Overheated Market Could Burn First-Time Home Buyers

Pushing people to enter the “overheated” housing market is a bad idea, an expert says, with new data finding first-time buyers want to purchase property as soon as possible.
A report has affirmed Australians are eager to join the home-ownership ladder during a week of jockeying in federal government over how best to help buyers.
On Sep. 20, a survey from insurance company Helia found 71 percent of Australians agree “now is a good time” to buy a property, despite cost-of-living issues and persistent inflation at 3.8 percent.
Of the 3002 respondents, 1965 were first-timers and most (87 percent) agreed with the statement they were “feeling a growing sense of urgency to buy (their) first property as prices keep going up.”
The survey comes amid tensions between the federal government, coalition and Greens over ways to enable more Australians to buy homes.
On Sep. 18, the Greens won a Senate vote to delay the government’s Help to Buy bill for two months after negotiations between Labor and the minor party reached a stalemate.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government would reintroduce the bill into the House of Representatives during the next sitting week in October to speed up another vote in the Senate.
The Liberals have also doubled down on the superannuation-for-housing policy, which allows first home buyers to use their super to purchase a home, claiming it could save the budget at least $1 billion (US$0.68 billion).
Professor Emma Baker, director of the Australian Centre for Housing Research, warned that focusing on home-buying was not in the nation’s best interest.
“Should we be encouraging people into an overheated market? No,” she told AAP.
“It’s not fair on them and bringing forward demand in a tight market only contributes to greater unaffordability.”
She said young householders seeking to become owners “clearly face more barriers than their parents did.”
“House prices have risen consistently for 50 years, moving from three times to around 10 times average income,” Baker said.
The survey noted cost-of-living increases in housing were the most cited barrier to ownership, according to 54 percent of respondents.
The next two barriers were concerns about housing affordability (43 percent) and finding a suitable property within budget in a suitable location (42 percent).
“Many young people will be lifetime renters,” Baker said.
“Over the last couple of Censuses, Australia has begun to shift … to a nation of home purchasers and renters.”
She suggested there should be more discussion on how to make rental markets somewhere people also want to end up, “rather than obsessing about how to bring more people into home ownership.”