A jack-of-all-trade home renovator charges some $7k to $10k per...

A jack-of-all-trade home renovator charges some $7k to $10k per bathroom with the lot. Takes them a week and a half, costs maybe $2k.

When I was young and help my dad when he was overseas, us kids managed to pull in about $10k a month before expenses and free labour. It was signwriting so the material costs are often very little, except for neon and lightboxes.

So if the work is constant, a mom and pop operation could take in about that median income or slightly below.

Got to be sure the work is constant though.

We hired a bricklayer and his son to work on the house. On a week when it rainy most of the day, the poor kid panic and screams, literally, because his wife will give him hell as the week's pay is going to be very little. We often advanced him his pay... which can backfired because the week after the guy think he's working for free. Lucky his old man keep him in check sometime, sometime he just understand that life is tough on a trade.

So yea, the idea that most hardworking Australians, living in the suburbs, could afford an almost $1m run-down property where they work and live is a bit of a joke.

So investors better hope that those foreign buyers, most of whom are multi-millionaires in Australian dollars - you I don't imagine they like to live among the plebs too much... But investor better hope that they could flip their properties to those people; or hope that the typical tradie or fluro worker get that much deserved pay raise in line with their work to afford those million dollar houses.