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Why so pessimistic, Gen X?

Bruce Brammall

Bruce Brammall

OMG. Generation X … how embarrassment! Generation Y beating us at anything? Oh, the shame!

I’m feeling like you need John Goodman’s locker-room speech in Revenge Of The Nerds: “You’ve just got your asses whipped by a bunch of … nerds!”

How did it get this way? How did my generation get so downtrodden, so pessimistic, so … you know … whingey and whiney? How did we get beaten by … Gen Y?

Now in its fourth year, realestate.com.au’s Housing Affordability & Sentiment Index is a barometer for how we’re feeling financially, particularly in relation to property.

What’s going on with Gen X?

Most of the generations stayed about the same. But not us.

Generation X’s HASI scored slumped 0.4 points to 4.2 (out of 10). Our bummed-out attitude was pretty much responsible for the entire fall in the national result from 4.5 to 4.4.

If you were standing in front of me, I’d collectively slap you in the face. Wake up, dudes! Life is good.

Gen Y, that snivelling generation of coat-tail riders who’ve had everything served to them on elephant-sized dinner plates, is going to wipe us out of the property market if we’re not careful.

The youngsters are feeling more positive about everything property than we are.

The youngsters are feeling more positive about everything property than we are.

They’re buying homes younger than we did. Weight for age, they’re beating us into snaffling investment properties.

We believe far more strongly that housing affordability has deteriorated (67% versus 57% for Gen Y) and feel it will get worse (61% versus 52%).

Our household expenses are putting us under more pressure (80% versus 68%) and we’re struggling to save more (23% of Xers have increased savings, versus 37% for Ys).

Xers want to buy an investment property, but we’re the least likely to believe we could afford one.

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It’s a stage of life…

I get the “stage of life” thing. We’ve got it all happening and we’re under the most financial pressure. Careers are at their most demanding in our 40s. Many of us have upgraded homes, so the original monster mortgage has morphed into a ridiculous sized one.

One partner might be off work, or only part-time, because of the kids. The ankle biters’ education costs can be prohibitive.

But we’re in the prime of our lives – our 30s and 40s. We’ve got to shake this awfully negative view on property.

We’re in the prime of our lives … we’ve got to shake this negative view on property.

What’s been so different in just this past year, when interest rates have hit all-time lows and our economy is tracking along reasonably?

It matters little. I’ll put it down to a once-off. Get up, dust yourself off.

Let me return to John Goodman in Nerds. “Well, if I was you, I’d do something about it. I would get up and redeem myself. In the eyes of my father, my maker and my coach!”

Don’t let Generation Y steal all the property joy from us, like those bloody Boomers did before them.

Disclaimer: The author does not truly believe the anti-generational biases espoused in this column. Okay, maybe some of them.

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