Buying a house in the 80s versus today
In almost every way, Australian home buyers in 1984 were living on easy street compared to buyers in 2026.
Key takeaways
- The data doesn't lie. Boomers had it better! At least, when we're talking about house prices. The average Australian in 1984 could buy a home that cost 3.3 times their annual income.
- In 2026, the average home costs almost 10 times what the average Australian earns in a year. Buyers in the 1980s saved smaller deposits, borrowed less and had cheaper loans.
- Even when you factor in higher interest rates in the 80s, people still spent much less as a proportion of their incomes.
Let's take a trip back to the housing market of 1984 to see just how different buying a house was in the 80s versus today.
House prices in the 80s versus today
Here we've compared current day incomes, average home loan sizes and property prices to the same numbers for a person in 1984.
In 1984...
- The average home cost is $64,039.
- The average annual income was $19,188.
- The average mortgage was $42,277.
- The average home cost 3.3 times the average annual income.
In 2026...
- The average Australian home cost is $1.1 million.
- The average full-time income is about $108,350 a year.
- The average mortgage is $730,719.
- The average home costs about 10.2 times the average full-time annual income.
Australian home buyers today must save bigger deposits, borrow much more and face much larger repayments. This means more of their weekly income goes into housing costs today than in 1984.
Must read: A note on sources
We've used data from several sources here. Figures from 1984 come from November or September, depending on what is available. For 1984 figures we've used original values. If you adjust for inflation (via the RBA's inflation tool) a $64,039 home would cost around $250,000 in 2026. A $19,188 income would be roughly $76,000 today, and the average mortgage of $42,277 would be around $165,000.
Australian homes now cost almost 10 times the average yearly income
Today, the average Australian property costs the average Australian 10.2 times their annual income. This means if you worked for over 10 years and saved every single dollar (and somehow avoided paying any tax), you'd have enough for the average property.
In 1984, the average home cost 3.3 times the average income.
This has 2 major implications for buyers in 2026:
- You need to save a bigger deposit.
- You need a much bigger home loan.
The amount you need for a deposit today is much higher.
Australian buyers in 2026 now have to save much bigger deposits
Saving a deposit is one of the big challenges for home buyers in 2026. As prices have risen so much, the amount you have to save for a 20% deposit just keeps jumping up.
In 1984
- If the average home cost $64,039...
- A 20% deposit equalled $12,807.
In 2026
- If the average home cost $1.1 million...
- A 20% deposit equals $220,000.
Home loans in 2026 are also much, much bigger
As property price growth has far outstripped wage growth, home buyers need to go into much bigger debt and spent even more on loan repayments.
Assuming you had saved a 20% deposit, the average loan size for a borrower in 1984 was just a little over twice their annual income.
Today, the average home loan size is over 7 times the average annual income.
So do buyers today have it better in any way than people in the 80s? There is one: interest rates.
Interest rates are much lower today
In November 1984, variable interest rates were at 11.5%, according to RBA statistics. This is very high, and rates only continued to rise throughout the decade. Rates eventually peaked at 17.00% in 1990.
Today, a competitive home loan interest rate is around 6.0%, while the average is 6.9%.
Mortgage repayments then and now
Let's forget the house prices above and look at the average home loan size to see how rates affected home loan repayments in the 80s vs today.
1984
- You borrow $42,277 to buy a house.
- Your loan term is 30 years.
- Your interest rate is 11.5%.
Your monthly repayments = $418.
2026
- You borrow $730,719 to buy a house.
- Your loan term is 30 years.
- Your interest rate is 6.90%.
- Your monthly repayments = $4,813.
Your monthly repayments = $4,813.
It's an eye-watering difference. Use our home loan repayment calculator to run the numbers and see how your own situation stacks up.
Expert insight
"Saving to buy a property is most definitely more challenging if you don't have any family help, whether it's a contribution to your deposit or a place to stay for low or no rent while you save. Other struggles include finding the right property listing and then having to negotiate with seasoned real estate experts and reach agreement on what is a fair price. Getting into the market sooner will ultimately mean their 'savings' – or in this scenario the equity in their property – will rise faster than they will be able to save, using surplus money from their income."
Is there no hope for first home buyers?
The situation for home buyers today is much worse than it was in 1984. There's no way around it. But that doesn't mean it's impossible; it just requires more work, more creativity and more luck.
Here are some tips and strategies to help you enter the market. Some of these are basic, common sense tips like "spend less, save more". But others are specific property strategies that might not work for every buyer but could work for you.
- Look for a low deposit home loan. If a 20% deposit is too big of an ask, you might be able to get a home loan with a deposit as low as 5%. Keep in mind that low deposit home loans come with other costs, such as lenders mortgage insurance (LMI) premiums, and the repayments will also be higher.
- Can you get a mortgage guarantor? If you have a parent that owns a home, they could support your application as a home loan guarantor. This has risks, the big one being: if you can't repay your loan, your guarantor has to pay up or even sell their property. But if everyone is confident in the capacity to repay, it can be a great leg-up onto the property ladder.
- Take advantage of government schemes. If you're eligible, a first home owners grant can help build your deposit. The First Home Loan Deposit Scheme helps you buy with a 5% deposit and avoid LMI costs.
- Consider rentvesting. If you can't buy your dream home, keep renting. Instead, buy a rental property in a more affordable area. This strategy is called rentvesting. This way you enter the market as an investor and build wealth. Your dream home can come later.
A note on sources for this article
For statistics on income, property prices and average mortgage sizes in 2026, we've relied on several ABS reports.
Data from 1984 is harder to come by. To be consistent, we've tried to use comparable data sets and tried to find sources from the same month in 1984 (November). For income and mortgage figures in 1984, we used ABS reports from the time.
Historic property prices were trickier. Here we relied on academic research that looked at multiple bank and government reports to get annual median prices for each of Australia's capital cities. The 1984 figures did not include any information about Darwin, however.
For interest rate data, we relied on the Reserve Bank's historic statistics and Finder's own mortgage database, which is one of the largest mortgage rate databases in the country.
Sources are listed below.
Sources
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