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{"id":4008,"date":"2017-06-10T02:26:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-10T02:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shelternsw.milkdigital.dev\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2020-11-19T04:08:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T04:08:40","slug":"snobs-cities-and-sacrifice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shelternsw.milkdigital.dev\/snobs-cities-and-sacrifice\/","title":{"rendered":"Snobs, Cities and Sacrifice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I love Sydney. Even though I am Melbourne raised and eschewed Sydney as a good Melbourne boy should I fell in love in 1985 and moved there in 1986. I rented a 3 bedroom federation cottage in Birchgrove with harbour views from the kitchen sink, I caught ferries to work and play, it was 22 degrees in the middle of winter. I left Melbourne in snow and the train brought me up on a full moon with dazzling views of a frozen highlands. It was fun and I could afford it. Not anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sydney had the glitz and glamour, but now had high culture and a decent football team (AFL of course), great food, good nightlife, new horizons. Sydney felt right, but my Sydney didn\u2019t really extend beyond Ashfield to the west, North Sydney to the north, the airport to the south and all the way east to the ocean. I am a bit of a snob when I define my Sydney. It\u2019s viewed through a lens from a different time. When I lived there the bulk of the lower-priced rental was actually in the inner city. This has, of course, changed, and low and moderate income households don\u2019t rent\u2014or live\u2014where they used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I left Sydney in 2002. We could never afford home purchase, my parents were ageing and we figured we\u2019d seen Sydney at its best. Fifteen years in midlife was great but how would the rest pan out? Overall the move has been good, we\u2019ve paid off a house we now own, have good friends, we now have grandchildren that add extra spice. Would that have been possible if we\u2019d stayed in Sydney?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
True the humidity of Brisbane and those extra few degrees sometimes get to me and the food and culture up here improves without reaching that international standard, so every time I fly in to that big bold beautiful city that Sydney is, my heart still skips a beat as I take in the glorious vistas and I wonder… Then I realise we were paying $250 per week for a two-bedroom shop top flat in the heart of Enmore. While not flash it was well located; while noisy it had 50 restaurants within 200 metres, public transport on tap and a gastro pub across the road. It had room for our cat and even a small plot of backyard and a part of a garage. What would it cost now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, based on our recent Rental Affordability Index (RAI), we would need a household income of $150,000 per year for the rent in that area to be moderately affordable, and that would mean the rent for our old flat would be about $800 per week. Sydney has become ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This RAI showed what we all thought wasn\u2019t possible, that rental affordability in Sydney has deteriorated further. All renters on average sit right on a threshold. The entire city, accounting for the incomes of all renters and the prices of current rents, is effectively unaffordable. You really need to be earning over $150,000 a year as a household to rent a two bedroom flat at anything like an affordable level. Even then you must pitch outside what I think of as Sydney. Not till you reach Canterbury, Parramatta, or Epping does it get affordable even with a household income of $150,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The average household income in Australia is around $85,000 per year. At that income only postage stamp areas in the Blue Mountains and beyond Richmond show affordable three bedroom rentals. Parts of Liverpool and on that radius are affordable for two bedroom properties, but we are into two hour commute country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For pensioner couples trapped in the rental market virtually nothing in NSW is affordable to rent. They will be paying up to 65 per cent of their income to secure rental dwellings. Sydney is not alone in this regard, but fares the worst among our capital cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n