“The second thing is affordability because what we can buy in Newcastle in terms of size and space is more than what we could get in Sydney. Having grown up with it, I felt it was important for my family to have the backyard and access to the outdoors and the beach.” Right now the Lysaghts are staying with Melissa’s parents in Maitland, but the couple is keen to buy a place as soon as possible. They’ve got finance sorted and they’re actively looking for a three-bedroom house with a backyard, close to the train line, where they can grow their family. The trade-off is Lysaght’s alarm goes off at 4.30am and he drives to the station for a 6am train, arriving at his office near Wynyard by 8.40am. He doesn’t get home until after 8pm, often calling in by FaceTime to say good night to his son. While it’s early days, he believes he’s “starting to get into the routine”. Dan and Melissa Lysaght want two-year-old Roman and any future children to grow up near family and with a backyard and access to the beach. Credit:Simone De Peak His work has offered some flexibility and his plan is to work from home two days a week, though in recent busy periods he’s only managed one.

Lysaght is not alone. Terry Rawnsley, an economist with consultancy SGS Economics and Planning says the trend of long commutes is increasing. “There has been growth in what I would call the ‘mega-commuter’ - those who commute a long distance to get to the CBD,” Rawnsley says. “It’s a trend that is becoming more common. What's happened is that sometimes these people might only work in the office a couple of days a week and budget on travelling for 10 hours a week and are happy to do that so long as they are not doing that five days a week.” Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Rawnsley says that is particularly the case with those who work in professional occupations, where higher incomes make the longer commute worthwhile.

Job centres Figures from the 2016 Census show the extent to which the growth engine for jobs is in the big cities. The flexibility to work from home two days a week makes it easier for Dan Lysaght to keep a Sydney salary despite living in Newcastle. Credit:Simone De Peak The census showed more than 900,000 jobs were created in five state capitals – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth – between 2011 and 2016. But the rest of Australia saw a net increase of only 5400 jobs in that period.

The median household income in greater Sydney is $91,000 compared to $60,736 for NSW overall, while in greater Melbourne it’s $80,184 versus $58,448 for Victoria as a whole. Yet property prices in Sydney and Melbourne are out of reach for many people, particularly those with growing families looking for a house with a decent back yard. A median-priced three-bedroom house in greater Sydney costs $772,000, according to Domain data analysed by comparison site RateCity. Assuming you have a 20 per cent deposit and are repaying principal and interest over 30 years, you’d need household income of $125,172 a year to avoid mortgage stress, at the current average big bank rate of 4.5 per cent. Mortgage stress is defined as spending more than 30 per cent of your pre-tax income on mortgage repayments.

Banks are meant to stress-test the borrower’s capacity to make repayments of a higher rate, currently about 7.25 per cent. To service the loan on a $772,000 home at that rate, you’d need household income of $168,525 a year in order to avoid mortgage stress. In greater Melbourne, to buy the median-priced three-bedroom house of $690,000 and avoid mortgage stress you’d need household income of $111,876 a year if paying 4.5 per cent – or $150,625 if rates rose to 7.25 per cent. By comparison, it currently takes a household income of $59,667 to be able to afford the three-bedroom median house price of $368,000 in Bendigo, while in North Gosford, to the north of Sydney, it takes an income of $90,312 to be able to afford a loan for the typical $557,000 home. Loading The median big city prices are for the whole metropolitan area, including outer suburbs that might entail a mega-commute of their own. Established areas close to the city with good transport are more expensive – for example, in Melbourne the median three-bedroom home in is $956,000 in Chadstone or $1.45 million in Richmond, while in Sydney the median three-bedroom home is $2.12 million in Chatswood or $2.16 million in Strathfield. So-called entry-level homes in established areas are often still close to a million dollars.

Upgraders It is not only first-timers who find it impossible to break into a capital city property market, but even upgraders who have built up some equity can find it tough going. Alicia Kelly says the commute from the Macedon Ranges to Melbourne is worth it. Alicia Kelly, 37, drops her three kids off at school and then drives for more than an hour to her job as a television producer in Melbourne’s Southbank precinct. Kelly and her husband moved with their three children from Melbourne to Gisborne in the Macedon Ranges, about 55 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, to have more space for their children.

The family includes a 9-year-old boy and 7-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. Her husband runs his own business and travels, including frequent travelling interstate. They get a lot of help from Kelly’s parents, who live nearby, and often pick the children up from school. Alicia makes the drive into Melbourne four days a week and usually waits until after 6.30pm to head home, to avoid traffic. There is a rail link, but Kelly says trains don't always stop at Gisborne and it’s less stressful to drive. “I love my job and I love where we live and what we are able to provide for our children,” Kelly says. “When I take that exit off the highway on the way home I just think how much I love it here.” They owned a house in Melbourne but there was not much of a backyard, Kelly says. They wanted more space for their growing family. "The most affordable thing for us was to sell up and move further out to be closer to my parents and also to be able to have a better lifestyle for our family," she says.

Her family lives in a free-standing house on a “leafy and beautiful” quarter-acre block. The costs of petrol and the toll she pays from Tullamarine to Flemington Road and parking of $12, is worth it, she says. Congestion increases The congestion in Australia’s two biggest cities is getting worse as infrastructure fails to keep pace with their booming growth in population.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show Melbourne had the largest population growth of 125,400 during the year to June 30, 2017, followed by Sydney with 101,600 and Brisbane with 48,000. Together, the three cities accounted for more than 70 per cent of Australia's population growth. Rawnsley says that Melbourne has been better than Sydney at improving the rail services between regional centres and the capital city CBD. With many people facing very long commute times across Sydney or Melbourne, living outside of the city can sometimes not add much to the travel time, he says. Commuting from somewhere like Ballarat, for example, is quite doable. And the trains are fairly frequent in peak periods, he says. “That can be more appealing than a 'greenfield' growth area in Melbourne, for example, where you have to drive yourself around in heavy traffic," Rawnsley says.

“The trip from Newcastle to Sydney by train, on the other hand, which is still more than two-and-a-half hours, is no quicker than it was decades ago.” City commuters While anyone coming into the CBD from regional centres is going have a long commute, most of the people who do long commutes are those who travel across Sydney or Melbourne. Emma Shipley lives in Caringbah South in the Sutherland Shire of Sydney and she takes the 50 minute train trip into the CBD each weekday. She has to drive for 15 minutes to the station. While she gets a seat on the way in, she sometimes has to stand for the first part of the journey on the return journey.