Aussies faced with ridiculously high property prices are coming up with creative ways to make the most of a market that shows no signs of slowing down.
Arianne Endrizzi, 35, a married mother with two young kids, bought an investment property at Redland Bay, southeast of Brisbane, with her 70-year-old mum Susan Putnam in June 2022.
‘It was an answer to a problem,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘It was more “can we help each other out?” and “how can we support each other and move forward with our goals?”
Ms Putnam faced being unable to access the full pension after selling a two-bedroom unit at Hornsby, in Sydney‘s north, for $730,000.
The family home, or someone’s principal place of residence, is exempt from the assets test for those on the pension but with money in the bank, Ms Putnam was only able to get a part pension.
To get around this, mum and daughter jointly paid $195,500 each for a $391,000 block of land at Redland Bay, with land having lower stamp duty than a house and land package.
Together, they then spent another $285,970 building a four-bedroom house with two bathrooms.
Arianne Endrizzi, 35, a married mother with two young kids, bought an investment property at Redland Bay, south-east of Brisbane , with her mother Susan Putnam, 70, in June 2022 (they are pictured with baby Aurora)
They divided the total cost of $676,970 in half, with Ms Putnam putting $338,500 into the Redland Bay property and the rest of her savings into a house in north Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands so she would have money in both an investment property and a principal place of residence.
Ms Endrizzi, who grew up in Sydney, borrowed $180,000 towards the land and house in Redland Bay, and used her savings to fund the rest – with the property now on the market with a weekly asking rent of $725.
Property investment is now Ms Endrizzi’s full-time job with the mother-of-two living in a house at Palm Cove, north of Cairns.
She also has investment properties at Red Cliffs near Mildura in north-west Victoria, another at nearby Nangiloc, a house at Burpengary north of Brisbane and Yarrabilba south of Brisbane.
‘Be creative in the way you gather a deposit – the emergence of financial content on platforms like podcasts, social media, YouTube and books provide valuable information to help give people ideas,’ she said.
The mother and daughter divided in half the total cost of $676,970 to build the house at Redland Bay, southeast of Brisbane
Ms Endrizzi borrowed $180,000 towards the cost of the Redland Bay land and house and used her savings to fund the rest of it
Australia’s median house price of $793,883 is beyond the reach of an average, full-time worker earning $98,218.
That’s because banks can’t lend someone more than 5.2 times their salary, limiting the typical worker to a $600,000 home even if they had a 20 per cent deposit.
The middle market house price in every capital city, except Darwin, is now unattainable for a single, average-income earner unless they were able to buy with a spouse, relative or friend.
AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said Baby Boomers were now typically helping their kids buy a home so they didn’t have to wait for them to die to get an inheritance.
‘The Baby Boomers and some Gen X are benefiting from the prices – they’re in a bit of a position from a wealth perspective to hand some money to their kids now rather than wait for inheritance to do it,’ he said.
James Kirkland, the executive general manager of sales at Little Real Estate, said had had never seen so many buyers were turning to the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ during his two decades in the business.