Great Australian dream is reality for clued-up Generation “Y”

New evidence shows as the dust settles on the First Home Owner Boost (FHOB), a younger, savvier group of first home buyers has attached their training wheels and jumped onto the property super highway.

However, unlike previous generations, this group is buying property with their eyes wide open.

Angus Raine CEO of Raine & Horne said the FHOB has helped young Australians embark on their “property journey” five or ten years earlier than previous generations.

“Home buyers as young as 20 years old are learning the nuances of the buying and selling game first hand making them a very powerful group of investors in the future,” Mr Raine said.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the average age of first home buyers in 1995 was 32 years compared to 27 years in 1981. However recent analysis from South Australia’s Flinders University revealed the first home owner subsidies is encouraging more buyers under the age of 25 years into a first home.

“Fundamentally real estate is the basis of most of the wealth in this country so the earlier you get into the market and the more educated you are about the market the better off you will be,” Mr Raine said.

Kent Lardner, CEO and statistical model designer for PriceFinder said the plethora of web-based tools available to tech-savvy first home buyers is creating confidence in young people that they are making sound investment choices.

“In 1995 the World Wide Web was still in its infancy (just four years old) and researching home sales prices was very much a manual task left to professional agents and valuers. Fast forward to 2010 and the internet is now crawling with applications such as WalkScore, Streetview and PriceFinder to help home buyers research property markets,” Mr Lardner said.

Within minutes a property investor/home buyer can determine sales turnover and trends for a given market, get an accurate price estimate, rental and yield estimate and even judge how appealing the address is from a “walkability” perspective on a scale of 1-100.

Home ownership has always been desirable in Australia offering security and tax-free capital gain.

Mr Raine said “now this new level of information is creating a whole generation of confident, highly educated property buyers who have been given a golden opportunity to put their knowledge into practice as a result of government incentives”.

“Due to the government grant much younger buyers are now taking a position in the market and building wealth years before they could have done previously and they are learning the ropes along the way that will make them an investor group to be reckoned with,” Mr Raine said.

However, unlike previous generations, this group is buying property with their eyes wide open.

Raine & Horne CEO Angus Raine said the FHOB had helped young Australians embark on their “property journey” five or 10 years earlier than previous generations.

“Home buyers as young as 20 years-old are learning the nuances of the buying and selling game first-hand, making them a powerful group of investors in the future,” Mr Raine said.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed the average age of first home buyers in 1995 was 32 years compared to 27 years in 1981.

However recent analysis from South Australia’s Flinders University revealed the first home owner subsidies was encouraging more buyers under the age of 25 years into a first home.

“Fundamentally, real estate is the basis of most of the wealth in this country so the earlier you get into the market and the more educated you are about the market, the better off you will be,” Mr Raine said.

Kent Lardner, CEO and statistical model designer for PriceFinder, said the plethora of web-based tools available to tech-savvy first home buyers was creating confidence in young people that they were making sound investment choices.

“In 1995 the World Wide Web was still in its infancy (just four years-old) and researching home sales prices was very much a manual task left to professional agents and valuers," Mr Lardner said.

"Fast forward to 2010 and the internet is now crawling with applications such as WalkScore, Streetview and PriceFinder to help home buyers research property markets.

Within minutes a property investor/home buyer could determine sales turnover and trends for a given market, get an accurate price estimate, rental and yield estimate and even judge how appealing the address was from a “walkability” perspective on a scale of 1-100.

Mr Raine said home ownership had always been desirable in Australia offering security and tax-free capital gain.

"Now this new level of information is creating a whole generation of confident, highly educated property buyers who have been given a golden opportunity to put their knowledge into practice as a result of government incentives.

“Due to the government grant, much younger buyers are now taking a position in the market and building wealth years before they could have done previously and they are learning the ropes along the way that will make them an investor group to be reckoned with,” Mr Raine said.