The best and worst house prices show the different lives Queenslanders live
Australia’s most affordable streets, including two in Queensland, were almost one thousandth the price of the most expensive, according to data collected by Ray White.
The two very different lifestyles were highlighted by the median value of streets in Australia.
Porter St, Aramac, near Barcaldine, has the second cheapest median value of $37,500. Mackay’s suburb of Paget came in third at $37,750.
Conversely, Wolseley Road in Sydney’s Port Piper had a median value of $33 million and was Australia’s most expensive street.
Arakoon Crescent, at Sunshine Beach, was sixth with a median street value of $13.6 million. It was the only street outside Sydney and Melbourne to make the top 10.
One house in the beachside street sold for $20 million earlier this year, but realestate.com.au said the street record was held by a $28.5 million Shaun Lockyer-designed mansion that was bought by Karen Greer, wife of Wilson Asset Management founder Geoff Wilson, in a deal in April.
The previous record was set in February by Gina Rinehart’s BV Investments.
Sunshine Beach took out CoreLogic’s most expensive suburb of the year with a median price of $2.1 million which looks paltry compared with Arakoon Street, while the most affordable suburb was Tara with a median price of $146,000.
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The cheapest street in Australia was in Norseman, WA, a town in the goldfields district, 700km from Perth and the last major population centre before hitting the Nullarbor.
Meanwhile, a report has found thousands of low-income families in Queensland probably don’t have enough money to meet basic living or dietary standards due to surging rental costs and inadequate welfare payments.
The Queensland Council of Social Services modelling shows unemployed single parents and families where only one parent is able to work are the most vulnerable to financial shocks, emergencies or unplanned expenses.
About 60,477 single parents are falling $200.53 short, and families with one working parent are $174.23 short, of meeting basic living expenses every week, the report says.
The QCOSS says low-income households already spend a higher proportion of income on housing, food, electricity, transport, phone and internet services, and inadequate welfare payments are compounding problems.
“Spiralling inflation, housing stress and rising energy costs have squeezed these households’ budgets even further, resulting in compromises being made on the consumption of essential goods and services,” said the report, released on Monday.
“None of these households have sufficient income to meet any unplanned expenses or emergencies. They cannot make meaningful savings and are highly vulnerable to increasing levels of debt, often from predatory lenders.”
About 95 per cent of unemployed single-parent households are led by women, the report said, and they spend about 46 per cent of their income on rent.
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Unemployed single-parent households were also “likely to experience deficits with food and nutrition” because they don’t have enough money.
Low-income families with only one working parent also faced similar problems with about a third of their income swallowed by rent, the report said.
“A nuclear family household with one primary ‘breadwinner’, even when earning above minimum wage, is no longer able to provide sufficient income to meet a basic standard of living,” the report said.
The report also found single unemployed adults with no dependants were likely to be $24 short of meeting basic living standards, while students were $7.32 under, each week.
The only low-income households able to meet consistently meet basic standards with their income was senior couples, over the age of 76, with no dependants.
QCOSS chief executive Aimee McVeigh said all households in the report were paying more than 30 per cent of their weekly income toward rent, which was housing stress.
“This report highlights the severe financial pressure Queenslanders are under. A two-decade high inflation rate, housing stressing, and spiralling energy prices are squeezing households’ budgets beyond what people can handle,” she said
“The growing levels of poverty community services are currently seeing is heartbreaking, especially in the lead-up to Christmas.”
She urged the federal government to lift income support payments to at least $73 a day to ensure unemployed people can meet basic living standards.
