Houses haven't gone up much at all...you can still built a pretty good 4 bed 2 bath brick and tile home for less than $200k. it is the land they sit on that Council's and State Governments share the blame for slow releases and forcing Developers to pay huge up front costs.
In years gone by Councils provided much of the infrastructure in new developments, now the developers have to foot the cost of all infrastructure in a new sub division adding substantially to the cost of a basic bare block of land ready to build.
Kids today also want the very best of everything in their first home, double garage, games room, media room, and to live 5k's from the City.
The real issue is, there is NO shortage of land in this huge country, but there sure is a massive shortage of brains among our Politicians...they are forcing prices up with their greed and lack of smarts when it comes to budgets.
Just as an aside too, the cost to build the now almost mandatory cycle tracks all over the place are also pushing land prices up further purely so the ever increasing hoards of loony mamils can terrorise families out walking... A new relatively short "foot" bridge over a creek locally, which has become no more than a new race track for mamils, set the Council back $4.5 Million Dollars, and that money has to come from somewhere...
