Gold Coasters can take some comfort from estimates showing this city has the hottest property market in Australia.
Queensland property prices rose fastest at 3 per cent in the December quarter and it is believed the Gold Coast is doing even better than Brisbane.
The surge of the value of Gold Coast housing is not unexpected, given that it flat-lined for almost 10 years before the turn of the century and was constantly in the shadow of Sydney and Brisbane markets.
But then it found a life of its own and in recent years prospered while Sydney's market actually shrank.
So for investors and first-time buyers who were lucky enough to hitch a ride on the Gold Coast market, it's been a great journey.
Not so lucky are thousands of young people who could only watch as the possibility of home ownership slipped from their grasp and drifted well out of reach.
They may be the first generation that will not be able to afford the Great Australian Dream of a family house on a suburban block.
There are plenty of banks willing to lend them money, but the burden of a mortgage loan is just too heavy for many of them.
Their wages simply won't sustain repayments of between $600 and $800 -- or more -- each week
Their confidence is further weakened by high accounting fees for small savers and by the HECS fees many of them have to repay when they are starting out.
And, it must be said, the stability that young people need to build a solid financial base is not what it used to be.
They enter adult life with the brutal truths that one in three marriages or partnerships is destined to fail and that severe financial hardship often accompanies the fracturing of marriage bonds.
For men there is the perception that an anti-male bias in the Family Court system will cause them to be financially burned in the event of a marriage breakdown.
No wonder many people are timid about the 'c' word -- commitment -- when the time comes to buy a house.
So with a bag of disincentives swung their way when the possibility of a housing loan arises, many members of the X and Y generation simply opt out. They either go overseas working casual jobs, submit themselves to the rental market for life or even go back to live with their parents.
The only way many of them will know what home ownership is all about is when their parents die and they are left an estate.
Politicians, lending institutions and developers should be considering ways to solve the housing affordability for the rising generation. There has to be a way -- through a combination of stamp duty relaxation, new styles of housing estates, larger home loan grants, tax breaks and partially deferred repayments -- to get these young people into their dream houses.
Source: Gold Coast Bulletin
