Are FHBs Really Missing from Action?
In an article for the Property Update, Pete Wargent busts the myth about falling first home buyer (FHB) numbers. There has been a lot of talk about how the FHBs have simply disintegrated and elbowed off by the investors because of spiking prices and a rat race for properties.
Dwindling FHB numbers
This is different from the truth. Not many have cared to evaluate that first home buyers largely buy their first property as an investment and the official data thus fails to register them as FHBs (allocating them the standard of investors). This is exactly why their numbers do not make for happy reading.
They were never missing from action
If you add their numbers with that of investors (FHBs garbed as investors), you will find that they were never missing from action.
You can read the original article here.
Why FHBs buy investment properties?
The young generation prefers jumping careers and incessant job-hopping implies a need to shift homes frequently. This has got a lot to do with the paradigm shift in the FHB world. Today, they want to buy investment homes rather than homes to live in because new workplace- miles apart from the present one- can result in a need to change home.
This may necessitate reselling and a chain of buying and selling. This is sweetly taken care of when they opt for investment homes with smart possibility of capital growth. This way, the young generation feels it has done something towards benefiting the retirement nest egg, too, a need that the older generation did not cater to at a young age and realising only now when it is too late (read Baby Boomers).
