HOW SYDNEY BECAME A BARGAIN COMPARED TO HERE
When it comes to getting bang for your buck, you’re better off splashing your cash in Sydney than on the ‘cheaper’ Gold Coast
IT’S the fallacy that has launched a thousand Mexican migrants.
“Come to the Gold Coast,” they said.
“It’s cheaper there,” they said.
“You get more for your money there,” they said. “They” lied.
Data shows that when it comes to getting bang for your buck, you’re better off splashing your cash in Sydney.
According to Numbeo, the world’s largest cost-of-living database, the local purchasing power of the Gold Coast is almost seven per cent below that of Sydney.
Local purchasing power basically compares the cost of goods and services in a given city to the average net salary in that same city.
And here on the Gold Coast, our average wage will buy us seven per cent less goods and services than Sydney residents with an average salary.
Put simply, when all factors are considered – mortgage, rent, wages, groceries, bills etc – our money won’t buy as much here on the Gold Coast, even though many of our costs are actually lower than what you would find in Sydney.
Add to this the fact that Coast rents and property prices are now on par, if not higher, than the southern capital’s and we have a critical situation on our hands.
Our purchasing power is sinking ever lower
Indeed, statistics show that it’s now cheaper to rent in Sydney, with a median average rental price of $722 per week, than on the Gold Coast, with a median average rental price of $770 per week.
The data from Christopher’s Housing Boom and Bust Report shows rental costs for all dwellings on the Gold Coast rose by 20.2 per cent in 2021, while house rental prices jumped a whopping 27 per cent.
Meanwhile, the quarterly Regional Market Update revealed house values on the Gold Coast jumped about 36 per cent in the past 12 months, taking the median house value across the Gold Coast to just over $1m. In Mermaid Beach, it’s actually $2.07m. And the Urban Developer reports that the Gold Coast, along with neighbouring Brisbane, will outperform all other Australian capitals in 2022.
Compare this with the forecast for Sydney, where modelling from finance website Ratecity suggests that median home prices could drop below $1m by the end of next year.
But property prices aside, the real difference in purchasing power between Sydney and the Gold Coast comes down to wages.
To sum it up: ours are low. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Gold Coast’s median total income in 2019, excluding pensions and allowances, was $46,772.
Clearly, this just isn’t enough. You only have to look at the levels of financial stress across the Coast to see that our salaries simply are not keeping pace with the cost of living.
Data from Digital Finance Analytics shows 19,881 of the city’s 89,000 properties are under financial stress, up from 15,036 in 2020 and 12,779 in 2018.
Meanwhile, mortgage stress – in which homeowners are spending at least 30 per cent of their income on loans – has increased almost 1000 per cent in some suburbs in just four years.
Our purchasing power is sinking ever lower.
So what would make a good
wage on the Gold Coast? Well, let’s compare again to Sydney.
The 2019 median total income for Sydney city and inner southwest suburbs was $57,935, for eastern suburbs it was $66,719, and for north Sydney and Hornsby it was $66,306.
That’s up to 40 per cent more than the median Gold Coast income.
Will we ever get there? I’m not holding my breath.
Of course, many of our new NSW arrivals need not worry
as they’ve brought their old jobs – and wages – with them.
For these residents, the Gold Coast truly is a cheaper place to live – even if they have to pay just as much, if not more, for a property.
But for those of us not on a Sydney salary, it’s a worry that these migrated wages will only further increase the cost of goods and services on the GC … and further decrease our purchasing power.
And this is a power play we can’t afford to lose.