Baby boomers have revealed how much they paid for their first home and warned young Aussies to give up their ‘lavish lifestyles’ to save for a deposit.
Sydney-based investment firm Coposit Street asked older Australians if they thought it was harder for young people to buy a home now.
A 72-year-old woman said she paid $82,000 for a one-bedroom home in 1985.
The figure pales in comparison the $1.1million residents can expect to pay on average in the city today.
‘It was all relative to what I was earning, that’s what I could afford,’ she said.
‘I’m lucky to have that house now 40 years later, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy a house at all.’
This Sydney woman, 72, paid $82,000 for a one-bedroom home in 1985
The Sydney woman said she had worked three jobs to save for the deposit and had never relied on a husband or had children.
She said it was a ‘very difficult’ time for first-time buyers in Australia.
‘The city has become so overpriced and for what? Property development, greedy bloody investors and people from overseas who have pushed it up,’ she said.
The woman added that young people need to be prepared to give up their ‘lavish’ lifestyles.
‘You’ll have to give up the coffee and the avocado toast. I saved. I worked hard for what I had, but it was affordable within what I was earning,’ she said.
A Parramatta man said he paid $180,000 for a three-bedroom house in Ryde in 1991.
This Parramatta man paid $180,000 for a three-bedroom house in Ryde in 1991
He estimated the home in the city’s north-west would now be worth $3million.
‘It’s very difficult to buy a house in Sydney,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it. It’s too expensive for someone entering the market.’
The man urged keen prospective homebuyers to save as much as possible for the initial deposit and make use of the first-home stamp duty exemption.
‘Buy whatever you can, and even if you don’t live there, you can rent it out,’ he said.
University of Melbourne professor Allan Fels, an economist and mental health advocate, said life is much tougher for the younger generation.
He said figures prove it was much tougher to buy a house now.
‘We baby boomers have had it a lot easier than the new generation of young people,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘They face a future of much less home ownership and associated mental health stability. The mere fact they are missing out is a cause of stress.
‘The trend of rising prices adds to the stress because many used to think that they could buy their own house but they keep missing out because prices are continually rising just beyond their grasp.’
According to Corelogic data released earlier this month, the median house price in Sydney is currently sitting at $1,142,431.
The median price of an apartment is $844,659 and $730,651 for regional dwellings.
First-home buyers continue to struggle to purchase properties in both capital cities and regional areas across Australia (pictured, houses in suburban Sydney)
Australian big city house prices are tipped to surge by more than a third during the next three years with Sydney’s median price set to hit the $2million mark
The median house price in Canberra is $972,699 followed by Melbourne ($941,698), Brisbane ($920,046), Adelaide ($800,648), Perth ($753,947), Hobart ($692,004) and Darwin ($579,229).
The median house price in Australia’s combined capital cities is $966,570 while the median unit price is $664,596.
Australian big city house prices are tipped to surge by more than a third during the next three years with Sydney’s median price set to hit the $2million mark.
The increases forecast between now and June 2027 would be even more significant than the price rises since the onset of Covid four years ago, which covered interest rates aggressively rising from record-low levels as immigration soared.
Oxford Economics Australia is forecasting that Sydney’s median house price will hit $1.934million by June 2027, with Perth reaching $1million.
The median price in Melbourne and Brisbane was also expected to reach seven figures during the same period as prices rose between a third and 43 per cent.