‘Small price to pay’: the young homeowners welcoming falling house prices even as it hurts them

Alex Hogan and his partner, Maxine, with their children, at the park at the end of their street in Everton Hills. They’re now weighing up whether they can afford to have another child as property prices fall and the cost of building on their block of land climbs. Photograph: Rhett Wyman/The Guardian

Falling property prices have come at the worst possible time for Alex Hogan and his partner. They are now weighing up whether they can afford to have another child.

Locked out of the established housing market, the Queensland couple resorted to buying a block of land to build a family home.