Mortgage Repayments

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Originally Posted by CraigE

All easy to say, but look at the price of basic housing in some areas now. In Esperance for example you get nothing really liveable under $350k. Housing in Australia is over priced to buggery.
:mad:

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That is one of several reasons why there is no simple answer.
What works for one person in one situation might not be appropriate for another.
It's all very well for someone to say, " Well move to somewhere where houses are cheaper", but there could be a dozen reason why for some people that is not an option.

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Originally Posted by CraigE

All easy to say, but look at the price of basic housing in some areas now. In Esperance for example you get nothing really liveable under $350k. Housing in Australia is over priced to buggery.
:mad:

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For ease of commuting, ie saving 2.5hrs each way, I want to live on the Nth shore or Eastern suburbs of Sydney, I can't afford to

I don't.;)

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Originally Posted by dobbo

There is,

• Don't be greedy
• Do not live beyond your means
• Have enough assets to bail yourself out of **** quickly
• Do without unnecessary crap, like plasma's LCD's etc
• Have at least one luxury item, to make life enjoyable
• Aim low, achieve your goal then and only then up the anti to the next stage.

You don't have to be smart to see it, I won't die rich, but I'll die with assets and have a bloody good time whilst I'm here.

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Fair enough. You have found an answer to the problem that works for you. Of course that is what we all should be doing, finding a solution that suits us.

That is a solution to your individual problem. What I meant is there is no simple, single answer to the broader problem.

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Originally Posted by vnx205

Fair enough. You have found an answer to the problem that works for you. Of course that is what we all should be doing, finding a solution that suits us.

That is a solution to your individual problem. What I meant is there is no simple, single answer to the broader problem.

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Two more solutions for you

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Originally Posted by dobbo

Who in their right mind would get into debt that much on their first home? They must not have a life. The only people I know who managed to do this successfully are my old Thai neighbours, they paid the house off in 4 yrs. How they did they do it? Simple, they unofficially had 18 adults all up living in the 4 bedroom house, they slept in the lounge, the dining area, the bedrooms everywhere. All except the elderly worked a rotating roster down their family restaraunt. When the house was paid off they bought another, and two new relo's emigrated over here. The spiral into home ownership continued.

It was a nice house, but I could and would not do that.

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And from another thread

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Originally Posted by tombraider;

The best advice I can give... Go where the money is high and the cost of living is less....

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As I said, different people need or find different solutions.

I agree, I just don't think the the solution should always be government based, which is what the original post was about (two hundred and something posts ago).

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Originally Posted by Utemad

I think the biggest problem with housing these days is people wanting to move out of home and immediately get a house in a good area and want to furnish it and buy a new car and have whatever else that their Mum and Dad took 20 years or more to accumulate.

We are paying off our townhouse and are almost finished in 7 years. We don't drink or smoke which helps. Three years of that I was at uni and earning bugger all too.

People seem to prefer to put all their money into renting a flash place when they could be paying off their own modest place.

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Absolutely spot-on!

To further your comments, many of those who don't spend their wages on a mortgage or high rent, due to sharing accommodation etc, have spending money to burn. This spending is what the Reserve Bank is trying to kurb via interest rate rises.

Unfortunately, the rate rises are affecting the wrong people so the spending will continue. This is not going to be an easy time, other measures will have to put in place, I don't know what these will be.

What is the average wage in the big mining centres? $100k? more? so if a house is roughly 5-6 times the annual wage, a halfway decent house should be at least 70% of this figure, or about $400k in these areas - otherwise the poor bugger building it is getting ripped off relative to the local market.

Dobbo has it spot on if you ask me - live within your means and there will be no problem. My wife and I for example are looking to buy a small two bedroom place in inner suburban melbourne within 12 months - why? because it will enable us to live (relatively) cheaply with short public transport commute times and less income tied into depreciating assets like cars. plus access to good, cheap education and (relatively) high earning professional jobs you can't obtain in country areas. We would still have complete access to our family property in the bush on the weekends (an hour or so away), so being shut into the city will not be a huge problem...

can't win em all though!!

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Originally Posted by dobbo

Who in their right mind would get into debt that much on their first home? They must not have a life.

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Me. In Brisbane 300K does not get you much. In hindsight it was the right decision as our place has increased significantly in value over the last two years.

Oh, I have a new Land Rover, a big TV and I just put in a new kitchen. Plus my wife is leaving work soon as we have a baby on the way. I guess I'm the type of person that people blame for the interest rate rises? To me though I'm not too worried. I work hard for my money and I will spend it how I like. When rates get to 12% I'll start to get concerned. Although had I bought a 4-500K house like the bank wanted us to I would be very worried now.

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Originally Posted by jmkoffice

Unfortunately, the rate rises are affecting the wrong people so the spending will continue. This is not going to be an easy time, other measures will have to put in place, I don't know what these will be.

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Unfortunately, and people will probably flame me off the thread for this, but the government should be simply jacking-up the tax on fuel. It's the single most effective way of curbing discretionary spending as that will elevate the price of most goods and services overnight.

Fuel here is too cheap by far. We should by rights be charged maybe $2.50/l. This would have the double effect of reducing non-essential travel and raising the price of most things to slow the economy. The fuel tax level can be directly controlled by the government to keep inflation under control without the RBA having to simply resort to interest rate rises for the same effect.

The additional revenue from increased fuel tax is then available for spending on national infrastructure, but at a level that would not, in itself, counter-stimulate the economy which we are trying to slow down OR could be put towards a more effective and substantial first-home buyers' rebate.

We have a Prime Minister with 70% approval rating and a government with 60%+ approval. They are in a position to use this popularity to dish out some tough love to the country. It is early enough in their term that if they have the balls to do it and things smooth out in a couple of years, then they could still win re-election.