What are the circumstances of your housing?
With the cost of living crisis, house price crisis, rental crisis, housing availability crisis and homelessness crisis, I thought it would be good to understand where OzBargainers are in all this.
Do you own your own home, have investment properties, rent, etc?
Because OP does not care about that category.
Added now.
Could you please add "Living in public housing, on the dole"
Oversight. Thanks @hamza23 for adding
What about for "Crypto bro, owns billions, living overseas" ?
From the cricket noises I'm hearing from the historically most vocal Ozbargain crypto bros, it seems like they didn't survive the last bust.
This. More than 1 property? What am I, a whirlpool or R/ausfinance bro?
If you’re from Whirlpool it’s ’property Portfolio’, please don’t give away that you have low number plural properties, or worse still, singular property ownership
I thought it would be good to understand where Ozbargainers are in all this.
Quick election news headline grab.
Good for marketers
Good for ATO.
The force is strong with this one. Don't feed the machine. Its an AI pretending to be real.
Why no ‘living in my parent’s basement’ option? That’s the only one you really need
You can choose either of the "Living with family/friends" options depending if you're paying to live in your parent's basement or not.
Interesting that your parents have a basement in Australia. Is it an old inner city terrace house?
The house I grew up in was pretty old, it had a small cellar underground. Haven't seen that in any house I've been in since. Never quite understood what it was for… was that like a food storage thing from before refrigeration was common? My dad just used it to store all the assorted crap in that he didn't want to put in the shed.
That's for wine and mettwurst
Because parent's basement is the foster home for cats whose owners want to surrender them for free.
Shouldn't Renting + own investment property/ies also include + drive a high yield investment & be employed as a graduate entrant in one of the Big 4.?
I think this sums up most Ozbargainers, especially the last line:
https://doublebaytoday.com/local-real-estate-agent-still-fla…
Gold!
Where can you get a Datsun 180B umbrella?
Paid off 5 bedroom house here. Took years of saving, grinding, and getting laughed at for driving a beat-up old Camry when it was too wet to ride the pushbike to work.
Sounds like a lot of cleaning to me or do your 4 kids pitch in?
No kids yet. Might have some by 40.
For now, just enjoying a paid-off 5-bedder without anyone wiping their nose on the walls.
Fairly achievable if you bought pre-COVID. More difficult nowadays.
Bought during COVID actually.
Rode a pushbike to work on 3°C mornings because running the V6 Camry cost too much.
Came home to a freezing house because heating was a "luxury" I didn't need.
No smashed avo, no holidays, not even new op shop clothes unless the old ones had too many holes.
Now? No mortgage. No regrets.
I lived in share houses and dingy studio units (fridge less than 1 metre from the bed) from the age of 18 until I was 42. For 14 of those years I didn't even have a car. I bought a house post-COVID, and paid it off. It was tough, and took a mental and physical toll. Also happy to be mortgage free, but my house is absolutely tiny, not a 5-bedroom mansion, and requires a lot of renovation.
Brave to buy at time of such uncertainty, and it's great that it paid off for you!
So paid off in 5 years or less? Well done!
May I ask what size mortgage are we talking here: $400k, $500k, $600k, $700k, higher?
@tenpercent: Higher, despite a motivated seller during COVID and an all cash offer, it's still a 5 bedroom house after all.
I took out a small loan to avoid breaking some term deposits and to take advantage of cashback offers.
@JIMB0: So you pumped in over $140k/yr into paying off the loan? You must be earning well above median.
all cash offer
I already had the cash to settle. I specifically hunted for a house with a motivated seller as during COVID going unconditional on finance could score you a big discount if the vendor couldn't afford for the sale to fall through.
The loan was only to take advantage of cashback offers and to avoid a small loss of interest from breaking some term deposits.
@JIMB0: If you paid all cash that you already had (and didn't have a mortgage at all) then I'm confused what the story about you riding on a pushbike in the snow, not heating your house, etc is all about. And also this
Now? No mortgage. No regrets.
But you never had one to begin with?
@tenpercent: I saved up for it over a number of years while paying rent and waiting for a market crash. Missed out buying before the LNP won the unwinable election. When COVID come I figured this is as good a crash as we'll ever see so I went for it.
Best part of all was parking a dilapidated old car in the driveway of a big flash house.
