Which city should you move to? Since you can't afford Sydney or Melbourne

There are certain conversations that are unique to those who live in Australia’s biggest cities in 2017. What’s the coolest new restaurant in town? What exciting new cultural event is the current hot ticket? And, if they don’t already own a house, where you’re going to move to in the next year or so in order to continue living?

After all, buying in Sydney and Melbourne is now a ghastly casino exclusively open to reckless high rollers with a devil-may-care attitude to their future ability to service a mortgage. And despite recent reviews into the rental market, instability for renters is rife and prices are rising steadily, even beyond those desirable inner city suburbs where public transport isn’t a horrific nightmare.

And were that not enough, the recent report from the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia concluded that renters will need half a million dollars more than property owners stashed away for retirement to pay for the privilege of not being able to afford a house.

And that should have put the fear of god into any non-owning resident. After all, there’s probably not that many millionaires with fat superannuation accounts who’ve been refusing to stop renting purely as a matter of principle.

So, since our governments have made clear that any housing affordability strategy that actually might make housing cheaper, is out of the question, where are Sydney and Melbourne’s current non-millionaire residents planning to non-millionairely reside?

Let’s weigh up some of the options, shall we?

Newcastle

Think of the beaches. Photo: Marina Neil

Median house price: $540,500

Median unit price: $480,000

Pros: Lovely beaches; growing arts scene; decent possibility of being described as “the next Silverchair”.

Cons: Temptation to keep high-paying Sydney job means five-hour daily commute; inferiority complex with twin city of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (aka the proper Newcastle).

Wollongong

Wollongong has a gorgeous coastline but can you remember how to spell it? Photo: Paul Jones

Median house price: $700,000

Median unit price: $498,500

Pros: Gorgeous coastline; soaring clifftops for hang gliding/watching hang gliders plummet earthward; Sydney traffic means it takes longer to cross two council districts than to get a train from Central to Wollongong in peak hour.

Cons: Still mourning the loss of the Illawarra Steelers; never quite recaptured their cultural peak as a regular punchline on The Aunty Jack Show; actually is it Wollongong or Woolongong? Or Wollongogogong? God, every spelling looks wrong.

Hobart

Think of how many times you can visit Mona if you live in Hobart. Photo: Tamara Voninski

Median house price: $382,888

Median unit price: $258,242

Pros: Nation’s highest number of Museums of Old and New Art; influx of hipsters and lumberjacks makes it a goldmine for beard and flannel entrepreneurs; entire state gently lulled to sleep each night by soothing drone of senator Eric Abetz.

Cons: Elevated risk of death by thylacine; only one phone line for the entire state; constant low-level fear of the island quietly drifting away in the dead of night.

Adelaide

Visit the German settlement of Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills. Photo: David Mariuz

Median house price: $501,166

Median unit price: $309,365

Pros: No shortage of churches; all festivals conveniently packed into the same month; cheap and plentiful high-quality wine makes everything feel much, much better.

Cons: Butt of national jokes; exodus of young people to the east means limited Tinder options; premier Jay Weatherill’s fight with Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg means federal government now planning to crush the state into dust.

Ballarat

You could even commute to Melbourne. Photo: Vince Caligiuri

Median house price: $320,000

Median unit price: $217,500

Pros: Commutable to Melbourne, if you like reading on trains; conveniently stockade-adjacent; can top up income by panning for tax-free gold.

Cons: Subject to second-hand smoke blowing in from the artsy folks in Daylesford; technically north of the Yarra and therefore treated with disdain by cool kids from St Kilda; historically high risk of death by bushranger.

Blinman

Just imagine the cachet of living in a ghost town.

Median house price: around $85,000

Median unit price: you’re kidding, right?

Pros: Mere 485-kilometre commute to Adelaide; cachet of living in a ghost town in the middle of the Flinders Ranges; annual Cook Out Back competition brings tourists in with cars in which one can potentially hide and escape.

Cons: Possibility of being ostracised by the other dozen people living there; paucity of first grade sporting fixtures and Olympic hosting duties; celebrity cachet diminished since the death of the amazing One Headed Cow of Blinman.

The Moon

Think of all the parking. Photo: Peter Meecham/Fairfax NZ

Median house/unit price: TBC

Pros: Little government interference, abundant cheese, ample parking.

Cons: Poor shopping facilities, infrequent touring acts, immediate death by asphyxiation.