The home ownership dream is fading
Young adults are planning to live longer in their parents' home because they cannot afford to buy their own place, according to CoreLogic's Perceptions of Housing Affordability 2019.Thirty-four per cent of adult Australians living with their parents think they will be at least 30 before moving out of the family home. When the same question was asked in 2017, only 20 per cent said they would get to 30 before they moved out.One in ten of those still in the family home say they have no intention of leaving.The main reason for continuing to live with parents was "I can't afford to move out". Other reasons were the lower cost of living in the family home, the fact that people continue with study well into their late 20s, and saving money for a home deposit.CoreLogic research director Asia Pacific, Tim Lawless, says: "Surprisingly, a higher wage makes little difference to the perception of being able to move out of the parental home, with similar responses across all wage levels."The survey shows that 64 per cent of those earning more than A$150,000 think they cannot afford to move out."The improvement in housing affordability over the past couple of years, due to falling prices, has made little difference to young adults' perception that they will have to live longer with their parents.As a result of affordability problems, fewer Australians believe home ownership is important to them. In the 2017 survey, 89 per cent of people said home ownership was important. In the latest survey that number has fallen to 81 per cent.Among millennials, 86 per cent rate home ownership as important.The greatest impediments to owning a home are not being able to save the deposit, difficulty getting a loan approval and the cost of stamp duty. Forty-four per cent of respondents were not aware that a lender would finance the purchase of a house with less than a 20 per cent deposit.When aspiring home owners were asked how much deposit they could afford, 23 per cent said between 10 and 19 per cent and 34 per cent said between 1 and 9 per cent.CoreLogic found that it takes the "typical Australian household" 8.7 years to save a 20 per cent deposit. The figure is more than ten years in Sydney and Melbourne.When asked what they would like government to do to address affordability, the biggest response was that stamp duty should be removed. Government grants and concessions for first home buyers were popular options, along with policies to encourage job creation in more affordable areas.The things that people look for when they are buying a house are price, access to good public transport, proximity to work and proximity to services.Concessions that people would be prepared to make to get into the housing market include buying a unit instead of a house, choosing a property further away from work and amenities, moving to a regional town and choosing a less desirable suburb.