A young woman has shared her feelings of hopelessness of trying to break into the property market despite earning an income many would consider very comfortable.
Erin, 28, and her partner earn a combined income of $200,000 from steady jobs in southeast Queensland and have minimal weekly expenses.
But she feels their healthy incomes just aren’t enough anymore.
In the current economy, Australians earning average incomes are struggling to save money for home deposits due to high rents and general living costs.
Prospective Australian homebuyers face minimum deposits of more than $100,000.
PropTrack’s Housing Affordability Report, released on Saturday, also found it would take Australians an average of five years to save for a home deposit.
For Erin and her partner, buying in their suburb is an intimidating venture.
They live several kilometres from the Brisbane CBD in a suburb with a median house price of over $1.2million.
Erin was gob-smacked to learn what the million-dollar house she rents cost just decades ago
The three-bedroom apartment she and her partner rent is valued at about $1.3million.
Erin said a chance meeting with an elderly, previous owner of the property made her jaw drop.
The lady was looking for some mail that may been misplaced before Erin asked her how much she bought the now-$1.3million home for.
She revealed she’d purchased it for $200,000 a few decades ago.
In a TikTok, the 28-year-old said she was told her time to own a home would come, to which she wondered: ‘When?’
Erin said her most recent trip to the bank was a harrowing experience, learning about the true limits of her borrowing power.
‘I had a conversation with the bank. I had like $20,000 in savings, I thought that was substantial for what I was earning at the time, and he was like, “the (maximum) you can borrow is $300,000”,’ she told news.com.au.
‘Mate, what am I f***ing going to buy with $300,000? There was nothing then and that was five years ago.’
Since that day at the bank, Erin’s salary has risen, but so have house prices.
Even with her partner, Erin said purchasing a home still feels impossible and talking about it has become a taboo between them.
She revealed that both of them find the topic too depressing.
The nation’s housing crisis has further worsened with competition driving prices even higher
Erin believes her only chance at purchasing a home would be through some lucky windfall, explaining that everyone she knows has used inheritances or the Bank of Mum and Dad to lay down a deposit.
‘I try not to think about it, purely because I feel a sense of jealously that some of my friends have places, and then they complain to me about their mortgage rates going up, but like, you have a house,’ she added.
According to the PropTrack report, mortgage costs are at levels comparable to 2008, barely below the historical peaks of 1989-1990.
PropTrack’s report showed that in the past year a median-income household earning $112,000 could only afford 14 per cent of homes sold.
Just three years ago, a household on a median-income could stretch to afford 43 per cent of homes.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk