As a leader, when a talented candidate turns down your job offer, do you know why?
Increasingly, the answer might be less to do with the role or the salary than where she would live.
When I bought my home 35 (yikes!) years ago, I was earning about the Australian median salary, I saved three years for a deposit, and I paid about the median house price for Perth. That price was about four times my salary. It wasn’t easy, but now it’s much, much more difficult.
You might already see signs like these:
- A candidate who withdraws after checking local rents
- Staff commuting 90 minutes each way, who leave as soon as a job closer to home comes up
- Nurses, teachers, and support workers who can’t afford to live in the community
- Younger employees who turn down a promotion because it means relocating
Housing used to be your employees’ private business, but now it – rightly – creeps into their work choices.
According to the 2026 Intergenerational Report, the median house price has risen from about four times average full-time earnings (exactly my experience in 1991) to about eight times, and saving a 20% deposit now takes eleven years instead of seven. If home ownership had stayed at 1981 levels, 250,000 more households aged 25 to 34 would own their home.
That means many of your people rent for longer, move more often, and live further from work. They arrive tired after long commutes, hesitate to relocate, and leave sooner – especially in roles they can’t do from home.
Some organisations recognise this, and treat housing as part of their workforce strategy – for example:
- The NSW Government is investing $200 million in accommodation for health workers at more than 20 regional and remote hospitals.
- Super fund Aware Super rents apartments to nurses, teachers, police, and other essential workers at about 80% of market rent, close to where they work.
- In Japan, companies such as MUFG Bank are upgrading their staff dormitories (known as “shataku”) to attract and keep young workers.
- In China, Shenzhen’s state-owned talent housing group offered graduates more than 10,000 free short stays while they looked for work in the city.
You don’t need to subsidise your staff – let alone become a property developer. But at least recognise the problem and start with small steps:
- Determine how far your people travel to work, and how many roles you have lost or failed to fill because of housing.
- Ask new recruits and younger staff how housing affects their career decisions.
- Review flexible work, rostering, and relocation support with housing costs in mind.
- Explore partnerships with councils, community housing providers, or super funds on key-worker housing.
How much of your talent strategy depends on where your people can afford to live?
