After buying, Carey started feeling regret. Nearly half of first home buyers feel the same

What happens when the property-buying dream becomes tinged with regret?

Buying a first home is a huge achievement for many Australians. But making such a significant purchase can also come with feelings of regret. Credit: SBS The Feed / Caroline Huang

When Carey Ciuro bought his first home in late 2023, he achieved something that can feel impossible for many young Australians.

After saving for around six years, spending more than 18 months attending property inspections and auctions, and accessing "every [grant] that was pretty much available to me", he secured an apartment in inner Melbourne.

The first year of living there was great, he said. He remembers being excited about home ownership after years of renting.

"I can put stuff up, I can paint … things that I didn't think would make me feel happy, but they did," the 41-year-old told The Feed.

But after a year, things started to change.

"Some of the other things that you don't really expect or don't really know when you're buying your first home, they started to come up," he said.

He had to grapple with the reality of owning an apartment — like having to negotiate building-wide decisions with other owners.

"The reality is that everybody has different expectations ... So my desire about how the property might be wasn't necessarily matched by everybody else," he said.

"The pressure of your owners' corporations and fees that would keep coming up and problems with the property that couldn't get resolved, as well as expectations about where I was in my life and things that changed about my circumstances."

Carey thinks there should be more resources to help people navigate buying their own home. As someone who bought an apartment on his own, he found the process stressful. Credit: Supplied / Carey Ciuro

Carey says it's an "incredible blessing" to be a homeowner, but it's come with unexpected sacrifices.

"I would say that there are elements of buyer's regret with my property," he said.

He started to question whether buying a home was the right decision. And he's not the only one.

Buyers' regret impacts more than a third of home owners, according to a 2025 survey by Compare the Market which found that 39 per cent of Australians had at least one regret about their home.

And it can be particularly prescient for first home buyers, grappling with an increasingly impenetrable housing market and the sometimes-overwhelming buying process.

A study by financial comparison site Finder published in July 2025 found 45 per cent of first home buyers said they regret their decision.

The bulk of people who said they had buyer's regret in this Finder survey cited finances as their key reason. Credit: SBS The Feed / Caroline Huang

The pressure to get on the housing ladder

Carey remembers feeling a deep sense of pressure to get out of the rental market when he was buying.

That feeling of 'pressure' is something other first home buyers share.

Mortgage broker Imogen Alexy, 30, bought an apartment in inner east Melbourne in 2020. After living there for a while, she began to have second thoughts about whether the apartment was really right for her needs and future.

"I started to realize that potentially I'd rushed into something because I felt that there was a pressure to succeed or to be perceived as successful based on the fact that you'd bought at a certain age or at a certain time," she told The Feed.

Working in the finance industry added to that pressure, meaning she felt like she had to "tick off" buying a property to feel more "legitimate" in her work.

"Then I realised that in reality, it probably was okay if I didn't".

Imogen said it's important not to compare yourself to other people when it comes to buying a property. Credit: Supplied / Imogen Alexy

Pressure can come from a myriad of places: family, social media and peers. The last few years have also seen house prices accelerate, leading to potential fears around missing out on buying.

Prices have fallen in Sydney and Melbourne this year, and are predicted to decrease even more. But experts say buyers' borrowing power has also decreased.

The federal government also says its changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing will help more people get into the housing market. Economist Cherelle Murphy told SBS News that while the changes are a "step in the right direction", they may not make housing significantly more affordable for first home buyers.

For Imogen, not getting sucked in to comparing yourself to others is important – particularly because you never know when someone is buying with significant financial support.

"Everyone is on their own path, and you can't compare your circumstances to someone else."

What causes buyers' regret

Property data insights company PropTrack's March 2026 home price index shows property prices in capital cities have increased 38.9 per cent over five years and those in regional areas have increased 57 per cent.

Sarah Megginson is a personal finance expert at Finder. She says buyers regret is connected to how competitive — and expensive — the housing market has been.

"There's a real sense that if I don't act soon, I'm not going to get onto the property market at all. And that kind of pressure is not ideal when you're a first home buyer."

She also notes that for many first home buyers, it's the "biggest decision they've ever made financially". Feeling rushed or pressured to make that decision can lead to confirmation bias — the assumption you're making the right choice.

"That can be really dangerous for a first home buyer because you can find a property that doesn't quite tick all the boxes, but you stretch it and bend it and make it work even though there's red flags."

Imogen's apartment did tick a lot of boxes, but looking back there are things she didn't consider – for example, buying somewhere that would increase in value so she could buy a bigger property in the future to start a family.

She ultimately still looks back on buying her apartment as a good experience but says if she'd ignored the "noise" she may have made different choices.

"I could have been a little bit more strategic about what I purchased so that it would set me up for longer term."

Moving to buy

Because of the price of housing, some Australians are moving cities or even states to afford to buy.

Alex Brodie, 31, moved from the Gold Coast to Port Macquarie, in northern NSW, in November 2025 after buying a house with his partner. Their move was influenced by a few factors, chief among them the rise in property prices in the Gold Coast.

They decided to buy in Port Macquarie after visiting Alex's partner's grandparents in the area. Alex feels "privileged" to be on the property ladder. But moving to buy presented challenges as it was difficult for the couple to travel for house inspections.

"We came down the once and put an offer on the house," Alex said.

"I did not spend anywhere near enough time actually investigating the area … That component I think I probably could have handled a bit better if we didn't feel so rushed to do it."

Their decision to buy was influenced by the housing market, particularly seeing their peers in the Gold Coast struggle to find houses. Alex says the "gold glasses wore off" after around two weeks when he realised the house they'd bought was on a very busy street.

"I was like, 'Oh, gee, I can hear literal traffic all the time'."

Now, he's looking at installing new windows and the house needs roof repairs — renovations which could possibly set them back up to $40,000.

But for Alex, the benefits still outweigh the negatives.

"I think probably there's definitely a layer of regret, but I would rather be in a situation where I own a home and regret certain components of it rather than be paying somebody else's mortgage and watching house prices go up and interest rates go up and potentially our borrowing capacity go down. And maybe if we had have waited, maybe our outcome might've been vastly worse off than this."

He can see, though, why some first home buyers would feel regret when the cost of housing is so high.

"I think a lot of us are paying significantly more than we ever wanted or planned to … We don't really agree that the real estate should be priced this way. It's a basic human right," he said.

"I don't see why we need to literally put our whole life on hold for five to 10 years to just simply have house security."

Now that he's bought his first home, he has a piece of advice for potential buyers: "Do your research. Investigate the street where you're buying, scope it out for a day. But yeah, other than that, go forth and conquer — and get a good broker."

Renting out a first home

Imogen now rents out her apartment and hopes that by keeping the rent low, her tenants will one day be able to buy.

"I just figure if I can be one landlord who does the right thing and makes it easy for them, then that's going to set them up."

At some point, she'd like to sell the property and says costs like the body corporate fees have increased significantly.

"The rent definitely doesn't cover it. That's okay. I'm still going to have an asset at the end of the day, I feel like that's fortunate for me."

Carey has considered leasing out or even selling his apartment and going back to renting.

"I think if I was to have my time again, I would be a lot more cautious about where I would buy and the circumstances that allowed me to buy," he said.

That particularly applies to the grants he accessed, as in many cases you can use them only once.

There are also parts of renting he misses — like the freedom to move to a new city or state. But selling his property would also come with a cost.

"If I was to sell and I was to become a renter again, to become a homeowner again would be even more difficult," he said.

"And it was already the most difficult thing that I ever did."