There’s nothing more Australian than being a homeowner. Or rather, wanting to be a homeowner. Buying property is literally codified into the Great Australian Dream. The message is clear: work hard, save, sacrifice and it can all be yours. But while the sentiment has remained fixed for generations, the circumstances surrounding it have not.
In 2022, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported: “The likelihood of owning a home when aged 25-39 years decreased for each successive generation.” Which means for many younger people, the Australian dream looks more like a fantasy. Still, despite the odds, by 2021 54% of millennials had managed to enter the property market.
But how? Is everyone harbouring secret family wealth? Did they do it by riding their bike to work and making coffee at home? Or were they able to navigate some other alternate pathway to residential bliss? To find out, six young(ish) Australians explain how they managed to live a 1980s dream in 2024.
Maggie, 24: bought intergenerational home
The freelance writer, content creator and co-host of the Culture Club podcast bought a semi-detached unit in March 2022 with her parents. They live there together with her younger sister.
My family rented for 20 years; then in 2022, we had the opportunity to buy something together. In terms of deposit and stamp duty, I contributed $100k. My parents and I split the mortgage three ways and all live in the house together.
I know I’m an anomaly. I earned my contribution from working since I was 14 years old. For the past decade I’ve always balanced several jobs at once, mainly in the freelance media space. I also accessed the Victorian homebuyer fund, which is a shared equity scheme where the government owns some of the house with you. Doing it this way meant I could buy sooner and at a higher price.
My choice was very much driven by the desire to help out my parents. As a child of Chinese immigrants, I feel a sense of responsibility to financially care for them. I don’t really subscribe to the belief that your parents should take care of you money-wise. In our culture, or my experience of it, finances are a shared responsibility.
Buying with family relieved a lot of financial pressure, but it’s not a perfect solution. A lot of sacrifices have come with it. I’m conscious that as a young homeowner I don’t have the sharehouse experience or freedom to travel and spend as I like. But I know it’s what’s best for all of us.
Overall, it has been a complicated but rewarding experience. I feel a lot of pride and gratitude in being able to build this nest egg. It also brought us closer. We hadn’t talked about money and finances that much before embarking on this together.
I’m quite transparent about my experience when talking to others, but I’ve noticed I have to offer more explanation when I’m talking to white people. I think the concept of intergenerational living, or the fact I bought the house for my family’s financial standing, confuses them. They tend to see property ownership more as a way to enhance personal wealth, rather than a community or family experience.
Mary*, 34: rode the rising tide
Mary, who works in publishing, bought her first apartment in 2019 with an inheritance and the help of her parents. She was then able to sell it for a profit and buy a house.
My partner and I bought our first apartment in 2019 for $565k. I initially wanted to buy because my grandpa left me an inheritance of $120k, so I had money sitting there. To cover the rest, I got a bank loan of about $380k and my parents chipped in the remaining amount. My contribution was pretty much just the inheritance. I wasn’t actively saving.
I never asked my parents for the money. They offered because my brother had asked a few years ago and they’re always very even with us. I felt OK taking it; they’ve always been generous. We call it a “loan”, but there were never any conditions and I’ve never had to pay them a cent. I think of it more as an advance on my inheritance.
We sold that apartment after three years. During that time the market had gone up so much that we made $170k in profit. That then enabled us to buy a house. Although I did have to take another massive loan from my parents – it was $200k or $300k, something like that.
I feel really lucky to be in this position. I know I wouldn’t have been able to do all this without their support. I went to a very privileged, private school and all of my friends from my younger years are in similar situations. But stepping out of that circle has really burst that bubble. I often feel a bit uncomfortable about the different lifestyles between me and my friends now. It’s why I like to be transparent about money, because I know they’re probably wondering how we afforded our house. The reality is without my parents I probably wouldn’t have been able to.
Ellen*, 34: a gift deposit
Bought her apartment with a deposit given to her by her mum.