@JIMB0: You make yourself sound very humble but being able to pay off a ~$1,000,000 home (I'm assuming it must have been a shade under a million) in under 5 years means one of two things, either: you're in the top 5% of earners in this country or you had a huge amount of capital lying around, acquired through other means (inheritance, investments, etc). Either way, you're a rather extreme outlier, despite the clapped out Camry and push bike and no heating.
I'm not saying you didn't make sacrifices but your story is just not at all representative of the average person's predicament when it comes to the housing market right now. Even people making $140K per year are completely f**ked in cities like Melbourne and Sydney now and they represent less than 10% of the population (and shrinking). The other 90% will never own sh*t unless it's gifted to them or they win the Lotto or they split it 7 ways with a 3-generation extended family living under one roof. The upward social mobility ship has sailed for huge swaths of the Western world now, it's more like musical chairs on the Titanic at this point and like the life boats, there's way, way too few chairs.
Stories like this reinforce this ridiculously outdated notion that it's a personal failure of character or ambition that still prevents people from owning a home in this country. Sure, for some people that's true but this stopped being a relevant point of discussion in this topic several decades ago. Our housing market is fundamentally a rigged, deeply broken system and the house always wins because we have a property Ponzi scheme that is deliberately being kept in place by the political/billionaire class for their personal selfish gain at the expense of millions of people's basic right to secure housing.
@Miami Mall Alien: All it takes is giving up smashed avo and riding a pushbike to work, and you too can buy a five-bedroom house in cash. Truly inspirational. /s
Feels like a real White Goodman moment: “With nothing more than some elbow grease and a little can-do attitude… and yes, a large inheritance from my father, Earl Goodman.”
@youfnc: No windfall gains here, just years of working hard combined with saving hard and not trying to keep up with the Joneses.
The best financial advice I can give?
Stop giving a flying f*** what other people think.
All it takes is giving up smashed avo and riding a pushbike to work
It took a lot more than that. Riding a bike is easy.
Living like you’re broke, when you’re not, is the real challenge.
Here's some inspiration for you:
https://youtu.be/5aloZCNd_c4
@stedmaster: I had one in the sink to collect water for refilling the toilet. There was 2 in the shower, one to save the water before it got hot (used in the washing machine) and another for more toilet water.
If you watch the rest of the videos you'll see the old lady pouring water into the toilet from a bucket, this water came from their weekly bath.
@Miami Mall Alien: You're right. You can go out to some woopwoop town where there's no employment and the decent houses are still selling for $1 million. The problem is that the Ponzi scheme in Sydney has now spread around the country. Once lower middle class Sydney and Melbourne residents realized they can get a house twice as big and twice as good in Brisbane or rural towns, the decades long stretch of living in a land with opportunities was over.
You can literally get three degrees and work a decent job at a successful company in a capital city and still not afford a decent house in a rural town 5 hours away.
But Albo's fine with it, because he's still got the vote of the property owners and he's got his own racket of $ multi-million properties. And Dutton's made millions from property, so he doesn't care.
Bought during early or start of covid was the best time, was still the 'old' price and everyone else too scared to go out for auctions or wear a mask.
grinding
I take this to be that you used OnlyFans for supplementary income?
grindr?
And who said it cant be done. As ive said many times, it takes sacrifice. Something a lot of people arent prepared to make. Its all about choices in the end.
Sold the property I lived in for 10 years not long before the COVID pandemic started. I actually lost money on that sale after factoring for inflation at 2.5% pa and selling costs. A couple of years later the property would be easily worth near or over 1 million dollars, around double the amount I paid at the time.
Username checks out…
Renting + own investment property/ies
…and possible recipient of a substantial trust fund, potential LNP candidate.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/amelia-hamer-pitched…
potential LNP candidate
Voting has already begun. All candidates have already been announced.
You can also add option: own principle residence and investment property/ies outright.
Generally, this poll is a reflection of age.
…al
Homeless and own investment properties
Sadly it can happen when you can't evict tenants who fail to pay and make it hard to sell.
Need option for own an IP, but living in a rental or with family/friend :-)
Renting + own investment property/ies
I'm a snowflake and want my own very specific category
If:
"Own my own home (outright) - no investment property/ies"
uses a - (negative), then shouldn't:
"Own my own home (paying off mortgage) + no investment property/ies"
use a - (negative) also?
