Solo Buyers Struggle

Every capital city is out of reach for a solo buyer earning the average Australian wage.

Analysis by Canstar shows that solo buyers are also priced out of a median priced unit markets in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

The national average full-time wage in January was $104,807. This will allow a solo buyer to borrow about $533,000, well below the median house price of every Australian capital city.

According to Canstar, to buy the median-priced house in Sydney, a solo buyer would need to be earning $232,000 a year, $166,000 in Brisbane and $145,000 in Melbourne.

Couples earning the national average wage could jointly afford a median-priced house in every capital city except Sydney and a median-priced unit in every capital.

Canstar data insights director Sally Tindall says for the average sole wage earner, the dream of buying a median-priced house is “basically dead and buried”.

Simon Kuestenmacher, of the Demographics Group, says this means buyers are often forced further out of the city to find something within their budget which is contributing to urban sprawl.

“Sprawl is in hyperdrive because building a square metre of housing on the outskirts of town is about half the cost of building a square metre of medium or high-density housing,” he says.