Anyone who has rented (or knows a renter) knows the woes of living on someone else’s terms: unresponsive landlords, rent hikes and the threat of getting evicted despite doing everything right. There’s also the bitter aftertaste of effectively paying off someone else’s mortgage – or simply topping up their bank balance while watching your own dwindle.

Recently, I’ve started looking for an exit – or rather an entry. House and unit price growth across most of our capital cities has slowed recently, but they are still steadily climbing, meaning many home owners continue to watch their wealth keep growing. That’s made it harder for many first home buyers to get a foothold in the housing market, but I’m also increasingly getting the sense I’m missing out on boarding the growth train so many people seem to be on.

Credit: Matt Davidson

Between inspecting some properties this week (as a hopeful home buyer rather than a renter for the first time), I started chewing through a copy of the book finding its way onto the bedside tables of our top decision-makers and their staffers.

Two American journalists, Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein, have lit a bit of a fire under the seats of left-leaning governments – and lefties more broadly – with their new book: Abundance.

While both ends of Australia’s political spectrum have zeroed in on housing affordability recently, those on the left have generally believed in the power of government to look after people, including yanking housing back into the reach of everyday Australians.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is a fan.

Thomson and Klein have plenty of qualms about the political right, too. But their speciality lies in getting lefties around the world to reflect........

© The Age