I bought my place in 2017 when I was 27 years old – it was $328k. Embarrassingly, the whole $60k deposit came from my mother. I’d just started my first teaching job and didn’t have any money saved. I was living pay cheque to pay cheque, despite being in full-time employment.
My mum had been saying for a while that I should buy something and I’d always remind her that I didn’t have the finances. She offered to help me out with some money that had come from her mother passing away. Her reasoning was that she and my dad wouldn’t have been able to buy their place without help from my grandmother, so they were happy to help me. Before then I wasn’t really aware of her personal financial situation. I knew my parents were comfortable, but I didn’t assume I would be getting any money until it was offered.
I honestly don’t think I could have done it alone. Even with her help it was difficult to get the mortgage with gifted money. I was rejected by three banks because I didn’t have “genuine savings” and they said I couldn’t show I’d be able to service the loan.
When I eventually bought the apartment I made a point to say I’d pay her back, but she said no – with one condition. The only situation where she wants the money back is if I sell this place to buy a property to move in with a man. It was really important to her that I didn’t lose my asset or have it combined with a future partner. I think she’d seen it happen over the years to her friends. They’d meet someone, have them move in, break up – and then the man would try to claim half the house.
June*, 34: freelanced for a third income
June, a producer, and her partner bought their apartment after two years of intense work allowed them to save a deposit.
We bought our apartment in 2022. It was $690k and our deposit was $70k. We had no external support. My partner and I got the deposit ourselves through work.
To be honest, we were terrible with money. We never saved – we still don’t. But we were able to do it because there just happened to be a really busy work period. My partner was working full-time in a well-paying job and I was working part-time, but we also had a company together. So we effectively had three incomes. I worked from 7am to 11pm for two years.
Even though we managed to buy our place, I wonder if it was really worth it. I worked my butt off for years and now I just kind of feel trapped by this insane mortgage and interest rates. Plus, because we live in an apartment, we have constant owners corp fees; we had to redo all the electricity because it’s an old building; and now our upstairs neighbour’s shower is leaking so our kitchen ceiling is about to fall in.
Sometimes I think, what if I spent that money going overseas or invested in my and my partner’s creative work? Like, is the Australian dream really worth it?
Joshua, 33: Bought with friends
Tim, a service designer and artist, bought a rundown 20-acre regional property with five other people. They’re currently renovating and renting it out on Airbnb.
We bought our property for $1.42m in 2021 with a deposit of $562k. It’s on 20 acres and has three really unique dwellings that were built in the ‘70s by German and Japanese builders and furniture makers. The previous owner had it for 30 years and didn’t really care for it, so it was in a pretty bad way.
It’s in a regional, coastal area and we bought during the peak tree/sea change Covid price boom. But at any time there would be no way my partner and I could afford a $562k deposit. We got the mortgage with two other couples, so there were six names on the title. We figured it would be better to spread the repayments and capital outlay to do renovations.
We also assumed that banks would see three parties as less risky than one. We were completely wrong.
As it turned out, banks assume the other couples will default on the loan. So they want to know at least one of the couples is able to service the entire mortgage themselves. None of us could prove that, so none of the major banks were interested. We ended up having to go with the worst of the worst lenders. Not only did that mean the interest rates were way worse, but they also needed a 40% deposit.
That put us in a position where we either needed to come up with that money fast or lose the property. It was such a hectic scramble to get the cash. We ended up putting together a proposal for my parents, where we asked if they’d be open to refinancing their house to cover the rest. We showed how we’d make money from renting out the property to pay them back within five years and also cover their interest.
We managed to get the loan, but there were still challenges. When interest rates started increasing, one of the couples said it was too much for them and they decided to leave after eight months. We had to figure out how to get the cash together to pay them out and ended up having to refinance the house and go into more debt.
But even though it’s been really hard, I still feel great about this choice. Having friends and family come to visit and see what we’ve done, seeing their reactions, is really special.
*Names have been changed
