The Ashes begins | England versus Australia | How do house prices and quality compare?

On this the first day of the great adversarial cricket test series over the following days we will be looking at some stunning examples of Antipodean Architecture, but first we take a look at the comparison between house prices in the two countries, the cost of living and what you might expect for your money. As the Test match is being staged at Edgbaston, it seemed pertinent to analyze a typical suburban property in Birmingham and an Australian comparison. Comparably speaking, the average price of a house in Australia is a whopping AU$881,200, around £475,242, while the average property price in the UK is £290,000, and so your need not far short of half million pounds to buy the average house down under.

So what will you get for that? Taking a look at some of the estate agents in Oz, this detached brick property, for sale in Adelaide, a city of a similar size to our city of Birmingham, boasts 3 bedrooms, has a very compact rear yard, currently for sale for £470,000. The floor area is 141 sqm which in this country would be a reasonably comfortable 4-bedroomed house on a new suburban estate.

When viewing the range of properties on the Adelaide Market the Aussies definitely have much more simple taste, with quite sparse rooms and little decoration, the rooms sizes being a lot more comfortable than the UK.

In Birmingham however, for our average house price of 285K we are more likely to be able to afford a small 3-bed semi-detached house in the outskirts. The floor area of this is 82sqm and so not far from half of the size of the Adelaide example, the house has no garage but a larger rear garden.

Comparing salaries between the two cities, the average annual salary is Oz is £48,000, whereas in the UK it is £27,750, and so the difference between average earnings and average house prices is pretty similar, but the illustration above confirms that in Oz you get much more floor area for your money, and this like many other vast land masses comes down to the land availability. It seems however, that on either side of the world properties around cities are not cheap, you don't get a great deal for a lifetime of mortgage commitment and earnings.