Not buying lattes won't help me buy a house

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/16/not-buying-lattes-wont-help-me-buy-a-house

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When a house in my crappy street in a fairly crappy Sydney suburb sold for more than $900,000 a few months ago, I shrugged and threw the flyer triumphantly announcing the sale in the bin. Owning a home in a city like mine is as remote to me as getting a seat next to Lady Gaga on the first commercial space flight. And that would be a hell of a lot cheaper anyway.

I could not afford the tiny 130-year-old two bedroom townhouse that I call home – with its leaky roof and absolute lack of built-in cupboard space – even if I wanted to, which is a melancholy inducing thought. I don’t like to dwell on my likely-to-be-eternal lack of home ownership too often, because what's the point? It is just a fact of my life, like having to put on sunscreen at 6.30am before I go outside for 15 minutes if I want to avoid burns. I can deal with it, but it doesn't stop for being irked at home-owners thinking I could own a decent place, if I really wanted to.

Every week, I spend about $40 on bought lunches. I do not usually buy coffee, I just make it at home. I mention this because every homeowner – such as the one below – who complains Generation Y does not save seems to think we are spending all of our money on cappuccinos – and that if we just stopped buying them we could own all the homes we want. Probably next to the beach too!

Hands up older people with a house who for 5 years when saving deposit for a house didn't have a holiday, eat out, buy coffee, buy products?

I go out about three times a week at a cost of $150. I spend about $3,000 on holidays every second year. So adding up my frivolities and "luxuries", I could save $58,400 in five years if I gave it all up. Keeping in mind I still have to eat – replacing my take outs with cheaper home cooked meals would maybe take a few thousand of dollars off that figure. So that is five years of not going out, no holidays, not even a freaking café-bought sandwich for lunch. And I still don’t have enough for a house deposit for a median priced house in Sydney ($775,000, according to latest RPData figures).

Why do I even want to own a home, you ask? Well, as much as I enjoy rental house inspections and being kicked out of where I live with a few weeks notice when the owners decide to sell or renovate, there is also the issue of where I’m going to live when I retire. I’m probably going to have about 15 years of retirement and therefore a much reduced income to now, when I already barely struggle to pay my ever-climbing rent. Judging by rent rates now, I expect to be paying thousands of dollars for a rented one bedroom when I’m 85 on an income of perhaps $750 a week, give or take a few dollars. This makes home ownership appealing.

Buy somewhere you can afford then, I hear the home owners’ brigade squak. Well, I could probably afford a house in Brisbane. I could definitely afford a house in the country. I could maybe afford a house in the outer suburbs of Sydney.

Of the above options, the outer suburbs of Sydney is the place I could afford a home which is most compatible with my work (again, assuming I want to give up everything that makes my life fun for five years to move a two hour commute from work, and add hefty commuting costs to my budget). But by the time that money is saved, it might not even be enough. According to the latest census data, the prices of homes in the more median priced areas is rising faster than in the high priced suburbs. According to Greg Jericho’s analysis, from 2006 to 2011, the median household income grew by 17%, but across Australian median mortgage payments in that period increased 38.5%. Similarly, the average first-home buyer mortgage grew by 26%.

Of course, we can pretend for a minute I have never heard of the global financial crisis, and that i am therefore comfortable with taking on a mortgage from a bank that is more than 90% of the value of the home I’m purchasing. Then there is the stamp duty states insist on slugging us with for moving from one house to another; the pest tests and surveying; the body corp fees if it is a unit. And the rates (although I would get decent tax breaks). On top of all the associated fees, a mortgage that size would slowly crush a 25-year-old on an average income.

It would crush a 35-year-old on an average income. A 45-year-old. Because housing affordability is not a Generation Y issue, it’s not even a Generation X issue. It’s an issue for every single one of us not born rich.

Our common housing enemy is not the baby boomers, who scrimped and saved a deposit of perhaps $15,000 to buy a house. It is the people with ridiculous amounts of cash who see a sellers’ market and buy up investment properties. They’re the ones driving up the prices. The enemy is the state government which continues to give multiple property owners even more money through ridiculous laws such as negative gearing. And it is the federal government, which refuses to tax the capital gains made on the family home.

I may never own a home, and I cringe when I hear commentators claiming that I could own one if I really wanted to – from the comfort of their own (bought and fully paid for) sofa. But my parents' generation isn't to blame; if anything, I wish I was so lucky. If renters want to point their finger at the culprit, they should look towards the policies of successive state and federal governments which have rewarded the rich at the expense of the average worker.

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