For many young Australians, the idea of home ownership is a distant dream drifting further beyond reach each time interest rates are hiked up, as they were on Tuesday, for the 10th time in as many months.
In March, Daily Mail Australia took to Sydney’s streets – and its beaches – to ask Millennials and Gen Z Australians if they still thought they would place a first, tentative step on the housing ladder.
That very day interest rates were raised to 3.6 per cent, the highest level since 2012, as the Reserve Bank tries to control inflation, which is running at 7.4 per cent – a 30-year high.
Some had abandoned all hope of property ownership, resigned to shelling out hundreds of dollars a week on rent forever, while others had careful strategies to save for their dream home – or were fortunate enough to own already.
Professor Nicole Gurran, expert in urban planning and housing affordability, told Daily Mail Australia: ‘Young people who’ve abandoned hope of getting on the housing ladder are right to feel aggrieved.
‘They’ve been let down by an unfair system which supports landlords rather than renters and existing home owners over those trying to break into the market.’
Mira Almasri, a 35-year-old single mother, is renting a one-bedroom apartment with her two children aged nine and 14 in Mosman on Sydney’s well-heeled north shore for $600 a week.
‘In Sydney everything is expensive. Even to breathe is expensive,’ she said.
Ms Almasri, who works in a bridal shop in central Sydney, said she had given up all hope of owning a Sydney home.
‘It’s impossible to buy in Sydney,’ she said.
‘Even if you earn loads of money it’s still hard. All my friends who have bought houses in the last two years say they are not happy at all because they are paying high interest rates.’
‘I get around $1,000 a week after tax and I’m paying $600 for a one-bedroom apartment. Add on food, petrol, electricity – it’s too much.’
Across Sydney unit rents jumped by a record 18.6 per cent to a median of $575 per week in December, according to a Domain Rent Report.
Ms Almasri, who is originally from Lebanon, has not been able to return home or travel anywhere overseas for five years now.
‘I can’t put any money on the side,’ she said.
Ms Almasri, who has been in Australia for 14 years, is looking for a three-bedroom house for herself and her two kids.
In her current unit, she sleeps on a sofa bed in the living room while her children share the sole bedroom containing two single beds.
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