Housing affordability in Sydney is dire and buying a home is going to remain out of reach for much of the population until at least the 2030s.
That's according to a new study from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and University of Technology Sydney (UTS) which looks at the relationship between housing affordability and employment contracts.
It found that not only is the rising proportion of part-time workers completely priced out of the city's property market, but full-time earners are facing increasing financial hurdles standing in the way of home ownership.
"While we expected the issue of housing affordability to be severe for part-time employment, we found that full-time employees are also significantly affected," said senior study author Professor Chyi Lin Lee, from the School of Built Environment at UNSW.
"This highlights the widespread housing affordability crisis and the need for comprehensive policy solutions."
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that part-time workers are increasing, up from 20.6 per cent of the workforce in May 2020 to 23.6 per cent a year later.The researchers found that there was hardly a single area in Sydney where someone on the NSW weekly median part-time income could buy a home, even if they spent their entire salary on housing.
"As more part-time contracts are offered to working households, their earnings are impacted, affecting their chances of entering the housing market," Prof. Lee says. "This suggests that employment contract type is crucial for housing affordability analysis, which is somewhat overlooked in the existing literature."
The study forecasted Sydney housing affordability until the end of 2031, and found housing will remain unaffordable throughout that entire period. Lee said that requires an urgent injection of affordable properties into the market.
The federal government announced $3 billion in funding for social and affordable housing last year, and has set the ambitious target of building 1.2 million homes in five years, beginning at the start of this month. However, the rate of dwellings approved for construction is currently far lower than what's required to hit that goal.
