It’s likely most Gen Zs won’t be able to buy property in Sydney unless they get help from their parents. There’s got to be a better way, right?
It’s likely most Gen Zs won’t be able to buy property in Sydney unless they get help from their parents. There’s got to be a better way, right?
Opinion
March 10, 2025 — 6.30pm
I adore my children more than words can say. Unusually for me, I get lost for words in expressing the love – and of course, I’m not alone. Like so many, I devoted decades to their care, and I’m intensely proud of what wonderful, fledgling adults they are becoming. I say fledgling because they can’t possibly fully fly the nest as we live in Sydney.
I’m past those days when I ruminate about whether they went to the right school, whether I should have got them extra tutoring or insisted they keep up the tap-dancing classes. As the teen years end, it’s liberating to think we did the best we could, and they couldn’t be better humans.
But a lurking worry is tapping at the rear of my brain. Do we now need to help them buy a home? As a basic need, shelter is higher stakes than knowing the soft-shoe shuffle. Am I a bad parent if I’m not a bank?
It’s likely that most Gen Zs won’t be able to buy property in Sydney without help. University of Canberra research from 2013 found it cost up to $1 million to raise two kids “until they left home”. That was 12 years ago. Do we need to stump up another million to get them to leave?
As the big banks shut up their suburban shopfronts, the family bank is expanding. More than half of first home buyers are in financial debt to their folks. Seeing stories of couples competing for a $3 million two-bedroom terrace in Glebe for their kidults is simultaneously sickening and jealousy-inducing.
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Ads on the radio promoting reversible mortgages “to help your family” are cleverly targeted.
It’s been years since I attended a dinner party where we moaned about real estate. Now talk has turned to concern for our kids. Most of my mates are flat out helping children through university and subsidising first jobs, rental bonds and car subsidies to even consider buying them property. A UBS survey shows this is increasingly common.
The guilt is growing. One friend whispered that he’s regretting paying private school fees when that money could have been better spent on a deposit on real estate.
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This is not a new phenomenon; it’s just phenomenally harder. My grandmother lived with us for most of my childhood as it was the only way my parents could afford the family home. My folks helped me with stamp duty on my first home, which I didn’t buy until I was in my mid-30s. I’d always hoped I could do the same for my kids when they are older, but I’m downwardly mobile and prices are upwardly agile. If we wait, will they miss the boat? Could they live on a boat? What if they can’t even afford to rent if they ever move out?
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Gen Xs like me have often been accused of being helicopter parents, hovering over our children. And yet, it seems we’re now almost expected to fly them to real estate safety or help them until they are middle-aged themselves. What about their independence? Their sense of purpose? Their pride? All noble pursuits, which don’t keep you safe from housing insecurity and widening inequality.
I have one friend who spent her inheritance on a flat in the inner west for her daughter. Not wanting to bestow a free ride, she set it up as an interest-free loan. Lucky kid, lovely mum.
Other grandparents are consciously leaving their entire estate to the young ones and skipping my generation. Many of us worry we will lose our adult children to a region or another city if we don’t cough up or forgo any inheritance windfall.
For those who don’t have grannies with cash, there’s a rising tide of granny flats being built. They should be called Zoomer flats containing Gen Z kids living rent-free with partners while they just scrape by or try to save for an ever-rising deposit. I’ve heard of one upper north shore couple who moved into the granny flat and gave their house to the kids … and their kids.
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The generation above me are doting grandparents and I hear from many who are moving interstate (most often to Queensland) to follow the kids who can’t afford Sydney. Selling here buys more there, and the excess means their children get a subsidised mortgage with free childcare thrown in as a bonus! I’ve spoken to some who are baulking – torn between the city they love, their job, lifestyle and friends and the children and progeny they adore. Others see it as a great adventure. Cyclones, be damned.
Meanwhile, our best hope is to pay off our own mortgage before we stop working and consider helping our kids get into eye-watering debt.
Perusing real estate porn recently, I found the solution – a wobbly warehouse with three small apartments that looked affordable if we sold the family home. It even had a scungy look like that of the flats I lived in at their age – homes where the posters of Bowie and Deborah Harry would grow beards of mould and lumpy futon mattresses sat on milk crates. I fantasised about us living close but separate, impoverished but happy like 20-year-olds should be. The price quote went up $1 million over a week.
My kids love Sydney as much as I do. None of us want to leave. But if we can’t help, and they leave in different directions, I’ll feel torn to follow. But wait – I’ve got another brainwave. I’m in Newcastle, impressed with the city and its vibe. I’m texting my kids photos of beautiful rock pools, cool thrift shops and real estate ads. They ignore me at their peril.
Sarah Macdonald is a journalist, author and broadcaster.