First home buyers are skipping the guarantor

FIRST home buyers are delaying or missing the opportunity to get into the property market by not engaging a guarantor on their home loan, new data shows.

According to Mortgage Choice and CoreData’s Evolving Great Australian Dream 2018 whitepaper, just 4.9 per cent of all first home buyers said they used a guarantor to purchase their property.

However, home buyers aged 29 years and below are bucking the trend, with 21.8 per cent having someone be the guarantor on their mortgage.

“The data raises the question that many are divided on: Are first home buyers missing an opportunity to get into the property market by not engaging a guarantor?” Mortgage Choice chief executive officer Susan Mitchell said.

The average first-time buyer now needs to put down about $100,000 in deposit to secure a property with the median dwelling value of $554,605.

“For many first-time buyers, the biggest hurdle they face is saving a sufficient deposit that amounts to 20 per cent of the purchase price, and this has been made even harder by strong property price growth over recent years,” Ms Mitchell said.

The whitepaper found that 40 per cent of buyers would need some form of assistance to enter the property market, as they had just 15 per cent or less of the required deposit for a property.

“The government’s new plan to allow older Australians to stay in their homes for longer, as part of the ‘More Choice Longer Life Plan’ is likely to hinder the supply of available properties to those looking to buy their first home,” Ms Mitchell said.

“One way first home buyers can get a leg up onto the property ladder is to access intergenerational wealth, created by the boom in the property market, and ask a parent to be a guarantor by offering their own home as extra security.

“This strategy lets them get onto the property ladder sooner rather than later, and with a smaller deposit and has the added advantage of avoiding lenders’ mortgage Insurance, which can total thousands of dollars for cash-strapped first home buyers.”