Helping first home buyers

There has been a lot said during this election campaign about buying your first home and I know this is something that concerns many Australians, including parents and grandparents of potential first home buyers.

It’s important to remember, it has always been hard to buy your own home in Australia, there has been no ‘easy’ period and yet it is something that generation after generation has successfully achieved. Nothing has changed.

Yes, the average price of homes in Melbourne and Sydney have gone through the roof but there has never been a period in Australian history, where first home buyers have been able to buy ‘an average priced home’.

First home buyers have always been forced to look for cheaper properties on the edge of large cities, homes that have required extensive renovations and repairs or have had to spend time in smaller units as they build up equity to move onto their dream home.

It has always required a period of concerted effort to build a deposit. Taking on a second job, going without holidays, never eating out, living at home with parents while saving for a deposit. The list of successful strategies is endless.

By embracing them, first home buyers show a true commitment to buying a home and more importantly, a commitment that once you buy that home, that you will do all it takes financially to keep and pay off that home.

Many people think the hard part of home ownership is saving the deposit and obtaining a home loan, when in fact the hard part is achieving the level of financial discipline that says that you can control your spending and put money aside.

This is why any scheme or strategy that makes it ‘easier’ to buy a first home should be looked upon cautiously.

There have been many schemes, promoted by both Federal and State Governments over the years that have tried to make it easier for Australians to buy their first home and most fail because few people have matched these offers with the necessary financial discipline needed to obtain home ownership.

The same goes for when the Bank of Mum and Dad steps in to provide a ‘helping hand’. So often the dream of home ownership is held most strongly by Mum and Dad while the child involved just says what they believe Mum and Dad what them to say.

That the children involve just go along with it because it seems crazy to say no to someone offering to give you thousands of dollars.

It doesn’t mean they want to give up going to the football on a Saturday, preferring to mowing the lawn or that they want to make do with secondhand furniture in a house that might be suburbs away from where their friends live.

So, while high home prices make buying a home tough, the real challenge is having the personal commitment to strive for and then achieve home ownership.