Opinion: 'This is Australia. Are we not better than this?'

We’ve long talked about how the path to property ownership need not be linear.

Encouraging first-home buyers to think outside the box when it comes to investing in real estate.

Look at the “bridesmaids suburbs“, those areas that sit snuggly next to where you want to live but where sometimes, prices are less expensive.

We’ve suggested people weigh up the idea of rentvesting in a bid to get into the market (“You can have it all: rent where you want to live, but own a pile of bricks and mortar somewhere else”).

We’ve suggested quashing the idea that your home has to be on a quarter-acre block with a Hills Hoist in the backyard, and that apartments and vertical living can be a brilliant alternative, especially when it comes to prices of houses versus units.

And then there are all the incentives currently on offer, of which there must never have been more.

A smorgasbord of everything from the First Home Guarantee, providing assistance for pinched buyers struggling with a deposit, to the Home Guarantee Scheme to support single-parent families, the downsizer super contribution scheme incentivising retirees to move out of the family home in a bid to ease supply, and then the news in June that New South Wales is looking to follow Canberra’s lead with a plan to begin to reform stamp duty in the state.

But yet, none of that is enough.

This week, we reached the grim milestone that rents have hit new record highs across the combined capitals. And that suggestion I mentioned earlier, about how much better value units can be compared with a house? You better be quick – unit rents are now growing at a faster quarterly pace than house rents. You know what that means.

So, what is it going to take? How much more has to happen?

Australia’s affordability issues became an affordability crisis, which in turn trickled down to become a first-home buyer issue, which is now a first-home buyer crisis. And now the country’s rental issues have become a full-blown rental crisis, which is fast becoming a homelessness issue…which, well, we know what comes next…

None of what has been done is enough. This is Australia. Are we not better than this?