Over the past five years, there’s been a significant slide in the availability of affordable housing across the capital cities, states the latest data from CoreLogic Property Pulse.

More Sydney suburbs now have a median house value of at least $2m than those with a median value of less than $600,000, said Cameron Kusher, head of research at CoreLogic RP Data.

At the end of 2016, 7.6% of suburbs nationally had a median house value under $200,000, and 5.9% of suburbs had a median unit value below $200,000. To put these figures into perspective, 11.4% of suburbs had a median house value of at least $1m and 3% of suburbs had a median unit value of at least $1m.

Kusher found that over the span of five years to the end of 2016, a substantial decline had occurred in the proportion of suburbs with a median value below $400,000.

In contrast, at the end of 2011, 53.5% of suburbs had a median house value of less than $400,000, and 69.8% of suburbs had a median unit value of less than $400,000. By the end of 2016, the proportion of suburbs with a median value of less than $400,000 had declined to 41% for houses and 55.3% for units.

“Looking back at the individual capital cities over the past five years highlights a significant shift in the proportion of suburbs with a median value under $400,000, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne,” Kusher said.

Five years ago, with the exception of Darwin and Canberra, every capital city had at least 20% of its suburbs with a median house value of less than $400,000. In comparison, at the end of last year, it was virtually impossible to find houses for less than $400,000 in Sydney, Canberra, and Darwin. Moreover, less than 7% of suburbs had a median house value below $400,000 in Melbourne.

“We noted that across each city there has been a substantial decline in affordable housing over the past year despite the fact that outside of Sydney and Melbourne there has been only moderate value growth over the period,” Kusher said. “Even units recorded a fairly substantial decline in the proportion of suburbs with a median value of less than $400,000 over the past five years.”

While rising median house values in Sydney spells good news for existing property owners, Sydneysiders earning relatively low incomes are on the losing end of the bargain.

“For those earning a relatively low income in Sydney and looking to buy a house or unit, they are competing for a rapidly declining pool of housing stock across the city. The pool is also declining across the remaining capitals, albeit not at the same pace of decline as in Sydney,” said Kusher.

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