My brain hurts
It's just meant to be a dash. Sorry for the inconsistent formatting. I hope your brain feels better soon.
Are you also interested in those who own their own house but don't have another investment property?
e.g. I have one PPOR (no mortgage) and the rest is stocks, futures, commodities (gold).
It is up to you whether you want to tinker with the poll to get more fine details, I haven't voted yet because I'm not sure if we change votes if the options change later.
How about
Own my PPOR + own investment property/s + set up kids with one too?
And then there's
Also owns the cabin by the lake/in the woods/holiday home.
OR
Parents are really loaded/my rich old uncle is loaded so once they pop their clogs I should be good to go.
OR
My investment property is more an investment strategy: I live in my car but I buy a lotto ticket every week.
Which brings about the consideration that not all investment is in real estate.
FINALLY
Im investing in my children. They're my retirement strategy.
Which one is your circumstance?
Live in a tent on the beach. I own my tent and bought each of my kids a tent of their own. For investment I rent out a few second hand swags but they've all got air conditioning and a built in water feature, so not too bad.
As of now, seven have voted "Homeless or sleeping rough". I hope you are able to obtain housing soon and feel safe. All the best.
No public housing option!
That would be the renting options… even if someone helps pay the rent for you.
Unfortunately, home ownership is one of those things that requires a massive sacrifice early on in life. It was this way 20yrs ago (though, I will admit it is probably harder now… but the same principles to own property from nothing still holds).
I don't come from a privileged background but I saved like my life depended on it from the end of my undergrad studies and for the 3-4yrs afterwards and bought a 2brm unit. Bro and I survived off a $40/mth 512k ADSL connection with only 12Gb quota, and our weekly grocery bill was ~$50 which even in the mid 2000s was very little for two ppl.
But it allowed us to both save for property.
My parents rented when I was a kid. They never owned anything. We moved around a lot. I hated that.
When I started working, my aim was to buy a house. And have it paid off by the time I hit 40. I religiously stuck to a budget, no holidays, no eating out, no buying stuff I didn't need (I didn't add to my coin collection at all then). Every bit of overtime or pay rises went straight to the mortgage. I recorded every single cent I spent. With this strategy, I was able to pay it off by the time I was 39! I was so proud of myself - I did it all on my own. Now I say, 'It's a dump, but it's MY dump!"
Well done mate!
It's these sorts of stories we need more of.
My parents bought their own place when I was about 6yo so I have some minor recollections of our lives as renters from then. But I never wanted to be at the whim of a landlord so knew I wanted to own my own place for the security of having a roof over my head.
For me, I spent 7yrs in that first unit, my pay doubled during that time and I was close to paying off the unit at which point I bought a townhouse while keeping my unit. During my time at the townhouse, I had mum go through breast cancer treatment (she and Dad stayed with me during this time), and then afterwards, I found out that the entire townhouse complex had a systemic defect (balconies not built to standard and had waterproofing issues). A bunch of us fought tooth and nail with the government and the builders and was lucky that things went our way. Got $2mil of defects ($3mil including interest) repaired whilst only spending ~$150k for engineering, legal and project management costs.
Met my now wife towards the end of the townhouse defects matter and she was in the process of settling on her own townhouse purchase (brand new ones too). Unfortunately, the balconies here had defects too but with building warranty still active and being on the front foot with my QBCC applications, we were able to get $40k+ of defects fixed for just our time and energy with the paperwork, documentation and inspections from the Gov and builders.
Over the past 3yrs, we've bought a parcel of land, built a house (went through 3 builders, 2 loans and obtained a few permits to allow us to deal with protected veg)… but the house is built, I've divested of my prior properties and my wife will be settling on her townhouse sale too soon. We'll hopefully have the house paid off once we get the proceeds of the townhouse.
I'm in my early 40s. Wife is approaching 40.
Mother in law has lung cancer and lives overseas so my wife will be going abroad a bit more to help care for her mum. I'll be primarily working, saving up some funds (since I don't want to touch a fully offset mortgage), and hopefully going on at least one international holiday each year. After 20yrs of fighting the good fight, I'm a little tired. There's always something to fight for but hopefully, with our housing security somewhat sorted, we can relax a bit.
