What does not kill you makes you stronger. Aussies are currently in the strongest position they have ever been in, due largely to some great lessons taken from umpteen major events of adversity across the last half century.
Australia’s lowest unemployment rate since the early 1970’s means our employment has never been more secure.
A further 400,000 unfilled jobs also means that the current intense upward pressure on wages is great for household incomes.
And, with the median house value in 130 of Australia’s 150 largest townships being 40 percent or more than 3-years ago, a large portion of Australia’s 8 million households who live in their own home are enjoying the most equity they’ve ever seen.
As good as these things are, one could easily be confused for thinking our world was falling apart.
Australians have become world champions at finding a negative trend and fixating on it. Those who do this frequently jump to wild conclusions that a catastrophe is around the corner.
The 3 aforementioned best-in-our-lifetime conditions come on the back of umpteen moments of significant adversity over the last 50-years.
Major global situations which Australia was affected by include numerous wars, several stock market crashes, oil strikes, a tech-bubble, terrorist attacks, the global financial crisis, all sorts of dramas involving the US-China-Russia, exchange rate challenges, a stack of political controversies, commodity price downturns and a global health pandemic.
Domestically, the last 50-years also included several major droughts, a variety of increased taxes on real estate, a couple of major credit squeezes, countless natural disasters, multiple periods of rising interest rates, significant dilution of negative gearing benefits and extra layers of rental legislation.
If one pauses and reflects on how they felt when in the midst of each of those aforementioned events, they’ll remember moments of feeling concerned, confused, extra cautious, even fearful.
Despite the intense feelings during the relatively small moments in time, most situations became 12 to 18 months of heightened awareness.
The competitive nature of humans, particularly those empowered in leadership positions, is to address the malfunctioning piece in the engine. Meanwhile the rest of the engine is largely fine, and the machine keeps moving forward.
Looking at each of the last 5-decades in isolation, Australia’s combined capital city median house value increased by 270 percent over the 10-years ending 1982, followed by 127 percent during the decade to 1992, then 133 percent (10YE 2002) and 68 percent (10YE 2012).
The most recent decade ending 2022 produced an 81 percent increase in real estate values.
One might now ponder how different their life might look if they made decisions to move forward when they were in a position to do so, as opposed to remaining seated on the sideline due to negative influences.
The earlier long list of ‘significant interference’ during the last 50-years should serve as a great reality check that conditions are never perfect. It would be wise to accept that they never will be perfect either.
But it is fair to say that repeated doomsday commentary connected to moments of adversity become completely out of proportion with how things actually unfold.
That’s because the big picture consists of a lot more than the 10 percent that gets 90 percent of the attention at a particular point in time.
Despite the challenges that popped up in each year, Australia’s population increased from 13.5 to 26 million over the last 50-years.
What should receive much more attention than it has is the great achievement of Australia building an extra 7 million homes along with growing our workforce from 5.5 million to 13.5 million jobs.
Similarly, 70 percent of households in this Lucky Country live in their own home. And 31 percent of households no longer have a mortgage.
Alas, that will never stop a small portion of the 30 percent who rent from continually expressing that homeownership is no longer possible.
Although the national commentary during each year was mostly negative, the evidence confirms Australians are in a much better position now compared to each of the 5-decades before us.
Go figure, half a century of success was created through constantly ‘failing.’
Gee-wiz, imagine what could be achieved if we lived in a society with more positive influences and everyone having a red-hot crack at achieving their goals.
Quite frankly, in the context of past periods of real struggles, the level of present-day wallowing is laughable.
During the 17-year period of 1974 to 1991, inflation consistently hovered around 10 percent, home loan interest rates ranged from 9 to 17 percent, and the country went into recession 3-times.
Despite that collection of reasons to yell ‘cliff ahead’, Australia’s combined capital city median house price increased 5-fold, from $25,000 to $129,000.
The national unemployment rate was above 6 percent in 28 of the last 50 years, including a peak of 11 percent in 1993.
Oh, the value of a standard house increased from $15,000 in 1972 to $915,000 in 2022.
Housing never goes out of fashion.
And now that you have 50-years of evidence to support that it is always a good time to invest in real estate. The most important questions is always ‘where’, not ‘when’.
Propertyology are national buyer’s agents and Australia’s premier property market analyst. Every capital city and every non-capital city, Propertyology analyse fundamentals in every market, every day. We use this valuable research to help everyday Aussies to invest in strategically-chosen locations (literally) all over Australia. Like to know more? Contact us here.
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