Baby Boomers triggered by satire news post about home ownership

A number of older Aussies – including an NRL heavyweight – have been ruthlessly mocked after falling for a satire post about out of touch Boomers.

Is there anything more satisfying than out-of-touch Boomers falling for a satire post making fun of out-of-touch Boomers? Probably not.

A Twitter post from Australian satire news site, The Shovel, has really riled up older Australians by poking fun at Baby Boomers who bought their houses for a ridiculously cheap price yet still have the audacity to give advice to younger people trying to get into the market.

“But interest rates were 17 per cent in my day!” complains man who bought house for $67,000,” the title of the post states.

The satire article goes on to state John Bradly, a fictional 63-year-old Melbourne man who bought his house in the 1980s, thinks young people concerned about interest rate rises “don’t know how good they have it”.

Bradley is quoted as saying he had to save up “for weeks” for a house deposit and that he only had his salary to rely on which was “only about one-fifth of the value of the average home back then”.

This satire post has fired up a bunch of Baby Boomers. Picture: The Shovel/Twitter

“It took me more than seven years to pay off my first house. Seven years! I was practically in my thirties by the time I was debt free. Can you imagine? Being beholden to a bank for your entire twenties! I’m pretty sure no-one in their twenties these days has to go through that,” the joke article stated.

The article finishes with another jab at older Australians who are making it even harder for first home buyers by owning multiple properties.

“Try managing tenants across 11 investment properties scattered around Melbourne and Sydney during a global pandemic. That’s what hard work is,” Bradley was quoted as saying.

You would think anyone reading the story would clearly pick up on its satirical nature – but it seems this was wishful thinking.

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The article attracted dozens of comments from outraged Aussies who clearly missed the joke and were feeling personally attacked by the Twitter post.

Even general manager of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Phil Gould, got caught up in the confusion, prompting him to urge the satire news site to do more research before writing their articles.

“Average full-time wage in 1990 was $566.80. Try to do just a little research,” he wrote, sharing a link to the satire article on Twitter.

Phil Gould thinks the satire page needs to try and do a ‘little research’. Picture: Phil Gould/Twitter

His followers were quick to point out that he had been duped by a fake news post, while others chose to highlight how he was only proving the point the article was making.

“That would equal $29,473 per year salary. Which would mean you would need 6.2x your salary to afford the 1990 median house valued at $184,000,” one person wrote.

“Median wage today is $65,000. Median house price in Sydney is 1.2 million. That means you’d need 18.46x your salary. Simple math Gussy.”

But Gould was far from the only one who took the post a little too seriously.

One Twitter user claimed the man in the article could have only bought a “dump in rural Tassie” for under $70,000, before going on to explain how much they “sacrificed” to own their first home.

“When my wife and I bought a 2 bed duplex in 90/91?, it cost us $108,000. Interest rates were 17 per cent. $108,000 was a LOT of $$ back then,” they wrote.

“We sacrificed a LOT. We started modestly as well.”

Another person claimed that, while they bought their first house in the late 1980s for just over $71,000, but added they didn’t get things like paid parental leave and subsidised child care.

“And yes interest rates at 17-18 per cent scared us,” the commenter said.

I paid 19%, on house. $65,000. Wage $18,000. Value of property never moved for 15 years. No capital gain. Interest only all I could afford, at one stage I was broke till next payday. That was a long week. https://t.co/bXIEKyToAs

— eto (@fullthenoo) February 6, 2023

My parents paid $105k for a duplex in 1991 at around 15% interest. For the first 5 years we were watching every dollar, buying only “No frills” products from franklins. It was a struggle!

— Mozda Cryptonaut (@kintsugigarage) February 6, 2023

Those who did get the joke couldn’t help but notice that the article bared some striking similarities to a real ABC interview with a retired Baby Boomer who sparked fury with her comments about the housing market recently.

The Shovel even acknowledged this, saying they know it “looks like we just plagiarised that ABC article” but revealed they actually wrote the satire article in 2021 – further proof that these types of complaints from Boomers are nothing new.

We know, we know ... it looks like we just plagiarised that ABC article from today, but we actually wrote this in 2021. This shit is on continuous loop.

— The Shovel (@TheShovel) February 6, 2023

In an interview with the ABC on Monday, 68-year-old Sydney woman Kerrie Boylett claimed it was “practically impossible” to be approved for a home loan in 1995 as a single mum because interest rates were so high.

She said one lender eventually agreed to loan her the money so she could buy her first home in the Sydney beachside suburb of Coogee for $150,000 with a 15 per cent deposit.

However, Ms Boylett, the former administration general manager for hospitality giant Merivale – a company that’s accused of $129 million in wage theft – received a $2 million inheritance from founder John Hemmes in 2015.

Kerrie Boylett said young people ought to make sacrifices to buy a home, like she did in the ’90s. Picture: Facebook

With a variable interest rate of 19 per cent in 1995, Ms Boylett said she struggled to make ends meet and once had her electricity cut off because she couldn’t pay the bill.

She told the publication she didn’t go on holiday for four years, quit dining out, and bought the “cheapest car (she) could get for $1000” to make ends meet.

But it was Ms Boylett’s advice for Millennials that truly sparked uproar, as she suggested young people give up holidays, nights out and buying new technology so they can get onto the property ladder.

“They (Millennials) want, you know, the latest mobile phone, the latest iPad, they want a nice car, they want to go on holidays, they still want to go out to restaurants – they pay $20 or $30 for a drink if they go out, have a nice time,’ she said.

The ABC article noted that she had “upsized to a home in Balmain” which is worth “far more than what houses were worth in the mid-90s”.

The median price for a house in Coogee – where Ms Boylett bought her first home for just $150,000 – has soared to a staggering $3.7 million. Units sell for an average of $1.32 million.

– With Chloe Whelan