an impossible dream but apparently it is for many people. We are constantly being told that the generations below me are finding it "difficult" or "impossible" to buy their own home.
Is that really true? I suspect the situation is far more complex than is suggested. It is about a great deal more than "not even being able to save for the deposit" and the "need for two incomes" and more.
Most people did not own their own home until they were in their fifties at the earliest. What they owned even then was often a "basic three bedroom house" which they had spent more time and money on. Yes it was on that famed "quarter acre block" but the house itself had started as something very ordinary by today's standards. I think that may be part of the problem now. People want a great deal more than they wanted in the past.
Now the government is saying they have just made it much easier for people to buy their own home. "All you need is a deposit of five percent," the Prime Minister is saying.
Oh, please read the fine print. You are not going to own your own home at all. The government is going to co-own it with you. You will still have a mortgage to pay and all the responsibility for caring for it. If you need to move for any reason there will be financial penalties.
And the price of housing is going to go up still further. It will go up simply because more people will be looking to buy. The housing "crisis" is actually going to increase under this policy. We are also going to have some unfortunates who lose their homes because they cannot afford to go on paying the mortgage, a mortgage they probably should never have been able to get in the first place.
This policy is not the answer to housing the increasing number of migrants the government is bringing in to try and prop up the economy. It is not the answer to housing those who are already here or were born here.
Home ownership should be possible but we need to change our ideas about what we can afford and how we can make it happen.
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