Edwina Carr: Why don't you come house-hunting with me this weekend?

House hunters Edwina and her husband were offended by Joe Hockey's comments this week. Photo / mamamia.com.au

Opinion

Dear Joe Hockey,

I'd love to extend an invitation to you. Are you free this weekend to hang out with my husband and I as we trudge from open house to open house, auction to auction, to most-likely end up without a new home and with a heavy feeling in our guts?

That's the undeniable reality that myself, and many, many other young Australians face every week as we watch the median house prices firmly rise up and up as the housing affordability crisis continues.

Joe Hockey's comments have offended young house hunters this week. Photo / mamamia.com.au

I would also love to have a quick chat to you about your calibre of housing advice. I'm afraid that "get a good job that pays good money" is a bit like saying "in order to eat, you should consider buying food".

It's bleedingly obvious, and of zero help to anyone actually trying to enter the bubble that is the Sydney Housing Market. My husband and I, by all respects are doing very well for ourselves.

We're both in solid jobs, I'm the editor of The Glow, he is in a management position. It's not my intention to pump up our tyres, but combined, we bring in a fairly reasonable pay packet. We've worked hard for it and we continue to do so.

Combine this with the fact that we've been "house-sitting" my husband's kind parents' house for three years while they've retired elsewhere, and you can probably start to glean that we'd have a pretty nice house deposit at our disposal.

We do. And while you might think I sound like a whining Gen Y member (I know that compared with the many things going on in the world, this is an enviable problem to have) I'm not - I'm very well aware that I'm one of the extremely "lucky" ones who can even consider property, unlike most of my mates.

I just find it astounding that two adults with well-paying jobs, no children to feed and no rent to pay can find themselves battling to even get close to finding somewhere we can afford to live. And it's been a year of searching already in suburbs that some would turn their noses up at.

If you'd like to hop in the car with my husband and I this weekend, you'll watch us politely look at derelict houses that were probably previously occupied by squatters, and given a new lick of paint, sell for over $1,000,000 in the suburbs.

You'll walk beside us through a sunny apartment as we focus less on the lighting and more on the 20 other wannabe young homeowners who're fortunate enough to have brought their parents along with them, in the hope of securing a little help with their deposit. Who can blame them? Or the investors who don't intend to step foot in the property after buying.

You'll giggle and lament with us upon leaving that "cosy" three-bedroom apartment on a noisy main road in the deep 'burbs that was basically one actual bedroom and two broom closets of around one metre square (that even an 11-month-old would feel claustrophobic in).

Joe, for you to tell me, and every other young, hardworking Australian fortunate enough to even consider entering this over-priced market, that I basically need to suck it up and be smarter, better, richer, is just insulting.

This post originally appeared on Mamamia and was republished here with full permission.