"What Door?"
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Difficult for the Young to Buy a Home
Housing is just too expensive in Australia for the young. To get a home at the lower end of the market one needs to stay away from auctions and be ready to go to the potential purchase as soon as it goes up for sale.
People panic at auctions. They put a whole day into it usually bring the family in tow. Once they have made the time and opportunity investment they really want the home and keep bidding against each other finally paying over the odds.
Already the young are making purchasing choices that are not what they originally planned. Buying further out of town and going into flats instead of separate houses is not what they had intended. However, they feel that they have to buy something, before or soon after marriage.
Only those with significant deposits are in the market now. In 1981, more than 60 per cent of people under 35 "owned" a home. Now it is under 50 per cent. In the 1980s the young could buy their ideal home. Today, they are buying something that they are not happy with: they are not content. Moreover, they are borrowing double the amount of the 1980s.
It is not easy to go to parents and beg for help with a deposit when you left home two years before on bad terms - such is the culture today. It is likely that young people buying homes now will enter retirement with many more years of mortgage repayments to go.
◆ Society by Ty Buchanan ◆
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Australia's Blueberry Industry Increasing Output
Blueberries aren't that popular in Australia. They are certainly not loved, as in the USA. However, Australian farmers are growing more of them as Australians look for something different. There is also a thriving international market.
The Clarence Valley in Grafton, NSW is the main growing region for the product. At present Australian growers supply only a tiny amount of berries to the world. Yet, Australia uses the latest genetic technology to grow good blueberries.
Hard quarantine laws stop Australia getting into the China market. Maybe this is quid pro quo for Australia's brick wall against New Zealand growers of fruit and vegetables in general. Four years ago Japan blocked imports into that country. It was only an increase in local demand that saved the industry.
Australian blueberry farmers are raising output despite there being no real overseas target market in sight. The recent summit at Coffs harbour did not change the existing state of affairs. Delegates from 25 countries attended. This was not a good investment for the Australian blueberry industry nor government.
◆ Agriculture by Ty Buchanan ◆
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