Young woman ignored and outbid in home buying struggle: 'Not seeing anyone my age'
Brittany Ferdinands has been sharing her Sydney apartment hunt journey and wants to show women they can do it by themselves.
A young woman trying to buy an apartment in Australia's priciest city has found herself ignored by agents and beaten out by older investors. Brittany Ferdinands has opened up about the challenges she has faced trying to get on the property ladder by herself.
The 31-year-old media professional and academic has been looking to buy a one-bedroom apartment for between $600,000 and $850,000 in Sydney's eastern suburbs for about a month. Young women are significantly less likely to own a home than their male counterparts, with many attributing saving up a deposit as their main hurdle.
Ferdinands managed to save a deposit by working two jobs and straddling between her parents and boyfriend's homes but told Yahoo Finance she had other challenges working against her.
“When I go to inspect a property, I do feel like most of the time my boyfriend gets the most attention. They are talking to him and it’s like ‘I’m buying it, it’s not him, he’s just here for the support’," she said.
RELATED
Young Aussie builds $98,000 first home in a day: 'Cost-effective'
Australia Post giving away $1 Bluey coins to customers who ‘pay in cash’
She has noticed a “gendered mentality” in the real estate industry and wanted to talk openly about her search so more women can feel more comfortable chasing the dream of home ownership.
“I feel like I just talk to men all day, everyday. All the agencies that are calling me, a lot of them are men. All my mortgage brokers are men,” she said.
“The whole point was to empower girls to do it on their own. A lot of my friends, through no fault of their own, don’t have the financial literacy and are waiting for their boyfriend or to buy with their partner."
Sydney's property market is highly competitive and Ferdinands said she's more likely to be facing off against an investor rather than owner-occupiers for the one-bedroom apartments within her price range.
“I’m not really seeing anyone my age. Most seem to be an older demographic. I have come to a few who have gone to the real estate agent saying they need another investment property,” she said.
“They definitely have more cash than me.
Are you a first-home buyer with a story to share? Contact tamika.seeto@yahooinc.com
"I’m also seeing everything through an emotional lens because I want to live there whereas they are quite transactional and have the money to throw at it.
"I feel like in most cases that’s who I am being beaten by.”
'Two jobs': Aussies stretched to save for property
Ferdinands said buying her first home would have been off the table if she hadn’t been able to save her income from her second job.
She works four days a week as a commercial operations manager, as well as working as a university tutor and lecturer teaching media and marketing.
She also does content creation work on the side.
“It is so hard to save, especially with the cost of living. If I was living off my [industry] salary, forget it. I would not be able to even think about affording an apartment,” she said.
“Everyone I know who has bought a house recently has had two jobs.”
She said banking one of her salaries was how she managed to squirrel away the deposit.
"As a university teacher, teaching goes for 13 weeks at a time, twice a year. So my teaching salary I just saved and I use my industry salary to live,” Ferdinands told Yahoo Finance.
“Also fortunately enough I don’t pay rent and I have a hybrid lifestyle and live half at my parents’ house and half at my boyfriend's house.
“I’ve done that to save and was putting the equivalent of what I would be paying in rent into savings every week.”
Young women face homeownership gap
Recent CoreLogic research found Gen Z males were much more likely to own property than females, with 52 per cent reporting owning at least one home compared to 27 per cent of females.
The research found Gen Z women had overall lower levels of income than their male counterparts - $67,800 versus $83,500 - and higher levels of part-time and casual employment.
This gap lessens with age, with home ownership among female Baby Boomers the highest at 83 per cent, followed by Gen X females at 76 per cent and Millennials at 73 per cent. Overall, about 1 per cent more women own property than men.
CoreLogic head of research Eliza Owen said the gender-based gap closed as women aged in part due to the formation of couples and family households.
“So while the pay gap between men and women becomes less important for mixed-gender couples, it may pose potential risks during relationship breakdowns,” she said.
“Further, if men can attain dwelling ownership at a younger age, they are likely to benefit from greater levels of capital growth from the asset class over the long term.”
Buying alone ‘empowering’
Since taking charge of the homeownership process herself, Ferdinands said she feels “more empowered” and more money-conscious.
“I’ve been really empowered by the financial literacy that I’ve learned along the way," she said.
"A lot of these things like investing, property and finance in general aren’t things you learn at school. A lot of females, and myself included, would ask their dad or their boyfriend to sort that out.”
Ferdinands recommended other first-home buyer hopefuls talk to a mortgage broker to get started and start looking through their finances to get their documentation sorted.
“It gives you so much literacy and you know every cent that you are getting and it really helps with budgeting when you have a goal to work towards,” she said.
“For me, it was financially empowering sorting it all out and having to go through my finances with a fine tooth comb and examining my lifestyle. It’s completely changed the way that I’m spending and saving money.”
Get the latest Yahoo Finance news - follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.