Meet the Sydneysiders who want to rent forever

Despite having to swap rentals four times in the past two years, Jana Hocking, 31, from Coogee has no plans to ever buy a home.

“I feel like it would tie me down and I can’t commit to just living in one place,” she said.

Growing up in the Hawkesbury, her childhood friends are now buying their first properties back home – but she has no intention of joining them.

“My parents own property, my dad’s a real estate agent, they’re always on at me to buy something. But they’re a different generation,” she said.

She is one of a growing breed of tenants who aren’t renting as a precursor to home ownership, but as a permanent lifestyle choice.

According to latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 31 per cent of households in NSW now rent.

In the 1990s that figure was 28 per cent.

Today more than a third of renters fall into the category of “long-term”, renting for 10 years or more, according to the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

Associate professor Steven Rowley, director of AHURI’s Curtin Research Centre, said younger generations were changing the traditional home ownership model.

“I do believe young people are increasingly driven by a desire to live in high quality locations and are becoming less obsessed with getting on the housing ladder if that means moving to a location where they really do not want to live,” he said.

While home ownership offers a more stable environment, Mr Rowley said that renting might actually be a more financially astute choice in a low capital growth environment.

Taking a home worth $500,000 as an example, he said a renter would pay $450 a week in rent. After considering buying costs and the interest on a mortgage, the home requires annual price growth of 3 per cent to make a home owner better off than a renter.

Sydney house prices increased 21.7 per cent over the year ending September, Domain Group data shows, but that growth is unlikely to be repeated any time soon.

“In general terms, in times of low capital growth a renter is financially better off renting than buying in all but the lowest-price suburbs,” he said.

However, the senior policy officer at Tenants Union of NSW, Ned Cutcher, has serious concerns about the financial position of long-term renters when they retire.

“If you have other means of generating wealth that can cover your housing costs in retirement then it’s all well and good, but if you don’t, you’re at risk,” he said.

Alex Dask, a 29-year-old Surry Hills renter with no desire to buy a home to live in, instead has plans for an investment property.

Previously in a job earning $150,000 a year, he quit to start his own business.

“I don’t want to be locked into that again,” he said, fearing a significant mortgage would force him to remain in a job he didn’t enjoy.

Instead, he’d prefer to be a renter with a property portfolio – joining the 17 per cent of Australian landlords who choose to rent, according to ABS data.

Chris Gray, founder of buyer’s agency Your Empire, said it’s not the case that only “poor people rent”, with many Sydney investors opting not to own the home they live in.

“People can’t afford to [buy] where they really want to,” he said. Renting offers an alternative, allowing Mr Gray to purchase $600,000 investment properties, while renting homes up to $3 million in value.