Posted on The Age (30/11/2011) on 30/11/2011 at 12:06 PM
Commenting on "Measuring housing affordability"
http://theage.domain.com.au/blogs/talking-property/measuring-housing-affordablity-20111129-1o4ff.html
I am no bleeding heart; individuals have to take charge of their own lives. While many complained about lack of money to have a roof on their heads, they spend it on cigarettes and alcohol instead. Australia is fast becoming a Sin City (nothing to do with me) because of the hypocritical State and Local governments keep approving extra gambling machines to rip off those who can't really afford.
Many adult children even in their late twenties are still staying with parents. Instead of saving up for a deposit for a home or a block of land, they dispose of their money on carefree lifestyle like dining out and sipping wine in trendy and expensive joints, getting drunk at night clubs, travelling overseas, unnecessary chatting on latest mobile phone that clocks up big bills, or buying the latest electronic gadgets. The money spent on the number of cups of "classy" coffee for some people is enough to contribute substantially towards their mortgage repayment.
Like most statistics, e.g. unemployment rate, you may take it with a grain of salt! However, if these figures can be finetuned, expanded and qualified, they provide useful information. We can take median house prices as an example. They are broken into categories like houses, units, apartments, etc. by city, suburb or street.
Affordability can be calculated not only based on city, suburb or street, but also classified under income range and household makeup. In order to make Affordability more realistic, economic condition should be given weights in the calculation!
Commenting on "Measuring housing affordability"
http://theage.domain.com.au/blogs/talking-property/measuring-housing-affordablity-20111129-1o4ff.html
I am no bleeding heart; individuals have to take charge of their own lives. While many complained about lack of money to have a roof on their heads, they spend it on cigarettes and alcohol instead. Australia is fast becoming a Sin City (nothing to do with me) because of the hypocritical State and Local governments keep approving extra gambling machines to rip off those who can't really afford.
Many adult children even in their late twenties are still staying with parents. Instead of saving up for a deposit for a home or a block of land, they dispose of their money on carefree lifestyle like dining out and sipping wine in trendy and expensive joints, getting drunk at night clubs, travelling overseas, unnecessary chatting on latest mobile phone that clocks up big bills, or buying the latest electronic gadgets. The money spent on the number of cups of "classy" coffee for some people is enough to contribute substantially towards their mortgage repayment.
Like most statistics, e.g. unemployment rate, you may take it with a grain of salt! However, if these figures can be finetuned, expanded and qualified, they provide useful information. We can take median house prices as an example. They are broken into categories like houses, units, apartments, etc. by city, suburb or street.
Affordability can be calculated not only based on city, suburb or street, but also classified under income range and household makeup. In order to make Affordability more realistic, economic condition should be given weights in the calculation!
