Housing issues and the rental crisis are “front of mind” for young renters and mortgage holders as the first federal election approaches where Gen Z and Millennials voters will outnumber Baby Boomers.
Younger Aussies are calling for significant change heading into the election after experiencing the worst rental conditions on record, heightened financial barriers to owning a home and millions struggling to pay their mortgage.
Gen Z and Millennials make up 7.7 million votes, compared to the 5.8 million Baby Boomers, according to AEC data while the Reserve Bank estimates about half of Australia’s renters are aged between 25 and 44.
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![Rent Vs Buy - Saturday Telegraph](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1280 720"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Renters Yatha Jain (L) and Izabella Antoniou (R) want significant change to come out of the upcoming election. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers
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The average age of those owning their home outright – without a mortgage- is between 50 and 64 years old.
Young renters Izabella Antoniou and Yatha Jain said they were fed up with the lack of rental reform or action to increase affordable housing.
“It’s really disappointing that the (rental) system has been purposely designed to disempower renters and empower investors,” Ms Jain said.
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Having recently experienced a no-grounds eviction, Ms Antoniou said it “felt impossible” to find an affordable home in her suburb where her community was.
“That’s the issue with being a renter, the insecurity and inability to actually feel like you can create a life and a home and the lack of protections and uncertainty … you can be rent hiked out of your home at any moment,” she said.
NSW Government have passed changes to prevent no-grounds evictions, however at the time of publishing these laws have not yet come into effect.
The dollar gap between renters wealth and that of owner-occupiers has also increased significantly over the past two decades, according to the RBA.
Housing issues effecting young people could sway election. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers
On top of housing issues, Ms Jain said supermarket price gouging and healthcare were increasingly impacting her ability to feel financially secure.
“(Cost of living) makes it very hard as a young person to try and plan financially for my future,” Ms Jain said.
Ms Antoniou, a councillor for the Greens in Sydney’s Inner West, said the number one issue people discuss with her while campaigning is housing.
“It’s front of mind,” she said. “The only thing that’s going to change this is rental reform, rental freezes, building genuine affordable and community housing.”
New data also showed rents had skyrocketed so much that paying off a deposit in areas across the country included Harris Park (Sydney), Mascot (Sydney), Spring Hill (Brisbane), Ashmore (Gold Coast) and Adelaide city would cost less than a rental.
“A big barrier to owning a home is that initial deposit,” Ms Jain said. “It’s great in theory that a mortgage payment is lower but in reality there’s a lot of people who can’t even consider that because they can’t pay that initial payment.”
Ms Jain, who was also part of a migrant community, said she was “disappointed” that migrants were being “demonised” by the Coalition and blamed for the housing crisis.
“It’s not true and secondly, it is not a solution,” she said. “We need to see a real change where we are building more affordable housing, not shifting the blame to a vulnerable group,” she said.
