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A lender’s survey has found that young home buyers are cutting out more costs to gain home ownership.
Bankwest’s Home Truths survey has found that Western Australia’s Millennials and Gen Z cohorts are increasingly willing to make sacrifices for their ideal dream home to alleviate cost-of-living pressures and work their way into the property market.
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The survey collected responses from 1,700 Australians (focused primarily on Western Australia) in order to understand preferences, needs, and attitudes of potential home buyers.
According to the research, Millennials (27–42) and Gen Z (18–26) were willing to sacrifice property features and property types to be able to afford a house, with 78 per cent prepared to make that change.
This was an increase on the 67 per cent from the previous Home Truths survey.
Sacrificing luxury features (such as pools or decks) was key to respondents on Australia’s east coast, with 42 per cent of respondents indicating a willingness to do so (up from 32 per cent); however, this willingness decreased among Western Australians at 33 per cent, down from 39 per cent.
The research noted this decline in willingness to opt out of luxury home features was largely driven by the state’s older generation, as Gen Z and Millennial respondents recorded an increase for this category, from 41 per cent to 44 per cent and 29 per cent to 33 per cent, respectively.
Furthermore, the survey recorded a major shift in the attitudes towards the size of the property, with 43 per cent (up from 28 per cent) of Gen Z homehunters being prepared to buy a smaller property than their original preference.
Sacrificing location safety was less of a concern for Western Australia’s Gen Z cohort, with just under a third (32 per cent) stating that this was an important feature, down from 47 per cent. Meanwhile, half of Millennials listed safe locations as a matter of importance.
Bankwest general manager customer, marketing, and communications Jodene Murphy said that the survey provides an “important snapshot of what home buyers are looking for in a property”.
“We consistently see home ownership as important to Australians, regardless of the property market or economic conditions at any given time, and what changes is how aspiring home buyers adapt to those situations,” Murphy said.
“The current heated property market, combined with cost-of-living pressures, has not dented home buyers’ aspirations, but we can see they are becoming more willing to sacrifice certain features to get into their own home.
“The differences between WA and the east is an interesting comparison between the two markets, but WA’s young home buyers are in far different circumstances to older generations, eyeing smaller properties in cheaper suburbs.”
[RELATED: Interest in becoming ‘property pals’ increases: ING]
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