Residz Team 3 min read
Aussie householders are feeling the pinch. Shocking rent rises mean the kids are living at home longer and, thanks to severely unaffordable property prices, many are being asked to be the bank of mum and dad.
Now, on top of having to adapt to higher interest rates, the cost of living pressures are going to tip some householders into a state of having the property blues. As media reports make clear, the cost of necessities has been rising much faster than the price of "discretionary" goods and services.
According to CoreLogic, rising prices of food, fuel and finance are “likely to see household savings continue to taper as families funnel more of their income towards servicing their mortgage and funding essential costs of living.”
But how expensive is it to live in each city in Australia? A recent Finder study compared costs of living in Australia’s capital cities. It shows how household savings can be greatly impacted by where you live.
For Sydneysiders already looking for ways to to save money on their mortgage, it makes sobering reading.
Not only does Sydney have the most expensive median house price at $1.6 million, at almost every turn it costs more to live in Australia’s most populous city. Rent is more expensive, internet charges are higher, and cleaners charge more.
For housing and utilities Sydney is:
For example, if you want to rent a 45m2 studio apartment in a “normal area” of Sydney it will cost you around $2000 a month. In an expensive area that rises to $2644 per month. A same-sized unit in Adelaide is just over $1100 per month in a normal area, and $1500 in an expensive area.
However, if you want to eat it will cost you more to do so in Brisbane. This is the most expensive city for food in Australia and Finder calculates it is 10% more expensive than Sydney and Melbourne, and 4% more expensive than Perth (which has the second-most expensive food in the country). Food in Adelaide is about 11% cheaper than it is in Brisbane.
Sydney is, by a long way, the most expensive city for all types of transport. Even public transport is more than a third more expensive than it is in tram-reliant Melbourne. A taxi costs 17% more in Sydney than it does in Melbourne.
Compared with Sydney:
Melbourne (median house price in April 2022 of $1.125 million) has cheaper housing stock than Sydney but also a 7% lower overall cost of living. While it’s more expensive to live in Melbourne than in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, and Canberra, overall costs of living in Melbourne are about the same as Darwin.
Brisbane (median house price of $711,000) has a higher overall cost of living than Adelaide and Hobart, but is cheaper to live in than Melbourne, a lot cheaper than Sydney, and about the same as Perth, Darwin and Canberra.
The winners for the lowest overall cost of living are Hobart (median house price $775,000) and Adelaide. Both have costs around 20% cheaper than Sydney, 15% cheaper than Melbourne, and about 10% cheaper than Brisbane.
So, what can you do about the rising cost of living in your city?
Now is the time to be digging out your grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ letters and recipe cuttings and trying out their frugal ways. A 1970s family copy of the magazine Grass Roots shares ideas from a “woodcutter’s cake” that keeps for 8-12 weeks to basketmaking.
This is where you become creative and innovative.
Plenty of ideas to share? Send them in, we’d love to share them with our community.
Photo by Melissa Walker Horn on Unsplash