70 marieclaire.com.au“Renting allows us to have more
money to invest in our business,”
says Kate. “We might want a
shopfront at some point in the
future, which we probably
couldn’t afford if we sunk all our
money into a mortgage. Putting
our money in our own business
is a solid investment, but who
knows what could happen to
house prices in an area where
we bought a house.
“We’re confident that our
business will earn us more money
long term than a property.“Then there’s all our travel.
We’re away most weekends
performing at weddings. The
last thing we want is have to
take care of our own home.
“We will consider buying in
the future. We’re at least a year
and a half away from starting a
family, so we might want to buy
then. This way we will have tested
different areas and be confident
of buying in the right place. We’re
in an ideal spot now but maybe
we don’t want this to be where
our family home is.”Kate Tomlinson, 27, rents a two bedroom,
freestanding townhouse with her fiancé,
Tom White, 27. They run their own
business, White Clover Wedding Music.proper adult. It’s an attitude that is
overdue for a dramatic rethink. Because
in the very near future, for the first
time in our history, more than 50 per
cent of Australians will rent rather than
own their own home.
If the trend continues it will lead to
a deep societal shift, says social
researcher and futurist Mark McCrindle.
“It will change us profoundly – we will
move more, have less of a sense of
community and save less money,” he
says. “If it turns out we’re renting for life
rather than just buying later, the great
Aussie dream could be over.”
Renting has traditionally been the
province of the peripatetic and those on
the lower end of the socio-economic
scale, however, today’s significant shift is
being driven by a new generation of
young professionals who are choosing to
lease over buying, frequently because of
lifestyle considerations.
They’ll be cashed-up but
asset poor, less encumbered
by mortgages and interest
rates, but less likely to
know their neighbours.
It’s a way of life that
will fit with the
transience of the rest
of our lives – more
short-term jobs, more
frequent relationships
and less security.In the near future,
the property market’s
winners will be less about
who can slam down the
winning bid at an auction
to whoever sprints to
the estate agent fastest
with their forms filled in
after a viewing.
Natasha and Alisdair,
both 35, and their two
kids, Felix, five, and
Allegra, two, are anything
but poor uni students,
and are much more
emblematic of the new renters – affluent
professionals determined to spend
their money on the finer things in
life, rather than sinking it into the
huge mortgage payments.
The family has since left that upper
north shore home that so impressed
their guests and relocated to another
spacious home with a pool on
Sydney’s equally prized lower
north shore.
“It’s about where you
put your value,” Natasha
says. “Alisdair and I are
shopping addicts. We
love big trips overseas
with the kids plus we get
to live in an area we love
with great schools. Houses
around here sell for up to $2.5million. Just because we
didn’t buy at the right
time doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t be able to live
here and enjoy life.”
Their friends, on the
other hand, don’t have
that flexibility. “People
say that renting is dead
money and ask us why
we haven’t managed to
save a deposit when
we’re both on good
salaries,” she says. They
also ask the inevitable
question: “How will you live when you’re
65?” But Natasha waves them away.
“No-one has a crystal ball,” she says.
“Maybe we’ll be living overseas.
Perhaps our friends who’ve bought
will find the market’s crashed and
they’ll be even worse off than us. Maybe
we will buy down the track. We choose
to live in the here and now.”
The thinly disguised disdain faced
by renters is common among landlords,
says Anthony Ziebell, of the Tenant
Rights Party. “There’s this mindset that
if you’re a renter, you’re making a poor
investment and so you can’t be very
smart,” he says. Some landlords, he says,
think renters can’t be trusted with their
investment property – an attitude
reflected in the draconian rental laws
largely designed to favour landlords.FACT30 %
of Australians
rent; 42% have
a mortgage;
28% own their
house outright.
The average
renter is aged 37;
the average
homeowner is 52.GOOD NEWS
FOR RENTERS
Rents have flattened across
many capital cities in the
past 12 months and are
showing a downward
trend thanks to a glut
in construction.!
Australian report