Is the Great Australian Dream Still Alive ?

For many Australians growing up in years gone by a symbol of success was owning your own home on a large block as a point to starting a family and living the comfortable lifestyle. Within today’s world though there seems to be a shift in thinking and attitudes to the ‘Great Australian Dream’ of home ownership from Gen Y and X and migrants new to Australia largely due to the way we live these days and the costs of owning a home.

The common theme for many people starting out and looking to purchase their first property is that it is unattainable due to the high buy-in costs to purchase a house these days across all our major capital cities that the alternative is to simply rent in an area you want to live in rather than purchase in an area that you can afford but don’t really want to live there.

The number of single households has increased as well over the years and for many it seems to be more desirable to live in an apartment than a stand alone house due to affordability and practicality reasoning.

In this busy world of ours who really wants to be spending increased time in maintaining a house or commuting extra distances to work if they don’t have to. Along with many more people migrating to Australia and the desire for many to live as close to a capital city as possible for work and lifestyle that there is more compact housing arrangements being built in the forms of large apartment blocks, townhouses and duplexes being constructed rather than houses as a shift in desirable living arrangements are being met.

For others the ‘Dream’ is still alive but a smarter strategy to get into the housing market is apparent with many First Home Buyers looking to purchase an investment property first, use the increased equity to either buy another investment property or to help them buy that home they have always wanted.

With the 2011 Census survey starting shortly it will be interesting to compare the results from the 2006 survey on things like home ownership and number of people living in each household as the world we live in today certainly has changed from a few years ago.