Married couple Catherine Butt and Stephen Briggs were happy living in a Brisbane apartment for two years – but recently decided to cut costs and buy a house before they could no longer afford it.
“Our repayments at the moment are about $900 a week,” Ms Butt said, “which is still quite manageable for us.
“The repayments we’re looking at for a house are obviously going to be significantly more, so things are going to be a lot tighter for us then … we figured, let’s just get into the housing market now while we still can, before we’re priced out.”
Stephen Briggs and Catherine Butt decided a tighter budget was worth upsizing from a unit to a house before they were priced out of the market. Picture: Richard Walker
Those seeking a house on just an average Aussie wage can no longer afford Brisbane houses, according to new research.
Home comparison site Canstar found many Brisbane suburbs such as Rocklea require annual salaries of around $141,000 to afford a house there, with suburbs closer to the city spiking by hundreds of thousands more.
Ms Butt and Mr Briggs bought their current Gordon Park unit in 2024 for $663,000. It was previously sold for $465,000 in 2022, having jumped by nearly $200,000 in less than two years.
“We were thinking it’s crazy how much it’s gone up,” Ms Butt said. “But we were thinking if that’s what it takes to get in, we’ll just pay whatever we need to pay.”
Research from Canstar found homeowners now need much more money than the average Aussie wage to afford houses in Brisbane suburbs.
Several of the couples’ neighbours have also decided to make the change, with a similar unit in the same block selling only a few weeks ago for $910,000.
“That will essentially get us the deposit we need to find ourselves a house,” Ms Butt said.
“For me, I’m a fairly risk-averse person, and a fairly frugal person – so it’s pretty terrifying, honestly, when I think about what our repayments are going to be and the fact that we’ll have to keep up with them for potentially the next 30 years.”
Ms Butt said speaking to a financial adviser helped her understand how best to save for a house, which helped ease her fears about money. Picture: Richard Walker
Ms Butt said speaking with a financial adviser and understanding what spending cap helped put her mind at ease, giving her confidence to make the decision.
“We might have to [move] a bit further out,” she said. “We’re pretty strict with our money, so it basically meant that we accepted we weren’t going to able to be as free as we are now.”
Ms Butt said this would likely include cutting back on home upgrades, nights out and some travel opportunities: especially as she planned to move into part-time work before having a child.
“I would definitely recommend knowing what your cashflow is, and making sure that whatever your repayments are going to be is feasible – particularly with a 5 per cent deposit scheme,” she said. “You have to make sure your repayments on that are actually doable, and that you can still experience your life without being strained by those repayments.”
Ms Butt and Mr Briggs are selling Unit 2 at 39 Gordon St, Gordon Park, with Place New Farm.
”You have to look for the house you love and not necessarily the area, because [the market’s] going crazy in some suburbs and not so much in others.”
The two are now selling their unit at 2/39 Gordon St, Gordon Park, with Place New Farm.
Agent Nathan Briggs said he found buyers looking to upsize had the best results when they moved fast, finding a new place quickly instead of being tied to one location.
“I was talking to my client who just sold a two-bedroom unit in Windsor,” he said. “They were looking in [the same area], and they were just getting priced out. So what they ended up doing, instead of continuing to miss out or buy above their budget, was they went out a little bit to Clayfield and got something for a decent price, [just] in a different area.
“You have to look for the house you love and not necessarily the area, because it’s kind of going crazy in some suburbs and not so much in others.”
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