‘Impossible dream’: Family’s brutal choice as cost of living crisis rages on

One photo has summed up the “impossible” choice facing one young Sydney family as the nation battles a worsening crisis.

Kerri Drumm and her husband Matt have been living in Australia for four years, lured over from their native Ireland by the unbeatable Aussie lifestyle.

But despite saving hard for most of that time, they’ve found buying into the Australian dream to be an impossible task – and are now considering extreme measures to provide a home for their growing family.

The couple live in the Sydney suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands and have a young daughter, Faith, while also expecting their second child soon. But while they love their life in Sydney, they are now considering leaving the city – and potentially even the country – after being priced out of the real estate market.

They fear that if they remain in the NSW capital, they may be forced to “rent forever”, despite both having good jobs and substantial savings.

“We’ve been here for four years, and it’s not just us – a lot of our Australian friends are also still renting because they can’t afford to buy a property,” Ms Drumm told news.com.au.

“I didn’t think it would be this hard. We want to stay living in Brighton-Le-Sands but a three-bedroom house is at least $1.3 million and above and it’s just not possible.

“In Ireland you could buy a mansion with land for that price but here, because of the affordability issue, even people on really good wages are still renting.”

To put Ms Drumm’s claim into perspective, while you’d be lucky to snap up a humble two to three-bedroom family home in Sydney’s south for $A1.3 million, €900,000, or $A1,330,566, could buy you the below “beautiful five-bedroom bungalow with seven acres (2.8ha) of private land” in County Longford in Ireland.

You can pick up this five-bedroom house for $A1.33 million in Ireland. Picture: realestate.com.au

This two-bedroom home in Brighton-Le-Sands recently sold for $A1.3 million. Picture: realestate.com.au

Ms Drumm, a self-employed business and brand consultant, said the couple had been actively househunting for more than a year, and were regularly beaten at auctions when the price of a home would leap “$300,000-$400,000 in the space of five minutes”.

“There will be a bidding war between two people and the thing my husband finds depressing is that there might be bidding wars back home [in Ireland], but not to the same extent,” she said.

“People are in that fear of missing out mode and it’s hard to remember not to have an emotional attachment to a house.

“It’s very hard because you want to move somewhere you can raise a family – we don’t want to be renting forever.”

Kerri Drumm and her husband Matt, pictured with their daughter Faith, are considering leaving Australia because of our housing affordability crisis.

Ms Drumm said the couple were so disheartened by Sydney’s housing affordability crisis they were considering leaving Sydney and potentially even moving back to Ireland.

“We’ve developed a community here and we know a lot of people around us … but now having a second child, we have to really consider moving up north to the Central Coast at least or even to Ireland so we can get somewhere to live,” she said.

“I love Australia. I love the lifestyle and the weather is a lot better but we do have to weigh up our options, whether we stay or move back home, and it takes up so much mental energy.”

Ms Drumm said Sydney’s notoriously expensive housing market, coupled with the costs of stamp duty and now soaring interest rates – at the same time as the country is grappling with rising inflation – meant many families were under financial stress.

She said she had many Irish friends who had recently moved back after living in Australia for more than a decade as a direct result of the cost of housing.

She said many young couples were being forced to choose between home ownership and raising a family, and that buying while raising young children was starting to feel like an “impossible dream”.

Sadly, the Drumm’s situation is far from unique, with new research from national online removalist booking platform Muval revealing that a rent increase of $50 a week would prompt 40 per cent of Australians to consider moving and an interest rate rise of 2 per cent – which is almost how much rates have risen in 2022 – is enough to make nearly a third of Australians pack up and move, most likely interstate.

Many would-be homeowners are being beaten at auctions as bidding wars erupt. Picture: Julian Andrews

Data sourced by Muval shows that one in 10 Australians have already moved to slash living costs, while more than a third were likely to relocate to reduce expenses in the future. 

Cheaper house prices, loss of employment opportunities or income, and rising electricity prices were also set to influence why and where Australians moved as living expenses continued to soar, Muval CEO James Morrell said.

“Our data is telling us that moving is one way Australians’ plan to combat cost of living pressures with many households that are feeling the pinch willing to pack up their lives to find a new home with the right price tag,” Mr Morrell said.

“Over the last two years we saw Australians move to escape Covid-19 and now they are searching for a more affordable lifestyle.

“With inflation and interest rates rising rapidly, the cost of living crunch is set to disrupt millions of Australians and we expect there will be another wave of people looking to move house in the coming months.”

Originally published as ‘Impossible dream’: Family’s brutal choice as cost of living crisis rages on