Housing is a large component of an average household budget and an integral part of Australia’s economy, yet the past 30 years have witnessed a sharp decline in housing affordability with a price-to-income ratio amongst the highest in the world. Faced with an unstable, globalised labour market, decreased governmental support, and wage stagnation arising out of the current financialised neo-liberal environment, households have been reshaped into risk-bearing, self-responsibilised entities, accepting the discourse of commodified housing as their new path to wealth and financial security. The growing house price-wage gap has been managed through the normalisation of debt, facilitated by an evolution of the lending landscape aided by new technologies. The consequently high levels of household indebtedness are recognised as contributing to a plethora of ills, including family and health issues, growing social inequality, and debt exposure risks reminiscent of the Global Financial Crisis. The risk and unsustainability inherent in this situation to both households and the greater economy have been dramatically exposed during the pandemic crisis of 2020, highlighting the importance of maintaining oversight of changes to the lending landscape, including new initiatives which facilitate debt access.

One such initiative is the entry into the housing finance market in September 2017 of digital property media company REA Group, owner of Australian market leader property search platform realestate.com.auMajority owned by media conglomerate News Corporation and partnered with National Australia Bank (NAB), REA offers access through their website to both their own brokerage company and directly to NAB lending, creating Australia’s first end-to-end digital property search and financing journey. Supported and cross-promoted by its powerful media owner, REA plays simultaneous roles as platform designer, content provider, advertising manager, purveyor of active financial ‘product’, and recipient of advertising, product and data revenue streams.