Booming property markets make the nation wealthier, but what we know conversely is that it also shuts an increasingly large proportion out of the dream of living or even renting their own home.
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For the bulk of households who either rent, and that can be as much as a third, or those who only ever own the home they live in, these long decades of housing price rises are as much a symbol of household debt as they are of accumulated wealth.
Whether through the new-found interest of living in a lockdown-free regional area or the increased focus of metropolitan investors, this surge in real estate prices has well and truly hit regional centres such as Tasmania.
For those thinking of selling or those who simply like that illusory glow of being "asset rich", those growth figures are good news.
But for many more it represents the closing door of opportunity and none more so than those on the bottom of the rung who cannot even clamber onto the first step of an affordable rental.
The human cost can sometimes be seen on our streets, but more often is not seen at all, as a proportion lead increasingly vagrant and anxious lives.
Inquiries are regularly called to investigate housing affordability, and policies promised to moderate costs. But so far at a national level these have had little impact.
A look back across the 30 or more years since housing prices began to take off shows a series of usually rapid rises, interspersed with more stable plateaus.
If wages had risen at the same rate as housing, affordability would not be the pressing concern that it is today. But they have not.
Two-income families have it easier, but their spending power, in turn, tends to push up prices, making it harder for households with a single income or no income and that includes some of our least fortunate and most struggling.
The point is as this wealth grows, the problems do not go away. And at least at a local level homelessness is something a community wants to grapple with, both in the welfare and business sector.
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