goods assistant at Sydney's Alexandria goods yard (I put up my age by 1 year to get adult wages).
Back in 1973 I recall a friend whose family had to sell their house (marriage break-up) in Sydney's Bellevue Hill for $60,000. That house would now be worth $2.5-3m. An ordinary house cost around $20,000 in the outer suburbs. House prices rose rapidly after 1973 after Whitlam got inflation raging, as well as wages.
So if you borrowed $50k plus had a 20% deposit (which was standard) then you were buying a top line house in 1973, but if you bought 10 years later than it was only about 30-50% above the average cost, I think.
The truth is that a single male on the average wage can not do today what you did - support a family in Sydney or Melburne. I was able to do that by moving out of Sydney in mid 1970s and going to Canberra where house prices were lower and jobs plentiful.
I totally agree with Waldo that there should be no foreign buying of Oz real estate. All it does is drive up costs, because workers will demand higher wages in order to pay for the higher housing costs. In addition the capital inflow pushes up the AUD making our industry uncompetitive, as does the higher housing input costs.
Furthermore it is negative for family formation. The high housing costs means that people will start families later on, if at all. This just adds to the aging profile of our population - a huge negative. It is just a system for national suicide.
Furthermore it just leads to a mis-allocation of resources and the expansion of the ponzi finance system that will have to ultimately be deflated to save our economy and society. Its great for those owning shares in the banks, I suppose (mostly baby boomers and overseas interests).
Yeah, it was great being a baby boomer getting housing whose costs were rapidly inflated away - wages grew fast to make the interest repayments pretty small in a few short years. But Tony Abbott says we need lower wages to compete with overseas players so the young people will not only have to pay for supporting old timers but also via compressed wages that have to stay that way as the AUD is too high due to the FIRE ponzi scheme.
Finally I agree that we have rubbish politicians who are basically looking after their own future rather than the interests of the nation. In what other nation would you find ex-pollies working for the Chinese govt, like Hawke, Keating and Alexander Downer? Our FTAs with Singapore, Korea, USA, China etc are all pure garbage.
I could go on a fair bit on these topics, but it makes me too angry so I will end it.
I think you should think a bit more deeply about the negatives for our economy and society rather than just view things from the perspective that you made it and are benefiting from the current high house prices.
