Opinion: I am lucky, but I don't want to be in the minority

Alice Stolz, Domain’s National Managing Editor, The Block fixture and resident property aficionado, shares her insights each week as columnist for Nine Property.

I wasn’t going to write about what the latest federal budget means for property. Not because it’s not important. It is. How my children and yours, will ever afford to buy in what is one of the most incredible but expensive countries on earth is one of the (many) things that keeps me awake at night.

I wasn’t going to write about it because I am so frustrated and dismayed with governments and parties on all sides, that no one is breaking the glass and pressing the emergency button when it comes to housing affordability.

And I realise I am one of the lucky ones. I am employed in a well-paid job and while I might have an unsightly mortgage, I have an asset, which inevitably my children will most likely one day inherit, allowing them access to the same security I have.

So yes, I am lucky, but I don’t want to be in the minority.

So I was pleased the government has broadened out the Home Guarantee Scheme, whereby those eligible will be able to buy a house with a deposit as low as 2 to 5 per cent, abolishing the need to save a 20 per cent deposit (which is what ends up being one of the biggest hurdles for aspiring buyers) or needing to take out costly lenders mortgage insurance.

And I was pleased, too, about the Family Home Guarantee, which allows single parents to purchase a home with a deposit as low as 2 per cent.

Thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister. I’ll take that and I feel confident the 50,000 places the government is now offering per year, for the next three years, will be eagerly accessed. I hope these buyers can become lucky ones, too.

But the issue with blunt assistance like this is that it just adds fuel to the fire, further stimulating the market. Cue more exponential house price growth. And what of the looming interest rate rise which is not a matter of if, but when?

“To avoid the truth that many gainfully employed young people cannot afford a house is a tragedy.”

Young buyers accessing the scheme are effectively able to take on more risk and will have to pay back more in interest. Cue default on mortgage repayments? Heaven forbid.

What I’m not pleased about is the absence of brave and bold policies to genuinely tackle Australia’s housing affordability crisis.

Ideas that will future-proof today’s young adults as well as the generations of tomorrow when it comes to buying and renting as well as public housing.

To live in a country like Australia is a privilege. But to avoid the truth that many gainfully employed young people cannot afford a house is a tragedy.

We need an acknowledgement of this and we need governments to be brave and bold and to tackle it head on, because the silence at the moment is deafening.