I see the Housing Industry Association is saying that houses here are at their most affordable for three years.

Interest rates have been steady, people’s incomes are rising and house prices are falling. House prices have fallen by 5 percent in the last three months.

The average price paid by a first-time buyer for a house still seems quite high to me at $342,900. Typical first-time buyer repayments are $1,992 per month.

Houses here are still expensive compared with the late 1990’s. Then the average buyer needed to devote 17 percent of their take home pay to mortgage payments.

Now the average buyer needs to devote 29 percent of their income to mortgage payments.