Seasons may change, but the Australian housing crisis does not.

Yesterday, property analysts Cotality released their quarterly report into renting in Australia and found that the median rental value across our capital cities is now $702 a week.

The ABS’s last average weekly earnings report, released in May, had the average wage at $2010 a week.

That’s an average, which is inflated by men and people in later careers, and is also before tax, which means you are also into housing expense distress areas (usually 30 per cent of weekly wage on house expenses).

It’s not that much better in the regions, where the median rental came in at $591 a week. It sounds better compared to what we are seeing the cities, but that’s before you remember wages tend to be lower in regional areas.

And if you are on minimum wage or welfare? Forget it. You’d be lucky to find a room you could afford to rent. 

Cotality has blamed a lack of supply for the increase, which a lot of analysts have identified. It’s not necessarily because we don’t have enough rentals, but because after the pandemic we all got sick of living with people and started looking for our own space, which has cut down on the number of people sharing dwellings.

But as with property prices for people entering the market, there are no solutions.

Australia is in the thick of a crisis 30 years in the making. John Howard screwed us with his capital gains changes (which they knew in 2004 was causing massive problems), and the lack of action since then has compounded the problem.

We often think of people trying to enter the market in this mess, which makes sense – it’s increasingly impossible, especially if you don’t have the bank of mum and dad (which many of us don’t).

But people who have managed to get into the housing market pretty much anytime since 2010 are also screwed because while housing prices continue to increase, they are saddled with historically high mortgages. That has flow-on effects for this generation for when they want to retire.

From the 2000/01 to 2019/20 financial years, the number of people who own their own home outright – so have paid off the mortgage – has dropped from just under 40 per cent of households to just under 30 per cent.

What this means is that even those who have managed to get into the market face a much longer period paying off their mortgages than the previous generation.

They have longer periods of financial pressure hanging over them, and less time to save for retirement (or even to retire – buy a house in your 40s and you’ll be working even longer to pay it off).

They will then probably have to use what super they have amassed to pay down their loan (banks are already asking prospective homebuyers how they plan on paying off the balance, given they don’t have enough working years left to complete their loan repayment schedule).

There is already talk among the finance and banking sectors of the need to offer 40-year loans so that people are able to meet repayments.

So we now have the trifecta. We have screwed renters, we have screwed people trying to get into the market, and we have screwed people who have managed to get into the market.

And instinctually, we know that – the most recent Newspoll reported that 34 per cent of people want home prices to continue to rise over the next three years.

If you consider that about 30 per cent of Australians have a mortgage, that makes sense. Their wealth and chance at financial security relies on house prices growing.

The only people who are winning in this market are those who own their home outright ­– they won the generation lottery – and property investors, who can just sell the asset to make more profit.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Robert Menzies knew that giving people the chance to own their own homes (creating a generation of “little capitalists” as it were – the history of that famous quote can be found here if you are interested) was the first step in changing attitudes about housing, from a right and a public good provided by the government, to an individual asset that increased individual wealth.

Howard then turbo-charged that by turning it into a business through investment.

Yesterday, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil again celebrated the government’s expanded 5 per cent deposit scheme and the government’s “ambitious” home-building target. But none of this matters if people cannot access affordable housing in the now.

There’s a lot happening in the world, and there is a lot we don’t have control over. But this is something our government does have dominion over. It’s not just about building houses, it is about ensuring people have affordable homes. And on that, we are failing.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute.