Owning a home wasn't on the radar for Jeremy Lawless before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I completed uni this year and initially I didn’t have an eye on saving for a house but what Covid’s done is it put off any kind of travel plans that I had. I was planning to go overseas so COVID actually enabled me to just to work and to save in that sense which has then put me in a position where I actually think saving for a house is more actually more realistic than I might have thought six months ago or a year ago"
Now, the 24-year-old is committed to saving.
"Now that I have been able to save a fair bit and that’s now something that I’m looking towards I think I’ll continue in that trend of really trying to save as much as I can and be more prudent with my finances and yeah probably in a way that I wasn’t pre COVID and I was probably a bit more reckless with what I spent my money on but now that I’ve got that goal in mind it's definitely something I’m looking towards in the near future"
It's a habit 70% of young Australians are intending to maintain according to new research from Mortgage choice, a national network of brokers.
Its survey also found that nearly 45 percent of young Australians are more likely to want to purchase a home now.
But Susan Mitchell, the chief executive officer of Mortgage Choice, says completing the process remains a complicated one for many people.
"We found a third really had very very little confidence that they actually understand how they would chose a loan what features they want how they find the best loan and 1 in 10 have no confidence at all that they understand to get a home loan processed. So one of the things that a broker or a talking your lender is really good for is just to go through an education process as well as to get a better insight as to how your individual circumstances would be treated by a bank."
Home buyer sentiment has risen to record levels.. following a low point from the pandemic in April last year, according to Graham Cooke from Finder's consumer research team.
"We’ve seen the percentage of Australians who think it’s a good time to buy increase steadily since then as the economy has recovered and it's actually peaked at 67% in December which is the highest positivity we’ve ever seen for the housing market. "
Experts, however, warn that first home buyers need to act fast before house prices take another for the unaffordable.
House prices year on year were up in every capital city last month.. except Melbourne.
