According to UBS, first time buyers are pretty much locked out of the property market. ‘Typical’ first home buyers are facing ~11 years to save; and ~40 years in Sydney!
Housing affordability is extreme as house price-income surged to a record 6.5x
UBS already ‘called the top’ of housing, with a key reason being that affordability is stretched, as the house price-income ratio surged to a record high of 6.5x, up sharply from 4.5x in 2012 (& >doubling from 3x in 1996). While interest rates have fallen to a record low, the mortgage repayment share of income still lifted to a near decade high, & the key issue for first home buyers (FHBs) is the ‘deposit gap’ even before buying.
‘Typical’ first home buyers facing ~11 years to save; and ~40 years in Sydney
UBS have now created a new and dynamic interactive model to estimate how long it would take a FHB to save a deposit to buy a home (click here for the model). The findings are confronting. We estimate a ‘base case’ scenario for a ‘typical’ FHB would take ~11 years to save for a home based on assumptions including: 1) a 10% deposit is required; 2) individual income is AWOTE of ~$80k per year; 3) saving rate is 5% of gross income (i.e. $4k per year); 4) home price today is $400k (~average FHB price); 5) home prices grow in line with household income ahead at 3% per year. However, given recent macroprudential tightening including for high-LVR loans, if we instead assume a 20% deposit is now required, then the time to save more than doubles (due to compounding) to ~24 years. Alternatively, saving a 10% deposit to buy at the average Sydney house price of $1.2mn would take an incredible ~40 years to save.
If house price vs income growth repeats, FHBs likely never can save enough Importantly, the key driver of time to save is house price growth vs income.
In the last 5 years, house price growth averaged 7%, but income only 4%. If this were to be repeated ahead, a FHB would likely never be able to save a 10% deposit – unless they were given (at least part of) the deposit (i.e. from the ‘bank of mum and dad’). Note that due to the frequent changes of Government policy on housing incentives/taxes (& other costs), our model purposely excludes these factors. However, they can be input to the model directly by the user by adjusting the required deposit or purchase price. For instance, the recent FHB super saver scheme potentially reduces the required time by up to several years (contributions are capped at $15k/year and $30k in total).
