News
Issue No. 14 - December/January 2004
South Australians live the ‘Great Australian Dream’
Despite nervousness over the Reserve Bank’s recent interest rate increase, South Australian home owners are faring better than their eastern seaboard counterparts, according to BankSA’s economic bulletin Trends.
With the State having an “enviable record of housing affordability among the major capitals", South Australia’s housing industry is likely to remain less expensive than the national average.
The latest issue of Trends, released today, gives an overview of South Australia’s housing market, and compares local trends against similar ones in other states.
Trends says that Australia—wide the rise in housing prices since 2001 has been three times larger than the increase in average mortgages, however in Adelaide the ratio is seven times more.
“Today’s Australians have three—and—a—half times more spending power on ordinary products than they did 40 years ago," Trends reports.
This means Australians can afford more, or better quality, products than ever before.
BankSA Managing Director Rob Chapman says the economic bulletin also highlights that Australians have a higher share of wealth in housing than most other rich nations, however declining areas of desirable land is one factor forcing home prices to grow faster than incomes.
“Unlike other products, land is not something the nation is making more of, so people are trying to make the most out of what they have," Mr Chapman says.
“They are doing this by incorporating more households into apartments where once there was just a single house, or even a handful of houses.
“It’s also evident that location still plays a very important factor as to housing industry price increases, as we’re seeing a shift to coastal living."
The economic bulletin reports that while the shift to the coast has been evident for the past century, it has “picked up pace in recent decades and is now the key theme in everything from TV shows to ...
