How much houses cost in Australian cities in 1975

This picture of Swedish band ABBA attracted enormous attention when it was cabled around the world in 1975. (AAP Image/ Wolfgong Heilmann)

Prices tend to go up over the decades along with incomes, but nowhere is this more evident than in Australian real estate.

In fact, while other everyday necessities like groceries have actually come down as a proportion of what Australians earn, property prices have zoomed ahead of inflation.

A blog post from social analysis firm McCrindle published what house prices were like in each of the state and territory capital cities in 1975, and it makes for startling reading.

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Sydney homes, for example, were selling for $28,000 in 1975. Last month, according to CoreLogic figures, the same cost $866,524.

"So while earnings have gone up by almost tenfold, house prices have gone up by more than thirtyfold in that same period of time," said the McCrindle blog post.

Here are the 1975 prices, according to McCrindle:

(Source: McCrindle)

And here are the 2019 prices, according to CoreLogic:

• Sydney: $866,524

• Melbourne: $709,092

• Brisbane: $533,133

• Adelaide: $465,266

• Perth: $458,137

• Canberra: $656,943

• Hobart: $484,716

• Darwin: $461,033

Yahoo Finance columnist Michael Yardney agreed that Australian housing was very cheap in the 1970s, completely disproportionate to the rise in wages.

"I started investing in the early 1970s… The first property I bought in Melbourne cost me $18,000," he wrote last month.

"I went halves with my parents and we got $12 a week in rent and we were excited!"

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