Australia, we have a problem! Are we about to lose an entire generation? Sky-high housing costs and crippling rents are pushing young Australians to the brink, so much so that the country's biggest export might soon be its own young people seeking affordable lives elsewhere.
New research from Home in Place paints a stark picture: over half of Australians aged 18 to 35 are actively considering moving overseas just to find cheaper housing. And it gets worse – a further 16% say they definitely would. That's a huge brain drain waiting to happen.
Martin Kennedy, Group Executive Manager at Home in Place, minced no words when he told NewsWire that the number of young Australians eyeing an exit is "deeply concerning." While not entirely surprising given the insane housing market, it raises a serious question: what kind of future are we building for our youth?
"What the data really says to me is that if we are not careful our biggest export could be our young people," Kennedy warns. "At what point will young people say this is all too hard, what is the point of going to university, racking up tens of thousands of dollars of student debt if the job waiting on the other side won’t even be enough to pay the rent let alone buy a home?" It's a valid point, and one that deserves serious consideration. Are we creating a system where higher education becomes a burden rather than a pathway to prosperity?
Official figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirm this trend, showing that approximately 221,000 long-term residents and citizens have "permanently left Australia" in the last financial year. That's an 8% jump from the year before. Think about that – nearly a quarter of a million people voting with their feet.
And this is the part most people miss... It’s happening while the Australian property market continues its relentless climb. REA Group data reveals that national prices surged by 7.5% in the past year, adding a staggering $65,200 to the median house price. A median home now costs a whopping $858,000 – 51% higher than just five years ago! It's like running on a treadmill that keeps speeding up.
Rents aren't faring any better. ABS figures show they increased by 3.8% in the 12 months leading up to September 2025. Home in Place also found that over half of surveyed Australians are shelling out more than 30% of their income on rent, with a quarter paying over half their income! Imagine trying to save for a future when half your paycheck vanishes into rent each month.
The consequence? Young Australians are putting off major life decisions – leaving the family home, starting families, or even pursuing higher education. When your income is devoured by rent, these milestones become distant dreams.
"When rents are eating up a very, very large chunk of people’s income, you can’t blame people for thinking they could get a better deal somewhere else," Kennedy says. It's simple math, really.
But here's where it gets controversial... Kennedy argues that Australia's current housing policies are not only ineffective but are actively creating an "underclass of renters."
"I think this is what’s so frustrating about how we do housing policy in Australia. It’s always couched as how we get people into home ownership," he explains. "But when you look at what happened over the last decade it’s the complete opposite. We aren’t creating a nation of homeowners, we are almost creating this underclass of renters because their ability to earn and save money can’t keep up with the growth in house prices." Are we inadvertently creating a two-tiered society where homeownership is a privilege, not a possibility, for many?
Independent economist Saul Eslake echoes this sentiment, telling NewsWire that politicians need to "stop doing dumb stuff" after 60 years of first-home buyer schemes that have primarily benefited sellers. "Anything that allows Australians to spend more on housing than they otherwise would result in more expensive housing and fewer people owning them," he states. It's a classic case of supply and demand – pump up demand without addressing supply, and prices will inevitably rise.
The Albanese government's expansion of the 5% deposit scheme for first-home buyers, while well-intentioned, might be another drop in the bucket. While helping first-time buyers is commendable, Kennedy emphasizes that it must be coupled with an increased supply of houses.
"In the post-war era there was a lot of love for first-home buyers and effort in increasing home ownership rates, but it was done hand-in-hand with policies to reduce the share of investor activity in the market," he explains. "That is what brought about the surge in home ownership rates, so the idea of helping first-home buyers is not a bad thing, but unless it’s coupled with measures to restrict investors’ activity it’s going to be counter-productive, as all it does is add to demand and push up prices."
For the past 25 years, Kennedy says, Australia has focused solely on boosting demand without addressing the fundamental issue of supply.
So, what's the solution? Home in Place is calling on the government to commit to making 10% of all new houses social or affordable homes.
"Realistically, all governments, current and future, really have to face up to the fact where a huge chunk of the population have been priced out of the housing in their own country," Kennedy asserts. "If we don’t want these people to offer them a vision of the future that doesn’t involve housing stress or alternatively a lifetime of debt, the only way to do that is to massively expand the supply of social housing."
Kennedy points to successful models in countries like the Netherlands, Austria, and the UK, where social housing accounts for at least 15% of properties. In the Netherlands, it's nearly 35%! And this is the part most people miss... In Australia, that figure is a dismal 4.4% and shrinking.
"The reason it is so pitifully low in Australia from the mid-1990s onwards is that the government stopped investing in social housing," Kennedy explains. "In the 1950s and 1960s, around 15 per cent of all new homes were delivered by the public sector. Today that figure has dropped to 1 per cent. It is basically the explanation for the housing crisis in a single figure."
Without a drastic reversal of this trend, Kennedy warns, Australia risks losing more than just 50% of its young people who are considering leaving – it risks losing those who actually pack their bags and go.
So, what do you think? Is Australia facing a mass exodus of its young people? Are current housing policies the problem, or is there more to the story? And what solutions do you believe would be most effective in creating a more affordable and equitable housing market for all Australians? Let's discuss in the comments below!
