It is 2001, and a nurse and an electrician are ready to buy their first home, a slice of suburbia with a small backyard and room for their young child.
They have saved diligently, setting aside 15 per cent of their wages for the past six years. Between them, they have accumulated $23,000, enough to cover a deposit on a modest home.
It is 2025, and their eldest is a teacher nearing 30. He has married a graphic designer, and the pair are on the hunt for a home of their own.
Just like his parents, he and his partner have saved 15 per cent of their wages for six years.
They earn more than their parents did, so they have amassed a tidy sum of $85,000, about double their parents once adjusted for inflation.
But the house their parents bought for $300,000 in today's dollars, and still live in, is now worth $1.5 million. To afford that would take another four years at least, by which time it might be even more expensive.
It is Australia's familiar housing story, repeated across families and cities. The social contract, where a middle-class job yields a middle-class home, has been left at the bottom of a house price mountain.
Back in 2001, the average house price was four times the yearly income for an average household — a ratio which required about six years of saving for a home purchase, just like our nur
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