Australia’s most populous city could soon become a “city without grandchildren” as young families and professionals leave in search of cheaper alternatives.
A report by New South Wales Productivity Commissioner Peter Achterstraat found that between 2016 and 2021 twice as many people aged 30 to 40 had left Sydney as had arrived.
Achterstraat said the driving force behind the exodus is the cost of housing, as most can only afford to buy in the outer suburbs and face a long commute.
The Tucci family is among the many families who have fled Sydney, having He left the inner west suburb of Leichhardt towards Cairns in the far north. queenslandin January.
The family of four couldn’t afford a multimillion-dollar mortgage in Australia’s largest city, but were able to snap up a three-unit beach block for $1 million in Cairns.
A new report has found twice as many people aged between 30 and 40 (pictured) leave Sydney as arrive, prompting a warning it could become a “city without grandchildren”.
The father of the family, Adrian Tucci, said he could not earn enough money to support a huge mortgage, two children and his wife Nicole, a stay-at-home mother, despite running a successful painting business.
Tucci employed up to nine people while working in Sydney and said he had seen many move away from the city in recent years.
“They’re in the same boat… they’ve gone to the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth, places like that, just to be able to afford a house and raise their kids,” he told the ABC.
Tucci said his parents, who live in Sydney, understood and supported his departure, but were disappointed not to be close to their grandchildren.
Achterstraat warned that there will be more grandparents living in the city without their children and grandchildren unless the state government intervenes.
Its report said the Sydney breakout highlighted the need to build more apartment complexes in inner-city suburbs to reduce property prices.
“Sydney needs hundreds of thousands of new homes over the next two decades,” Achterstraat said in the report.
“Building more in the places where people want to live is a key piece to solving the housing puzzle.”
A young family, the Tuccis (pictured Adrian and Nicole Tucci), left the inner western Sydney suburb of Leichhardt for Cairns in far north Queensland so they could comfortably buy property.
The exodus has led the New South Wales Productivity Commissioner to call on the state government to act and promote housing projects “in the places where people want to live” (file image)
He said 45,000 more homes could have been built between 2017 and 2022 without taking up more land if taller buildings had been allowed in Sydney.
“This could have made prices and rents five and a half percent lower: $35 a week for the average apartment or a savings of $1,800 a year for renters.”
While the “build” plan is backed by the New South Wales government, which aims to develop six-storey apartment complexes within 400 meters of the city’s 30 train stations, locals do not support it. so much.
Residents of Sydney’s north shore have criticized the government for not caring about the heritage or value of homes in the area.
State Treasurer Daniel Mookhey responded to locals by saying a balance can be struck between protecting the character of a neighborhood and also allowing people to enter the housing market.
Mookhey warns that Sydney has five to ten years to fix its property sector and prevent it from being dominated by intergenerational wealth, comparing it to San Francisco.