Parents and grandparents who bought their first home with ease are hoping the slide in affordability can be reversed for the sake of the younger generation.
Pete Muskens, a 71‑year‑old retired architect from Melbourne, has watched Australian homes transform from places to live in to money-making assets pushing younger generations to the brink.
Muskens worries that the decades-long housing shortage has reshaped family life and delayed milestones for younger people, like independent living and starting a family.
The government has faced criticism from political opponents, conservative commentators and parts of the property sector for its budget reforms that has broadly made real estate less lucrative for new investors.
The Coalition has vowed to repeal the changes if it wins government, while One Nation wants to overhaul the reforms.
Charlie Bell, a retired scientific researcher, bought his first house in Canberra in the mid 1980s for less than three times his annual income.
Australian house prices started to decouple from wages in the late 1980s, before a surge in the 90s and early 2000s propelled the country into an epoch of unaffordable housing.
Labor’s budget reforms were enacted at a complicated time, given they have magnified property price falls preceded by rising interest rates and a tepid economy.
Sydney’s property market has led the declines, down about 7% from its peak recorded earlier this year according to Cotality data, with the largest falls reported in the high end of the market.
Dave Sansom, a 68-year-old retired construction project manager in Brisbane, says a house he bought in 2017 had already tripled in value, making any price pullback modest in comparison.