Two single mothers from Australia have described how they can no longer afford their property prices in the exploding property market.
Both Kaitlyn Bailey, mother of three, and Anna, mother of two, had great difficulty finding a rental apartment or buying a house, even though neither of them lives in Sydney.
And they are not alone in their problem: With the housing crisis worsening across the country, more and more Australians are struggling to provide a roof over their families’ heads.
Kaitlyn Bailey submitted 157 rental applications near Cessnock in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley and was rejected on every one of them.
“I’m not a (bad tenant), I keep the house clean, I’ve always paid my bills and I’ve never had a problem,” she told 60 Minutes.
Out of “sheer determination,” she continued to apply, even though each application was rejected, to ensure that she and her children did not end up on the streets.
“I don’t want to be homeless with all my children – I just can’t bear that,” Ms Bailey said.
Mrs Bailey said it was only through the extraordinary sacrifice of her mother, Karen, that she was able to provide a roof over her children’s heads.
Single mother of three Kaitlyn (left) revealed she was turned down for 157 rental applications and only found a home thanks to her mother Karen (right), who dipped into her retirement savings
She couldn’t bear to see what was happening to her daughter and grandchildren, so she took out her retirement benefits early and took out another loan to buy Kaitlyn a portable home in the back of her own property.
“I feel for my children. I tried to do the best for them with what I had,” Karen said.
“I just hate to see them go through this because I hate to see them upset.”
Even though the family enjoys being close together, mother and daughter agreed that the situation was far from ideal.
They also believe that intergenerational living will become much more common in the future.
“Families are being reunited out of necessity,” Karen told the show.
Ms Bailey added: “At the end of the day, you all have to survive. And that’s very, very difficult these days.”
Also on the programme was deputy headteacher Anna from the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
She earns a decent salary and has managed to scrape together almost enough to fulfill her “dream” of owning her own home.
However, a 15 percent down payment is not enough to qualify for a mortgage loan, in part because she is “a single mother with two dependent children.”
“It doesn’t feel right when you work so hard,” she said.
“I work so hard to achieve this goal, but I did it.”
“I can’t do anything else.”
“I’m the only one among my adult friends who doesn’t own a home, and that makes it difficult.”
Anna, a mother of two children, has also been hit hard by the brutal real estate market. She cannot afford a home loan with a 15 percent down payment because she is a single parent.
Anna is stunned that her deposit is not enough to get approval from the banks and breaks down when she thinks about what this means for her family.
“The hardest thing is accepting that you have a goal and you achieve it and that you just want to do the right thing for your children,” she said.
“It’s this feeling of belonging.
“I think I like to share things with my family and they know that owning my own home is a big dream of mine.”
“Then they hear me say, ‘We can’t do that, sorry guys, we have to live in rented accommodation and deal with the problems we have to deal with.'”
Ms Bailey and Anna are just two of many Australians struggling to find housing as the booming population drives up demand for housing.
More and more Australians are struggling to provide shelter for their families as the national housing crisis deepens. Pictured is a woman walking past a property market in Sydney.
A year ago, the federal government promised to build 1.2 million new homes over the next five years to ease demand pressure and reduce prices.
But the promise has become an uphill battle as the construction industry bears the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis and dozens of companies go bankrupt.
The new Federal Housing Minister Clare O’Neil admitted that Ms Bailey and Anna’s situation was not good enough.
She also acknowledged that while achieving her government’s goal would not be easy, it would not be an impossible task.
“I do not accept that a“And I certainly wouldn’t have taken this job if I thought there was nothing I could do about this problem,” Ms. O’Neil said on the show.
“What we currently have in our country is a crisis in the real estate market.”
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil admits that tackling the national crisis will be a major challenge
“Housing is unaffordable, there are too few of them and the situation is particularly bad for tenants.”
“Many of the government’s measures will provide a good source of income for Australian developers as we try to build more homes.”
“I see that developers are taking up the challenge and starting to think about new ways they might be able to help us.”
Ms O’Neil also acknowledged that there were concerns because younger Australians would have to borrow an average of $92,000 from “their parents’ bank” to get a home loan.
“It’s a really big problem and I think a symptom of a wider collapse in our Australian housing market when you have young people having to borrow these amounts from their parents,” she said.
