Young Aussies’ brutal wake-up call to boomers: I’m making a decent wage but still can’t afford a house – here’s why you should worry

A young professional’s powerful message about Australia’s worsening housing crisis has struck a chord with thousands of frustrated renters.

The Sydney resident wrote that despite a good salary, they could not buy a house because their parents had never owned property.

‘I’m a professional in my thirties living in Sydney.

‘My biggest mistake is that my parents never had any possessions and were never rich, so they were never able to help me.

‘I don’t begrudge them because I had a happy and healthy childhood, but now I see all my friends and colleagues buying houses in middle-class suburbs and I read a statistic that 60 percent of Australians get help buying property .

“It feels like birth is increasingly the biggest determinant of success in this country.”

The young Australian added that the deepening housing crisis could lead to “significant civil unrest” if “skilled and essential people” continue to miss out.

“It’s all gone too far.”

The professional spoke out after a young Sparkie shared his struggles, saying he honestly felt the young Aussie’s future had been sold and he just wants to give up.

‘I am a 31-year-old, bubbly man and I consider myself a fairly simple man. I just want to have a family home, earn some money, work until I’m 60 and hopefully get through retirement.

‘I have no vices, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble and I don’t have any expensive hobbies. Despite all this, the basics of life have become so expensive that I don’t think I’ll ever actually own a home. The clocks are ticking and I will never be able to have children due to lack of financial security through housing.

‘I just don’t understand how our society ended up like this. Some of the older sparkies in my crew (50+) have multiple homes, spend and drink like drunken sailors and have a more expensive lifestyle. For exactly the same work they live like kings, while I am stuck as a pauper forever.

‘It feels to me what I think fuedalism was like, and I’m just a serf. This whole situation is rotten to the core.

“I just want to live a simple life and be a good father, but I feel like I’ve been robbed of the opportunity because of greed and speculation.

“It feels like the only way to make it in my generation is if you have rich parents or make money that most of us will never see.

“How have we as a society made it so that essential workers cannot afford the simple things in life, like housing?

‘We can’t all be lawyers or doctors, society couldn’t function like that! And I’m sure we need sparkies.

“It certainly feels like a happy country, for some, but not for all of us.”

Many Aussies agreed with the couple’s fate.

“It’s a throwback to the time when birth determined everything,” said one.

‘A 34-year-old lawyer here. I definitely relate to it. I’ve pretty much given up on ever owning a house,” a second commented.

‘Same deal. 30’s, making more money than I ever had, but the parent I got stuck with (my mother) had no property, so now it’s GG for the rest of my life?’ a third wrote.

‘I have no idea how much more money I would need to save for a down payment, it’s a huge climb doing that whilst paying off the insane rents we pay.

‘I don’t live anywhere near a city, by the way. Regional. The price increase applies across Australia and is disgusting.”

A fourth said: ‘Buying a house is much more difficult today than twenty years ago. The data shows this. It’s literally undeniable.”

Another said: ‘We were raised by a narcissistic generation who closed the doors behind them quickly and harshly.

“You’ve been told that all you have to do to be successful is work hard. It’s only the lazy and the bludgers who miss out.

“But what you need now (to live the life your parents had) is mom and dad’s couch or a time machine.”

A fifth added: “I agree with you. The opportunities that the older guys had, many buying nice houses in the suburbs and even a piece of land outside Melbourne on one income, just having their careers behind them, and that’s amazing.”

Another stated: “As long as this country continues to treat housing as an investment rather than a basic human right, things will only get worse. If we hadn’t bought seven years ago, there’s no way we could have bought today.”

However, not everyone agreed with the housing market tirade.

A single woman in her 30s said she bought a two-bedroom apartment in Sydney’s west without any help from her parents.

Before buying her first home, the woman had earned between $65,000 and $80,000 for four years before receiving $110,000 for another three years.

She rented one-bedroom houses in Parramatta and Homebush before buying the city center apartment for less than $600,000 last year.

“And I never felt like I had to ‘starve myself’ to achieve this, as I didn’t even plan on buying a house until a month before I bought a house,” she said.

“While I understand that everyone’s situation is different, I feel like there’s something I don’t understand because so many people say they’ve lost hope?”

Another said they could have bought land to build their first house at the age of 29 without any help from their parents, both of whom are refugees.

‘Was it difficult? Yes. Impossible? No. “I had to make a lot of sacrifices and work more hours and eat out less, etc. But I chose to do the hard work,” they wrote.

“I had to make some tough choices about the area/area/upgrades to plan, etc., but in the end it will be worth it. The goalposts have certainly moved a few times since previous generations, but I’m sure we can still score.”

National real estate prices are expected to rise by up to 5 percent in 2023, after already rising more than 2 percent since the start of the year.

“The post-pandemic immigration recovery is expected to put significant pressure on housing demand,” said KPMG economists Brendan Rynne and Brian Tran.

“Robust population growth and limited housing supply are likely to put more pressure on the rental market.”

According to a report from REA Group, the strongest growth is expected to occur in Perth, with growth between 4 and 7 percent.

Prices in Melbourne are forecast to grow more slowly, up to 2 per cent, although they could see a small decline towards the end of the year.

Property prices in Sydney and Adelaide are expected to rise by 3 to 6 per cent, while Brisbane is on track for growth of between 1 and 4 per cent.

The author of the REA Group report, Cameron Kusher, said a limited supply of properties for sale remains a key factor contributing to buyer competition and price growth.

“We saw price increases despite rising interest rates and reduced borrowing capacity and expect moderate price increases to continue in the coming months,” he said.

Kusher said the outlook for 2024 is less clear, with a large group of fixed-rate mortgages set to expire from current interest rates of around 2 percent and reset to around 6 percent.

“Interest rate changes are delayed and as such the potential impact of higher repayments on these borrowers will not be seen until 2024,” he said.

“We currently forecast modest price growth through 2024.”

Meanwhile, rental vacancy rates remain tight in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, according to new data from SQM Research.

The national vacancy rate fell to 1.1 per cent, with Sydney falling to 1.3 per cent from 1.4 per cent in August.

Asking rents also rose as a result of intense competition for housing and rose by 1.3 percent in October.

SQM Research director Louis Christopher said housing construction was not keeping pace with population growth, fueled by pent-up, post-pandemic migration.