Entering the Australian property market as a first-home buyer has never been straightforward. But by most objective measures, the barriers have grown significantly over the past decade. The statistics paint a stark picture of a market that increasingly favours those who already have wealth.
The Deposit Hurdle
A 20 per cent deposit on a median Sydney dwelling now requires saving approximately $270,000 — a sum that takes the median Australian household more than five years to accumulate, assuming they save every dollar of discretionary income. In Melbourne, the figure is around $190,000. These calculations do not account for rent, which consumes a substantial share of income while savings accumulate, or for the moving target of rising prices during the saving period.
The Price-to-Income Ratio
Australia's major city price-to-income ratios rank among the highest in the developed world. Sydney's ratio of approximately 13 times median household income means a typical family would need to spend 13 years of gross income to purchase the median dwelling outright — a multiple that would have seemed fantastical a generation ago. Melbourne sits at around 9, Brisbane at 7, and even Perth and Adelaide have seen their ratios surge through 2023 and 2024.
Government Schemes: Help or Hype?
Federal and state governments have introduced a range of first-home buyer assistance schemes — guarantees, grants, stamp duty concessions, and shared equity programs. These schemes provide genuine assistance to individuals, but economists note that they can also add to demand without increasing supply, potentially bidding up prices further. The structural problem is a shortage of housing, and demand-side subsidies do not solve supply-side constraints.
What Would Actually Help
The economists are largely in agreement: meaningful improvement in first-home buyer access requires increasing housing supply in the locations where people want to live. This means rezoning inner and middle suburbs for higher density, reforming development approval processes, and investing in infrastructure to open up greenfield sites. These reforms are within the power of state and local governments — and they are the changes that successive reports, from the Productivity Commission to the OECD, consistently recommend.
