Helping millennials buy in Sydney or Melbourne with Our Leg Up

As property prices continue to skyrocket, a real estate expert has delivered terrible news to any young Aussies hoping to buy their own home.

Soaring property prices over the last few years have left little hope for younger Australians to enter the housing market.

And unfortunately for those dreaming of buying in Sydney and Melbourne, that’s probably never going to happen, according to Aussie property expert and TV personality, Andrew Winter.

“The prime central parts of Sydney and Melbourne are always going to be the most expensive parts of Australian real estate, that’s not a boom thing, they always have been and will continue to be so. The boom just emphasises it,” Winter tells news.com.au.

“If you’re a first homebuyer, you’re just not going to buy in Sydney and Melbourne. You need to be looking at outer lying areas that have affordability with decent communication links.

“Those outer parts of Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, there’s affordability there.”

With most banks requiring at least a 20 per cent deposit on a home, Millennials discover this is still quite the stretch – particularly if they’re currently renting – even for more affordable housing.

So what’s the solution? According to Winter, the bank of mum and dad (BOMD) has something to answer for.

“The doors from mum and dad should be a little bit open,” Winter says.

It’s certainly a controversial sentiment, with the running idea that Millennials (those aged between 25 and 40) have it easier when it comes to parental financial support.

But Winter says giving adult children a leg-up with a deposit and getting them into the property market is actually helping them in the long run.

“They’ve got to maintain the mortgage payments and the house. They’ve got that obligation to pay you back. I wouldn’t say it’s spoiling them,” he argues.

“If anything, it’s probably bringing them to their senses. It gives your child independence and a financial foothold.”

According to recent research from Digital Finance Analytics, BOMD is certainly in-demand right now amid the property boom, and is Australia’s ninth-largest residential mortgage lender with about $34 billion in loans.

Once a deposit is sorted, Winter says to look in areas that have sustainable growth patterns.

“You need to be looking at places that are not so trendy, that’s where it will be a lot slower and will move gently,” he says.

“Prime areas and boom places like Byron Bay, they get hit the hardest. Hot spots tend to get the headlines because they’ve grown say, 25 per cent in the last year, but they’re probably not the areas you want to be going for as a first homebuyer.

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“Because if you look at their growth across the last 10 to 12 years, up until last year, it’s probably only done 10 per cent.”

Gold Coast-based Winter, who said he spent years living in “not so trendy” areas before slowly upgrading over time, is currently promoting his Foxtel series, Love it Or List It, which returns to the LifeStyle channel on Wednesday night.