The highly paid jobs you now need to buy a house in Australia – and the key areas where struggling first-time homebuyers are now flocking to get on the property ladder

An Australian wanting to buy an average house in a major city now needs to earn more than $200,000 a year.

Research by employment agency Seek found that psychiatrists, construction project managers and physicians typically earn salaries of more than $230,000.

Sydney’s average house price of $1.473 million is so expensive that someone buying a home independently with a 20 per cent mortgage would need to earn $226,621 to qualify for a loan.

This person would still be in mortgage stress, spending a third or more of their gross income on monthly payments, despite being in the top 2.3 percent of income earners.

Psychiatrists, who are allowed to prescribe mental health medications, earned the highest average advertised salary of $236,055 during the last fiscal year, after receiving an annual pay increase of 6.58 percent. That beat the 4.1 percent pay increase for the overall labor market.

Construction project managers get $232,682, while general practitioners get $232,450.

Leigh Broderick, head of market data and customer analytics at Seek in Australia and New Zealand, said wages for some occupations were still rising despite the economic slowdown driven by aggressive rate increases.

“Amid challenging economic conditions, pay remains a key concern for many Australians,” he said.

“When there is demand in key industry sectors, such as healthcare and manufacturing, we typically see a positive correlation with salary.”

The largest wage increase was in industry, at 14.62 percent, bringing the average to $140,664.

For health registrars, there was a 12.18 percent increase to $145,176.

An Australian with an average full-time salary of $100,017 can only purchase a property worth up to $650,110 with a 20 percent deposit.

That’s because banks are only allowed to lend individual borrowers a maximum of 5.2 times their pre-tax salary. The Reserve Bank’s cash rate is 4.35 percent, the highest rate in 12 years.

The first home guarantee, which allows buyers to enter a home on the market with 5 percent down, is likely to help young people in particular to secure a home in regional areas and suburbs of large cities.

The federal government program sees taxpayers fund the remainder of the 20 percent down payment as part of the home guarantee scheme aimed at first-home buyers, first-home buyers in the region and single parents.

Research by labor organization Seek found that psychiatrists, construction project managers and physicians (stock photo) typically earn salaries of more than $230,000

Data from the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation shows Mackay in North Queensland has the most first home guarantee recipients in a city with an affordable median house price of $406,005.

Armadale, in south-east Perth, came in second with a house price of $553,097.

The satellite town of Logan, south of Brisbane, was ranked third by the suburb of Beenleigh, where the average house price is $643,530.

This puts the area ahead of East Toowoomba, which has an average house price of $848,079. This makes the area much more exclusive than the rest of the Garden City, where the average house price is under $600,000.

In Melbourne, Craigieburn in the city’s north ranks in the top five nationally, with an average house price of $692,266.

Sydney’s average house price of $1.473 million is so expensive that someone buying a home independently with a 20 percent mortgage would need to earn $226,621 to get a loan

First home buyers in Sydney are likely to flock to the city’s south-west to purchase a home. Moorebank is the city with the most beneficiaries of the guarantee scheme.

Data from CoreLogic shows the average house price in this suburb, 36km from the city, is $1.267 million. Apartments, however, are cheaper at $733,855.

Nearly two-thirds of first-home buyers who rely on the First Home Guarantee have purchased a home, suggesting that couples in particular benefit from it.

About 27 percent bought an apartment, meaning that single people who bought a house alone got a home, while only 9 percent bought a terraced house.