Does your house make more than you?

The real winner

Perth is the only place where houses earned more than people. In fact, Perth residents seem to have it best. Not only do they earn the second highest annual income across the country, but their houses made the biggest gains in the last 12 months. Perth house prices surged by $95,022, climbing from $812,482 to $907,504. Even Canberra with annual incomes of $93,351 couldn’t match what Perth houses made.

How do other cities compare?

In Adelaide, it’s neck and neck with both annual personal income and house price growth sitting at just over $63,000. Brisbane homeowners are just keeping their noses in front, earning roughly $2,000 more than their houses appreciated. However, the gap widens from here. Melbourne and Canberra have the greatest disparity between personal income and house price growth - Melbournians made 5.5 times more than their properties, while Canberrans pulled in 5 times what their houses did.

On the extremes: Big earners picking up the slack

It is no surprise then that Melbourne dominates the list of suburbs where people earn more than their houses. The only non-Melbourne suburbs on this list are Balmain (Sydney), Yarralumla and Deakin (both in Canberra). What's striking is these are all wealthy suburbs with annual incomes between $130,000-$156,000 - double Australia's median.

This is the opposite of what we would expect. Typically, house values grow faster than incomes in expensive areas, and incomes outpace house growth in more affordable areas. Four years ago, during the last census, 78 per cent of suburbs where people out-earned their homes were in regional areas with average house prices of $360,000. Today, the suburbs where you earn more than your house have prices between $1.9-3.9 million.