One in three Australians say travelling overseas is more important than owning their own home
Sophie Absolom has little interest in buying her first home. Instead, she’d much rather spend thousands each year on holidays. This is why.
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Jewellery designer Sophie Absolom says for the past decade she’s chosen globetrotting over trying to save for her own home.
The 33-year-old has jetsetted around the world many times and said she “books a huge holiday at least once a year”.
“I’ve been to the States eight or nine times and I’ve been to Europe about five times,” Ms Absolom said.
New research from lender ME shows one in three Australians are delaying life goals including the great Australian dream of owning their own home, and are also putting off having children or getting married – instead opting to travel.
The research found the average cost of an overseas holiday was $8000 and 20 per cent of people conceded they would be prepared to go into debt to travel.
Ms Absolom said she usually booked her trips on a rewards credit card but paid it off in full immediately to avoid hefty interest charges. She said a month-long holiday would cost her on average about $10,000.
“Why would I change my lifestyle that I’m very happy with just to own a house that I’ll have to sit in because I won’t have any money to socialise?” said Ms Absolom, who lives in Richmond in inner-city Melbourne.
“I wouldn’t be living near by friends and I’d be somewhere that I hate.”
But Ms Absolom said in the next three to five years she eventually hoped to break into the property market with her partner.
Consumer finance expert Lisa Montgomery said because Australia had an ageing population, people needed to think “how they are going to fund themselves in retirement”.
“One of the greatest opportunities to create equity is to buy property,” she said.
“Whether you are owning a home to live in or invest in, the opportunities you can get through natural capital gain or via additional payments is the key to unlocking those opportunities and wealth creation.”
Ms Montgomery said focusing on travel was not a long-term financial strategy and Australians should think about investing in asset classes such as property or shares.
Corelogic figures showed the average median house prices nationally are Sydney $956,000, Melbourne $780,000, Brisbane $543,000, Adelaide $467,000, Perth $478,000, Hobart $476,000, Darwin $509,000 and Canberra $662,000.
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ME spokesman Matt Read said the research proved “one of the great Australian dreams is to travel overseas”.
“Everyone is free to make their own decision about what they want to spend their money on,” he said.
“A home is an asset that can appreciate in value so if you are thinking purely in financial terms a home would be a better option than travelling.”
Mr Read said while it was possible to travel and save for a house deposit, to become a homeowner you needed to be “disciplined” with your money.
Originally published as One in three Australians say travelling overseas is more important than owning their own home
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