‘So be it’: Meet the Aussie homeowners who want house prices to fall

For Melbourne dad Jay Fleming, the decision to pack up his life and move states came down to a single, harsh reality: he could no longer afford to live in the city he grew up in.

Originally from Sydney, Fleming and his wife made the difficult choice to relocate to Melbourne’s south-east eight years ago purely because of skyrocketing property prices.

The move meant leaving behind their entire family support network - a loss felt even more acutely after welcoming their two daughters, now aged four and six.

“It’s heartbreaking to not be able to buy a house in the city that you grew up in, and I don’t want that for the next generation,” Fleming said. 

“I understand that people need to save and sacrifice, but at the same time, seeing a three-bedroom fibro home in Liverpool go for over a million dollars is just not acceptable.”

Fleming is among a growing number of homeowners who say they are willing to cop a fall in house prices for the greater good.

A new Resolve Political Monitor poll, released this week, revealed a staggering 61 per cent of Australians now support a fall in housing prices, driven by growing fears that the great Australian dream is slipping out of reach.

The figure is far higher than the 33 per cent of Australian households who are renters or do not own a home, indicating a strong level of support from homeowners as well as renters.

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Fleming and his wife bought their first home in Melbourne around eight years ago for $600,000.

They then sold and purchased a home in Pakenham three years ago for $790,000.

He estimates their current family home has dropped about $10,000 to $15,000 in value over the past year, a fall he attributes largely to the Albanese government’s capital gains tax changes.

Yet, Fleming said he was happy to take the hit to his equity.

“I think the market needs to become more realistic for the next generation. And if we need to take the hit in the meantime to do it, then so be it.”

As a conservative voter, Fleming said his stance was not political, but rather about “common sense” and being a good member of society. 

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He fears that without a significant market correction, Australia is headed toward a permanent class divide.

“It feels like the only people that can even afford to get into the market are those that come from wealthy families that are given some security through their parents’ homes,” he said. 

“We’re lucky we’re in a position that we purchased a home... but there are plenty of others that won’t, and that just causes a class divide of people that can own homes and those that can’t.”

Further south in Tasmania, Ben Vaughan-Williams, said he shared the same concerns. 

His children are now adults, but are yet to buy their own homes.

Having being a homeowner since the 1990s, Vaughan-Williams said he had watched property prices grow exponentially while wages failed to keep pace.

“My experience when I first entered the home market was that there were a lot of houses around for basically two years’ wages - and that was affordable,” Vaughan-Williams said. 

“But now it’s got to the point where you’re talking at least six or so times the average wage before you can buy anything.”

As a former school teacher, he has witnessed firsthand the psychological toll the housing crisis is taking on younger generations.

“One of the reasons for kids being very nihilistic in this environment is that they don’t think they’re ever going to own their own home,” he said. 

“They don’t have that sort of dream that we had when we were young.”

Vaughan-Williams currently owns a home in south-east Hobart, which he purchased six or seven years ago for $300,000.

It is now worth an estimated $800,000 - a rise he labels “ridiculous”. 

He said he would be happy with a 10 per cent drop in house value, and for prices to stay flat for years to come.

“When you own your own home, what it’s worth doesn’t really matter unless you try and sell it,” he said. 

“And if you sell it and buy another one, the other ones come down 10 per cent as well. So for people who own their own home, this shouldn’t really affect them.”

Vaughan-Williams said he could also see a broader economic benefit to lower mortgages.

“When our wage is one-third mortgage payments, that cuts down our discretionary spending a lot, and so the economy will benefit when people don’t pay so much on their mortgages. There’s money for other things.”

This shift in attitude is being mirrored across the nation.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor poll, conducted for Nine newspapers, showed that the public appetite for a property downturn has jumped significantly - from 54 per cent in June to 61 per cent in July.

According to pollster Jim Reed, the widespread backing spans the political and economic spectrum.

While support was highest among committed Labor voters at 73 per cent, a clear majority of Coalition (58 per cent), Greens (63 per cent), and One Nation (55 per cent) voters also want to see prices drop. Most surprisingly, even 66 per cent of property investors gave a price decline the thumbs-up.

“This welcoming with open arms might be somewhat surprising, but it makes sense when those looking for homes say large drops are needed for them to have any chance of affording to buy,” Reed said.

The shifting public sentiment comes at a time when Australia’s big banks continue to warn that housing prices will keep falling in the coming months. Forecasters tip property price decreases of between 6 and 10 per cent nationwide until the end of 2027.

Sydney and Melbourne are expected to absorb the sharpest declines, though HSBC recently warned that busier markets like Brisbane and Perth will also be impacted. 

Auction clearances have already reflected the cooling market, with CoreLogic’s latest data showing clearances hovering at nearly 55 per cent after several weeks languishing below the halfway mark.

Experts attribute the weakening market to successive interest rate hikes from the Reserve Bank of Australia, alongside major tax changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax introduced in this year’s federal budget.

While everyday homeowners like Fleming remain sceptical of broad-brush capital gains tax changes - arguing they can disincentivise people from taking investment risks - others believe the modifications are long overdue.

Homeowner Russell Parker said he paid $300,000 for a newly built house in Adelaide. Four years later, he estimates it to be worth $620,000.

He strongly backs the federal government’s new policies to flatten the market.

Parker said ideally he would like to see house prices stabilise until the incomes of everyday Australians caught up.

However, he would also be willing to see house prices fall modestly - by about 10 percent or so - if it meant home ownership became accessible to more than just wealthy Australians.

“We need the house prices to come back down to a point where families don’t have to work three jobs between them because they are struggling to make ends meet to be able to buy one house,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers have defended the budget reforms, maintaining that the tax changes are specifically intended to turn off aggressive investor interest and finally give younger first-home buyers a fairer crack at entering the Australian property market.