Housing crisis forces young Aussie friends to pool their savings together to buy a unit
Exorbitant housing costs have forced two partners to pool their savings just for the chance to buy a house.
Oliver Pratt, 24, and 22-year-old Chris Bryant’s weekly search for a home led them to a three-bedroom apartment in Toowong, Brisbanelast weekend.
Despite the price being around $1 million, the couple was one of 80 people who also inspected the renovated apartment.
They said they would never be able to afford a down payment on their own savings and would have to join forces to make competing offers.
Mr Pratt told the ABC that the skyrocketing housing market meant they would have to apply for a mortgage in a ‘kind of shared situation’.
A pair of young Australian friends, Oliver Pratt (left) and Chris Bryant (right), are forced to pool their savings for a chance to buy a house, albeit with a shared mortgage
The pair are vying for a winning bid in Brisbane, which has soared past Canberra to become the second most expensive big city housing market in Australia.
According to data from CoreLogic, the average cost of a home in the city increased by about 15.8 percent in the past year to just over $843,000.
CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said housing supply is lower in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth caused prices to skyrocket.
“Inventory levels in these markets remain well below average, despite supplier activity increasing compared to this time last year,” Mr Lawless said in a statement.
‘New offers are quickly absorbed by market demand, keeping inventory levels low and putting upward pressure on prices.’
He noted that an increase in supply in Hobart had pushed the average price of a home down 0.5 per cent to $655,000 last month.
The pair compete for a winning bid in Brisbane, which has become Australia’s second most expensive housing market after Sydney (stock image)
It comes after property guru and auctioneer Tom Panos said young Aussies have ‘no chance’ of buying a home unless they financed by their parents.
“If I go to an auction and I see a person under 30, unless I see a mother and father nearby, I think to myself, ‘They don’t have a chance,'” he told Ben Fordham of 2GB.
“And it’s really sad to see that some of the people who are now buying property under 30 are people who are on OnlyFans.
“It’s reached the stage where, if you’re 18 years old, it takes 20 years to get a deposit on a home; for a house that is forty years.’
Mr Panos added that the average age of Australians taking out a home loan is now 32, up from 23 in 2009.
“I remember in my day dreaming that you would live to be 60-65 and that your house would be paid off. That was the average Australian’s dream,” Panos said.
“Nowadays the dream is, ‘I’m going to have to get to that age to actually make a down payment,’ so you understand why people are so discouraged and give up.”
Parents who helped their children with deposits also affected their own retirement savings, Panos said.
“I look at people who are, let’s say, 60-65. As they reach age 80 to 90, handing out lump sums of $100,000 to $200,000 changes the retirement trajectory for most people.”
Mr Panos said rising house prices were driving essential workers out of Australia’s major cities.
“I know teachers and nurses who can’t rent or buy a house,” he said.
‘There is no way back when a society says we can no longer help a teacher or a nurse, there is no way back for society.
“It goes against the fabric of Australian society.”
He said the main driver of rising house prices was rising immigration.
“Immigration is very good, immigration helps a country move forward and it is good for security,” Panos said.
‘Still, I think [Australia should be] by hitting the pause button and saying, “Hey, if we only have 1,000 houses, why are we letting 1,500 people in?”
“So I think the simple solution is a pause or a reduction until we figure out that housing issue or we make progress on that.”
A net 1.38 million more migrants are expected to move to Australia over the next five years. according to treasury documents.
