What Millennials Do When They Can’t Buy A House

STORIES

If you’re a millennial renter without access to the Bank of Mum and Dad, chances are you’re feeling more than a little depressed about the prospect of buying a house. Every week brings a new story about rising house prices (up 4.9 per cent since February!) or rising rents, or the near-impossibility of ever saving enough money to satisfy the banks’ increasingly stringent lending requirements.

In fact, more than 70 per cent of millennials say they believe they’ll never be able to own a home. But if they can’t own homes like those of their parents’, what will they do instead? There are, after all, only so many smashed avocados one can eat. So we asked a handful of millennial women renters about their financial planning for a future that might not ever feature a white-picket-fenced family home.

“I live about 20 kilometres west of Nowra on the Shoalhaven River in a place called Barringella,” says Molly Lasker, 27, a full-time research student. “My partner Al and I live in a tiny house on my parent’s property, where I grew up. “In 2019 we quit our jobs to go travelling; a week after we got back, the country went into lockdown and we moved into the house. Our priorities shifted during this time. We became more insular and enjoyed a slower lifestyle. Cities are often heralded as the bastions of creativity, but I’ve found living in a regional area to be incredibly inspiring. Lockdown showed us that living down here might be a better idea long-term."

“The fact that we may never own our own home hit us this year, when we were finally ready to start looking,” says Zena Chamas, 35, a journalist from Melbourne. “We’ll probably try to keep adding to the deposit, but eventually we’d like to travel, so if we don’t end up buying a home, we’ll take our little bub around the world or invest in a business – my husband has always wanted to open a restaurant.”

“We recently returned to Australia after living in Bali, where the cost of living is almost on par with here,” says Nichola Spain, 32, from the Sunshine Coast, who runs Montville Estate Airbnb from her parents’ property. "We decided to cut our losses and return home, where we plan to rent for the next year or so before hopefully moving to Europe for a period of time. “Having the flexibility to live in different parts of the world with my family and to expose my son to a different lifestyle and cultures is our main priority."

Meet The Women Making Thousands From Their Wardrobes

BY CAROLINE ZIELINSKI

Arrow

Read more about why some millennials are ditching the Australian Dream at PRIMER.

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