Well done mate
I grew up with being poor. when I started working i only could save $50 a fortnight. I rented for a number of years, bought a 2 bedroom flat, and spent much of my 20s and 30's paying it off. i wanted a bigger place in my 40's and moved to a 3 bedroom unit. That is now paid off, and am trying to do renovations to th property. i also was able to buy an investment property overseas at the time it was very cheap. Unfortunately my mum passed away 6 years ago. with my portion of her inheritance i bought an investment property outside of Brisbane.
Buying property 10 years ago was hard (saving a deposit while renting). With the rental costs today its just crazy. if i was wanting to buy today i don't think i could as the property price creep would be going up faster then my savings. Those who can live at home with parents rent free while saving have a chance.
Building more property while limiting population growth to be inline with the build rate is the only chance to stabilize prices with inflation and wage growth otherwise prices will continue to go up and up and make today's prices look like a bargain.
Anything else just wont do enough to fix the housing issue.
People hoarding several investment properties isn't helping, either.
Yes and no.if they are renting those properties outs its not too bad at all but if they are leaving them vacant and just using them for capital gains.Yep not helping.
A friend recently looked up the cheapest housing in a suburb 30km away from the CBD in Adelaide, sighed, and declared he'll be renting for the rest of his life.
The cheapest house he could find? $720k.
12x his pretax pay.
The obvious solution is to earn more, but this is a self perpetuating cycle. If people earn more they can borrow more, which further pushes up the price of housing. Anyone who can't earn more? You're stuffed.
squatting till adverse possession…fingers' crossed
Worked like a dog over the past 10 years and still do. Bought home at peak 2022. 700k mortgage, currently paying it off around 100k/year (300k in offset). Hopefully, once interest rates go down, I can pay it off faster. Parents paid off their home within 7 years, I am aiming for the same. Making big lifestyle and family sacrifices at the moment though but hopefully its worth it.
That's a great approach, Goodluck.
Making big lifestyle and family sacrifices at the moment though but hopefully its worth it.
It's worth it alright. It's a great feeling to have a paid off house. The hardest part is slowing down on the earning side and loosening up the purse strings to enjoy life more once you get there.
It is definitely hard for me to turn down extra work for income at the moment. I see my parents struggle as immigrants coming here as refugees with nothing and being raised up in commission housing during the early years. It puts things in perspective a bit.
Great work but don't cheap out on healthy food and vitamins :) No point paying off a home if you end up sick
One thing I don’t cheap out on is food! There’s no budget restriction on food or grocery shopping. Generally, I wouldn’t call myself ‘cheapskate’ but I’m definitely thrifty, thanks to ozbargain. I don’t mind spending more on things that are used alot and have a lower budget on things aren’t used often.
Happy to spend money on food but Vitamins are a scam.
Does everything have to be a crisis OP?
No it doesn't have to be…
…but Australia keeps importing +38k net migrants each and every month at the same time as building new accommodation much much slower so the effect is rapidly increasing property prices, rapidly increasing rents, at the same time as homelessness growing at +10k people per month because there simply aren't enough dwellings for everyone in the country to occupy. There's around a quarter million homeless people in this country now. It's abhorrent. And politicans on both sides (Labor-Greens & Liberal-National) have no will to change that because the majority of their donors and the majority of their corporate post-political career prospects all want cheap labour costs, and the majority of them (both sides again) personally benefit from roaring property prices.
I don't see what the problem is. There nearly 147,573 properties listed for sale on realestate.com.au, there's plenty under $100k as well. Then head over to seek.com.au and you'll find 138,623 jobs.
Honestly they should bring over more. My Asian neighbours are great, hardworking, mind their own business and are quiet. Much better than when I lived next door to bogans who'd blast music at all hours and did burnouts in the street with their loud crappy sounding Commodores.
Agreed. Here's a policy idea; can we perhaps import more immigrants and deport shit other people who already live in Australia?
The Asian immigrants have great work ethics because they see Australia as having many opportunities to get ahead and make the most of it. Family culture is big so parents will sacrifice alot of improve conditions for their future generations, otherwise intergenerational poverty is rife in Asia.
For example, in Vietnam the labour market is so strong that there’s so much competition to get any job. Bribery and nepotism is rife, education costs money so even the brightest students can’t attend school of their parents are poor.
In Australia, working standards and conditions are actually great by international standards.
I don't see what the problem is.
The problem is there is a shortage of housing stock.
There are more family units in Australia than there are dwellings for them to live in.
