I haven't read the article and I'm not Australian but throwing a random guess out: isn't there a political issue about the conservative liberals stopping the labor party from rolling out a low income housing program that has historically paid for itself before?

[–] abhibeckert@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

No - our government is generally able to get things done. There might be vocal disagreement by the opposition party, but they can rarely block things. Also on this particular issue everyone agrees something needs to be done... it's just not clear what can be done.

Social housing for low income people is an entirely different issue. This article is talking about high income families who still can't afford a home.

If you want to buy a typical family home in a major city, the loan repayments are higher than the entire income of even the highest paid jobs a young person can get (lawyer, etc). Even if a husband and wife both work full time, the amount of money is not even close to within reach.

No bank will let you take out a loan for that much money unless you're covering a large portion of the purchase by selling another home that you bought 20 years ago. How is someone who graduated from law school in 2023 supposed to have bought a home 20 years ago?

I'm young and was able to buy a home recently... but I was only able to do that by choosing to live in an unusually small home on the outskirts of a regional city (the nearest "proper" city is a thousand miles away...). And also I got in before the pandemic - property values have gone up by 1.5x in the last two years in my suburb. I don't think we could afford it now. We also have a kid now, so we can't work full time... even at the price we paid two years ago, the bank wouldn't give us a loan anymore now that we're not able to both work full time.

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