A 31-year-old woman has been sharing her struggle to break into the property market and says she is overlooked for not being a man.
Brittany Ferdinands from Sydney also said she needs to work two jobs and split her time between her parents and boyfriend’s house to save rent and have a chance of competing against older, wealthier investors.
Ms Ferdinands has been trying to buy a one-bedroom apartment for between $600,000 and $850,000 in Sydney’s eastern suburbs for about a month and has been sharing her experience on social media.
She said the real estate industry is largely a “man’s world.”
“When I go to inspect a property, I feel like most of the time my boyfriend gets the most attention,” she said. Yahoo.
‘They’re talking to him and it’s like ‘I’m buying it, it’s not him, he’s just here to provide support.’
She said that buying a unit means “talking to men all day, every day” and that the callers from the agencies and mortgage brokers are all men.
Ms Ferdinands said it was not just her gender that put her at a disadvantage, but also her age when competing against older, much wealthier investors.
Brittany Ferdinands, 31, from Sydney, has shared her struggles to access city property.
“I don’t really see anyone my age. Most seem to be an older demographic,” she said.
“They definitely have more money than me.”
She has heard older buyers tell real estate agents they were looking for another investment property.
That puts her at a disadvantage because she views properties emotionally, influenced by whether she loved the place and wanted to live there.
Meanwhile, investors are “quite transactional” and have cash to spend.
Without working two jobs, Ms Ferdinands said buying a property in the Sydney area she is considering would be almost unattainable.
She works as a sales representative four days a week and is also a university professor of media and marketing.
He even has a side job: creating content.
Ms Ferdinands said that if she only had four days’ salary she could “forget” about buying a flat, but luckily she is able to save her entire tutoring salary for the deposit.
“Everyone I know who recently bought a home was working two jobs,” he said.
Ms Ferdinands said she saw hardly anyone her age at property inspections – they were all older, wealthier investors.
She also admitted that she was lucky enough not to have to pay rent as she splits her time between her parents and her boyfriend, saving what she would otherwise have to pay to a landlord.
Ms Ferdinands said many women her age lacked financial knowledge and turned to their parents or partners for help.
For those looking to get their finances in order to buy a home, she recommended a good place to start was with a mortgage broker, who would help get the paperwork in order.
By doing so and taking a closer look at her finances, Ms Ferdinands said she had completely changed the way she spent and saved money.
A study earlier this year by financial watchdog the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) concluded that: Gen Z women reported higher levels of stress and worry about their financial situation than Gen Z men.
The study by ASIC’s Moneysmart unit found that 87 percent of Gen Z women reported severe financial stress due to cost of living, compared to 77 percent of Gen Z men.
More than half of Gen Z women (57 percent) felt overwhelmed by their finances, compared to 41 men in the same age group.
