Smashed Avocado-Gate - Bernard Salt

Petrol during the Gulf war in '90-91 reached about 80c, it's now about $1.20 or so. In '99 a Hyundai Elantra was $19,999 drive away with 5-speed, air and steer, now the same car is about the same price with all sorts of advances. In 1977 my father bought his Rank Arena telly 53cm for about $700, nowadays a flat screen can be bought at under $10 an inch, the real cost of those would be lucky to be 10% of what it was then.

But some things have risen massively, beef and lamb in particular, although pork and chicken not so much. Even take away pizzas, and delivery pizzas nowadays are not much different to the costs that they were when we used to get them whilst watching Wrestlemania 1,2,3 etc in the mid '80s. Housing in capital cities, especially Sydney and Melbourne though have risen exponentially. But regional and rural properties have risen at a much flatter clip over this time.

One thing i find odd, is that people view housing in the total opposite way to business. When costs go up, (wages, rents etc) business moves offshore or goes FIFO to avoid costs. But people seem to clamour to pay the higher prices, yet whinge because they are high, instead of looking at cheaper options. For the deposit on a Sydney place, you can buy outright a place in a small country town, and who knows, just start up an eatery or get some minimal job because housing costs will be removed from your spend. But so few people do this, they will whinge, complain and lament the high prices of city properties and then spend their whole life finding the $4K or more monthly mortgage payment or rent in an outer suburb and spend 10 hours a week commuting.

FWIW, a block of land (900m2) in Lismore, around 100 Km west of Geelong is just $20K.

101 William Street, Lismore VIC 3324 - Vacant Land For Sale - 2013017378

One could buy that and get some sort of cheap house like a kit home and wa-la...cheap housing, and about 70 minutes to Geelong and a little less to Ballarat. Not too much different to living a similar commute to a bigger city, and a hell of a lot cheaper.

 

That graph tells me it's not .

Don't forget it is produced by the ABS; so it must correct!!!!

 

That's because cigarettes suck.

 

I'll put the kettle and popcorn on. . . . .

 

@Dave3214 has anybody ever told you that you're a smart cookie?

I never thought of it that way, but it makes perfect sense. Businesses move all the time to reduce operational costs. So why are people so unwilling to move to reduce the operational costs of their life?

For a reasonably priced, mid sized city, I highly recommend Toowoomba. Pick yourself up an old Queenslander in one of the inner city suburbs (I quite like Newtown myself) for around the 300k mark, add a couple of personal touches and you're laughing. Gorgeous small town feel, but it's the 2nd biggest inland city in Australia (after Canberra). Toowoombians (yes I just made that up) buy property in their early to mid twenties, yes even the mere mortals without the uni degrees.

 

Can't argue there, the modern world's biggest public health disaster, I don't know how the nasty things can still be legal.

 

The difference is that companies leave their workers here and hire new, cheaper ones in the destination country.

Here, there may be a partner, kids and extended family to consider in a move. No easy thing to take kids away from their school and friends, ask partner to leave their job and support network etc.

Interestingly, the regional health stats tend to be worse for smoking, obesity, and suicide than in the major cities...

 

But my mother lives there. I would have to be a good boy!!!

 

Of course the current generation spends less now on cigarettes and alcohol when you combine those items. Far fewer people smoke these days. With alcohol sold in supermarkets and at Dan Murphy's etc, it is so much more accessible and thus cheaper than in the olden days.

 

I would think that workers had wives and kids 40 years ago too. People just weren't as sooky as they are now.

 

A few days ago we were given stats that describe the average income of all working Australians, including part-time workers, was $40K Something. Well guess what? Bayview was correct all along folks. We have been bombarded for several years now by Stats telling us that the "average" wage is in the 70ks or 80Ks, and he and I have been looking around everyone we work with trying to find someone on that income other than the one manager for, in my workplace at least, about fifteen part-time drones.

Anecdotally, I was able to use my brain rather than read stats in a newspaper, and I worked out about 30 years ago that housing was getting more expensive than it was previously. @emza, I was having the same conversations in 1980 with my middle-class raised, bank employee colleagues whose parents wanted them to buy an inner ring Ashgrove house for $60-80K when a FHB house in Bracken Ridge or Strathpine or Springwood or Rochedale was about $35-40K and our first home, a dump at Lawnton cost $21K. We couldn't afford an average house in Brisbane in 1980 either.

 

They probably spent more on drugs tho, especially those on the dole .

 

With the internet, you can buy anything cheaper now

 

But it will cost you more if you shoot up more!!!

 

Also don't forget 2010 is end of GFC (in Australia not Europe) so there was reduced discretionary spending. A lot of people 'bunkering down' and paying down home loans & essentials first for a safety buffer before discretionary items. Better to look over a period of time than at one point in time.

Angel - it is also better to look at household income when comparing affordability of a house rather than average or median salaries. Changes over the decades as women entered workforce in large numbers either full time or part time & boosted household income.

 

Forty years ago, women didn't tend to work outside the home. There wasn't their job to consider.

 

I made my wife work. I let her stop five years ago when she hit 55 .

We weren't sooky.

 

We did when we were buying our first homes. We needed all the cash we could get. Oops, should be 35 years ago, then.

Actually wasn't there massive inflation in the mid 70s when wives DID start working more?

 

Smashed avo is sooooooo last week guys, c'mon... sautéed field mushrooms is where it's at!!

 

All my family has always worked. As a child in primary school, I found it weird that other kids mums didn't work.

If you want to get some interesting insights into recent economic history, have a look at, Making Australia Great: Inside Our Longest Boom.