For most of our lives, Western society has brainwashed us into feeling that having a big house is the ultimate way to judge how successful our life has been. It’s time for that to change.
It’s the largest purchase most of us will ever make, it’s something we plaster all over social media whenever the sale is done, and it’s currently one of the safest bets to invest our money in order to get some kind of decent return. There’s no getting around it: buying a large, freestanding home has long been seen as the ultimate goal of Aussie life.
This has largely been ingrained to us from decades worth of media, movies and “white picket fence” imagery passed on mostly from American movies and TV shows or local series set in elite, white-washed places such as Palm Beach, NSW.
There are several problems with transposing this on to people in Sydney and surrounds, namely:
1) the USA has a huge array of decentralised urban centres of several million people, with citizens having a much bigger array of choices of viable spots to live and work. This results in property prices being far more proportional to income levels. Contrast this with Australia with basically 4 major choices of locations for advancing our careers (or 2, really – sorry Brisbane), and it’s not a fair comparison.
2) Many of those series (cough, Neighbours, cough Home and Away) were started decades ago, and have had to remain static for purposes of consistency while our societal norms have changed and population has ballooned, and
3) Our Sydney land grab/property boom happened a generation ago, well before the current generation had established careers.
Having grown up with being hammered with this as the main life goal each and every day, it’s not hard to see why (younger) Sydneysiders are increasingly frustrated and depressed about never being able to afford their own decently-sized slice of land.
Property prices continue to climb despite past predictions of a “bursting bubble”, and wage growth is far more stagnant in comparison.
The problem is this: Sydney has long since become a global city, and nowhere else in such a city in the world is it possible to own a freestanding home in a first world urban centre for anything less than millions of dollars, either.
And THAT’S OK. All it requires is a mentality change.
Most of the major cities in Europe follow a rent-centric culture in which residents live in apartments, cycle or take public transport to work, and use public green spaces for exercise while never aiming to buy. The default isn’t “house plus car”, it’s what suits the layout and population density of the city they’re in.
They don’t see this as a failed life achievement; instead, it even offers an aspect of freedom and flexibility that home ownership does not.
Likewise for owning an apartment or townhouse; these offer an aspect of freedom themselves. Not being a slave to a huge mortgage, not needing to spend half your weekend cleaning or gardening, the ability to simply lock up and leave if wanting to travel… are just some of the luxuries that freestanding home owners don’t have.
Modern, large-scale city planning is oriented around plotting high-density living alongside public transport; it’s no slight on you personally if your income means that’s all you can afford.
Investment-wise, there are numerous other asset classes that can serve as viable opportunities to real estate – shares/stocks, managed funds, private equity, good ‘ol super… while renting exactly as much as you can afford and not succumbing to external factors like interest rate changes.
Sydney doesn’t HAVE to be a place in which we all aim to drive the biggest car on the most crowded road and park it in the biggest garage we can afford in order to be happy.
We’ve got all the opportunities and benefits that a world-class city offers at our fingertips, and in the end it’s our choice to be here.
That doesn’t make you a failure if you’ve got a smaller room in which to lay your head at night.
