Future home buyers more willing to move to the country than a 'less desirable' suburb: survey

More potential home buyers would be willing to move to a regional town than choose a “less desirable” suburb, according to a new survey.

Nearly half – 46 per cent – would pick a property that didn’t tick all the boxes, the CoreLogic Perceptions of Housing Affordability report, released on Friday, found.

Some 38 per cent of respondents said they would opt for a more affordable type of housing.

When it comes to a tree change, 28 per cent of those surveyed said they would move regionally, while 24 per cent said they would make a sacrifice on suburb choice. Less than one-fifth said they would make a move interstate.

Despite the barriers to entering the market, 86 per cent of Millennials renting or living at home said it was important for them to own their own home.

CoreLogic’s head of research Tim Lawless said that, overall, 81 per cent of those who didn’t own a home aspired to do so.

“It’s typically Millennials who are the strongest in those emotions, but are also the most challenged in accessing the market,” Mr Lawless told a lunch in Sydney on Friday.

“Ninety per cent of Millennials think their first or next home is going to be something very difficult to achieve.”

While affordability had always been a concern, non-owners faced a significant challenge to get their foot in the door.

“I think we’re in a stage of the marketplace now where we are seeing rates of home ownership consistently falling. We are seeing consistent evidence that fewer Australians can actually access the marketplace,” Mr Lawless said.

Just over three-quarters of the survey respondents said the single most important factor when to comes to selecting a property was – perhaps unsurprisingly – the price.

Not far behind was access to good public transport, at 58 per cent, and proximity to work at 46 per cent. Being close to their jobs was more important to Millennial and Generation X-age brackets, while the Baby Boomer cohort was more interested in infrastructure such as hospitals.

Mr Lawless said this result showed time spent commuting and, in particular, “the level of the sacrifice that you may need to actually go through in order to buy a home in the outer fringes” was becoming more and more important.

“Most people wouldn’t want to leave their family and friends,” he added, saying that instead, buyers were willing to look at different forms of housing, “sacrificing the Hills Hoist in the backyard for the townhome, or an apartment”.

Less important across all age brackets were the prospects for capital growth, at 31 per cent, and land size, with larger blocks of land prioritised for just 30 per cent of respondents.

Sentiment towards affordability also differed across the states and territories. Western Australia was the only state where the largest proportion of respondents thought that affordability had improved, while 55 per cent of Tasmanians thought affordability had deteriorated, the highest across all the states.

The deposit was the biggest hurdle to getting into the market for just under half of respondents nationally, with 45 per cent also blaming getting a home loan approved, 44 per cent pointing the finger at stamp duty, and 43 per cent saying certainty of employment. Despite the pre-election debate over negative gearing, it was the selected as the least significant impediment.

Employment, in the form of a well-paying and secure job, was nominated as the biggest help to non-owners to help them buy, particularly by Millennials, beating out government assistance or family help.

When asked how affordability could be improved, stamp duty scored another mention, with reducing or removing the tax the most popular option.

Government grants, jobs in areas with cheaper and improved transport and commuting options were also more favoured strategies, while reducing developer costs, building more apartments along public transport corridors, and reducing overseas migration were less popular.

The survey recorded results from 2220 respondents aged 18 to 69, across all states and territories.