+38k net migrants per month and increasing for years
+14k dwelling completions per month and declining for years
Existing homeless population is over 250k now
+10k homeless per month
The maths doesn't stack up. Either dwelling completions need to accelerate rapidly, or net migration needs to be lowered temporarily until the housing stock catches up.
Until then rental affordability will get worse, house prices as a multiple of median earnings will increase (especially with increased migration increasing the numerator and putting downward pressure on the denominator too), and homelessness will increase.
Honestly they should bring over more
Absolutely. Once the number of dwellings catches up with our existing population. And only as many family units as there are new dwellings being constructed.
Start with all the crackheads, that would largely solve homelessness and crime.
According to the UNSW homelessness study, from late last year, the top reasons for newly homeless people becoming homeless is due to housing affordability stress, inadequate housing and the housing crisis.
There nearly 147,573 properties listed for sale on realestate.com.au, there's plenty under $100k as well. Then head over to seek.com.au and you'll find 138,623 jobs.
I think you'll find a substantial number of those sellers are also in the market to buy unless they're opting to go homeless. And the majority of those jobs you cite will be nowhere near those sub-$100k houses (if they're even liveable). Homeless and those struggling with rental affordability will not be buying any of those properties any time soon.
@tenpercent: Maybe the system’s broken, but some people still seem to make it work.
Migrants come here, learn English, work two jobs, live five to a house, save a deposit in four years, and buy a home. Many go on to become landlords.
Meanwhile, locals with free education and Medicare struggle endlessly, mostly by complaining and wanting the government step in to make things easy for them.
@JIMB0: I am a local and love it when the government steps in with free handouts. As a homeowner, it boosts the prices of homes so the increased prices offsets the government support anyway. The system is truely broken so I've resorted to just playing along and trying to use it to my advantage. I.e buying investment properties and let it naturally increase via government hand outs. Although tenancy laws and land tax is making it less attractive, this is something the government has done well to deter investors.
@voo123: I’ve been a bit reluctant to buy another place. The wife came with a house, surprising at her age, which we now rent out. Even with an agent, managing it can be time consuming. I really couldn't be bothered setting up another place for rental. Any extra money just goes into ETFs these days.
@JIMB0: I help my parents manage 2 investment properties with a great PM, and it’s definitely getting harder nowadays through tenancy laws favouring tenants too much, taxes, and constant safety checks.
When it comes to maintenance issues, landlords really need to do the research to get the right trades in to avoid getting ripped off by a PM’s preferred tradie. However my PM is great because she’s a great communicator and also fair to both tenants and landlords. Follows the regulations in a timely manner and nips potential problems early on before they escalate. Tenants actually give great feedback to the PM on google reviews LOL.
Gen X here, I don't feel wealthy but looking at the poll, it looks like I'm doing quite well compared to the average OZB'nr.
My income these days is slightly less than 10-15 years ago so these days I'm an average income earner because I choose to not work long hours anymore now I have kids.
House is paid off, so main expenses are kids. Investment properties are neutrally geared. Once kids are independent, I can really start saving for retirement.
One day I'll pay to fly business class.
Well done on getting to where you are mate!
I don't think I'll every pay to fly business class… but I'll definitely spend frequent flyer points for an upgrade. Once a churner, always a churner - lol
Thank you. To be honest, house paid off was a result on flipping houses rather than paying down the mortgage from wages. It was much easier back in the 2000's than if you started today.
I do feel sorry for younger generation today starting their journey today. It's much harder to buy a house today and pay it down than when when I started in the 2000's. If you started working 10 years before I did, it was easier again.
Never really churned CC or even bothered with FF points to upgrade. I've flown business class before, it's nice, but I'd rather use FF points on gift cards, or money to upgrade to business on nice hotels and restaurants.
I've never flipped houses but I held onto my properties until my wife and I decided to build. Both my properties were bought early enough that with the capital gains it was enough to fund our cost of the house build.
My wife's townhouse has gone up enough that we will be fully offsetting the house's mortgage soon. We haven't even lived here for a year yet.
As for frequent flyer points, from my maths, the best use for them would be international flights to the furthest destinations, namely Europe for us. I've never been to Europe and have been banking points for 15yrs now. Definitely time to cash in now.
Why is there no "Own my own home (paying off mortgage) + no investment property/ies" option?
I would have thought that would be one of the larger cohorts, especially among those under 40.