Ah, Adelaide, nice wine, no economy, shrinking & expensive housing blocks

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By Leith van Onselen

I have written previously how the South Australian Government has managed to engineer the amazing feat of generating expensive land amid a dying economy.

This escalation of Adelaide land costs is illustrated in the next table from Core logic-RP Data, which shows that average Adelaide vacant lots are the smallest in the nation and the third most expensive on a rate per square metre basis, having risen on average by 7.9% per annum in the decade to 2015, despite Adelaide being an economic ‘rustbelt’ and experiencing only moderate population growth (see below table).

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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.