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| 1950 - 1959 - The Golden Years | |
In the early 1950s the REIQ didn't have a home. When describing this situation many life members refer to themselves as "gypsies" because of their constant moving offices and meeting places. It wasn't until after 1953 that the Institute got its first paid employee. Up until the mid 1950s, most agencies were located in the CBD, so if you wanted to do business you had to come to town. You could even park in Queen Street. Work was hard to come by in the first years of the 1950s. The economy was still re-adjusting and most building supplies were in short supply owing to the large demand for new houses for the thousands of Australians and new Australians who were setting up home straight after the war. |
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One of the major events that affected Brisbane in this decade was sewering of the metropolitan areas. The Brisbane CBD had always been sewered but the suburbs had remained on septic tanks and a pan system. The advent of using a loo inside your own house rather than braving rain and weather at the outside dunny was innovative to say the least and had a big impact on property sales. It wasn't easy starting out in the 1950s when the market was very tight. A three-bedroom house could go for anything from £2,000 to £4,000 ($4,000 to $8,000), with a median around £2,250 ($4,500). The more expensive end of the market consisted of brick homes but there weren't a lot of them around straight after the war. During the 1950s, the ratio of homeowners rose from a little over 50 per cent to around 75 per cent of the population. Australia was in the top 10 in trading nations and one million immigrants had arrived in the 10 years from 1949-59. All of these factors were pushing housing to the forefront of domestic spending.
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Order your copy of Dreams, Deeds and Dedication: A History of the REIQ here |
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1950-1959 |
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