We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.
It’s an oppressively hot day in Sydney’s inner west and four of us have congregated around the pool in the complex of someone’s rented apartment. As usual, we’re talking about our least-favourite topic – will we ever own property?
Basically, we’ve done everything right and applied the sensible advice of our elders. We worked hard at school and embarked on solid degrees at good universities and catapulted into the workforce shortly after graduation. We are the poster children for responsible decision-making, and we’re waiting to reap the reward we were promised – owning a roof over our heads.
Our parents said our dreams would come true if we did everything right. They were wrong. Credit: Dionne Gain
Not all of us agree that the economics of homeownership stack up. One, a well-paid software engineer engaged to a data scientist, is emphatic: “Renting is not dead money. Let’s say we buy a million-dollar house, we’ll just end up paying $900,000 in interest to our bank. I’d rather pay $500,000 in so-called ‘dead money’ than give away $900,000 I’ll never see again.”
His partner pipes up: “You need to consider the risk – let’s say you buy property and the housing market crashes and never recovers. Your property isn’t worth the same and you’ve lost a lot of money.”
Another friend is completing a PhD while working and lives at home to save money. His position is clear: “Owning property in Sydney isn’t feasible unless you’re a double-income household. Buying property on a single income is a terrible idea.”
I’m in the same position. After graduating with an honours degree, I work full-time as a conference producer and know that owning property is, at a minimum, a decade away. The median age of first home buyers went from 24.5 years old to 34.5 between 2000 and 2020. But we’re more fortunate than most within our age bracket. And if we’re struggling to navigate the system, how is everyone else faring? Doesn’t everyone deserve a place to call their own?
Every generation has fought a war, and the war my generation is fighting looks totally different from the battles that came before us. Our grandparents, while experiencing the hardships that came with war, were perhaps the last generation able to buy property on a single income. My 60-something parents bought their Sydney home in the 1980s. Like most of the Boomer generation, the global expansion of free-market ideology meant money was free-flowing and plentiful.
My generation grew up assuming we’d have it just as easy, and we were wrong. We were promised a future where we could marry young, enjoy full-time employment and raise children in a home we could call our own. These days, that dream is restricted to the privileged few.
The median home price in Sydney is $1.46m and, for house hunters, an annual income of $255,000 is required to guarantee sufficient borrowing capacity. At the same age my parents settled down and bought property, a large percentage of young people are juggling casual jobs in the gig economy.
Stella Spackman with her favourite family member.
It’s a political problem with a political solution. Another member of our group proclaims: “The onus is on our government but all the MPs own multiple properties and would have done something by now if they really cared. That’s not a solution – no one has one.”
Not exactly the cogent political analysis we were hoping to hear, but hey, they had a point. Decades of poor housing policy has let the country down, trapped young people out of the market and left homeowners in a Ponzi scheme. It doesn’t matter who you ask, many young Australians are moving back in with their parents. It’s been reported that 2.6 million people have returned to the family home due to our cost-of-living crisis.
Of course, I could wait for my inheritance but that will probably arrive after my senior’s card. My smoking, drinking grandparents lived until their mid-90s and my health-obsessed parents will probably live forever.
To make matters worse, they have joined their generation’s hottest trend: the “grey divorce” – and are planning to sell their major asset, the family home. My mother says that, having climbed the property ladder, she is about to slide down the asset snake to meet me somewhere near the bottom. She jokes about moving in with me in my inner-west rental. Fine by me, but I’m not resuscitating her if she stops breathing, I’m jumping onto Domain.
Stella Spackman is a conference producer who is passionate about cybersecurity. She wrote a university thesis which was read by no one (including her mother).
Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.
Copyright © 2023
Recent Comments