Dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble have changed two generations of young people so much that experts fear it’s already beginning to hit them where it hurts – the hip pocket.
While online dating networks have revolutionised the dating process, they’ve also thrown a major spanner in the works for many people they were initially designed to help, instead creating a loop of disposable relationships – some of which don’t make it through a single night.
That, say experts, has created a nightmare situation for Gen Y and Millennials, the fallout of which has caused a generation shift that will cost years for many people, while others may find themselves caught up in relationship deals they might never have chosen otherwise.
Clint Howen, founder of an Australian firm that helps borrowers score a mortgage online, said there had been a major shift in just one generation with the hookup culture “leading to a lot of people settling down a lot later in life”.
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“We’re doing it in our 30s as opposed to our 20s… It’s the easiest time ever in history to find a date… When something’s so accessible you don’t have the same value to it. You’ve got all the dating apps, you’re spoiled for choice, but the common thread is it’s so hard to find someone,” he told the Courier-Mail in Brisbane.
“All that correlates to why young people aren’t buying houses as well. I think it’s just the state of how it is. It’s going to be the trend that’s going to be happening, and will stay the common trend that people settle in their 30s rather than 20s. We’re also working longer and living longer and healthier lives as well.”
“Being married in the teens and having three kids by 25 with a mortgage, I don’t think that’s coming back any time soon for a lot of people.”
Lloyd Burgess, 27, from Brisbane, told the paper that he was among those “not in the market to find a partner or settle down and get married” but is facing fallout for that decision.
“I’m really focusing on myself at the moment, trying to get money together – but I’m really getting left behind,” he said.
“I know a lot of my mates who have partners are getting loans and I can’t alone. Literally it’s like being forced into a relationship.”
He added: “I’m just a normal Joe Blow and I really don’t have the opportunity, because the banks are seeing me as a single entity."
He fears the only option available to him was to go into a property deal with either his parents or a friend: “It seems like I have to find a business partner or I am stuck."
In New Zealand, the Bay of Plenty Times recently reported that new home buyers were teaming up with siblings, friends or even strangers to get a foot on the property ladder.
Tauranga Rentals owner Dan Lusby said it was becoming more common especially for first home buyers to combine their resources or financial equity with their siblings or their parents and in some cases with friends to buy a house.
Friends Leigh Chamberlain and Lance Bishop told the Bay of Plenty Times last month that they had teamed up last year to buy a piece of land to build a house on together off the Papamoa coast.
Chamberlain said he had hoped to do it alone, but interest rates were too high and with a joint mortgage - it was going to be a lot more doable.
The pair have been friends for over 10 years and moved into the newly-built house with some flatmates, Chamberlain's partner, and newborn baby just before Christmas. "We aren't going to let a piece of land or a house tear apart of friendship," Chamberlain said.
Lusby said, "there is a lot more of this happening. Some of these might have been strangers 15 years ago but today they are joint homeowners."
- news.com.au and Bay of Plenty Times
