As Jess walks through what she estimates is her 100th inspection for a three-bedroom apartment with her newborn baby, she starts to wonder if her family will ever find a home.
"We're just so desperate … I'm just at the stage where I don't care — I don't need to see it. If [my partner] likes it, that's good enough and we'll just take it," Jess told The Feed.
"We've cycled from incredulousness, dejection — and a bit of rage as well."
The 35-year-old sees the same familiar faces every week at inspections: families desperate to enter the property market. Jess has been outbid many times, but remains hopeful after a year of searching.
The family of three is currently in a one-bedroom flat — but with plans for a second child, they feel they need another room.
"We'd really love for [our parents] to come and stay with us and be part of our kids' lives in a more intense way … every time my parents come to Sydney, they have to get an Airbnb."
It's also become difficult to balance working from home while raising a baby.
"[My partner] sets up in the lounge room and you can imagine what that's like — trying to manage a baby while he's on an online call," she says.
"There's nowhere else to go."
Having been priced out of a freestanding home near the city, Jess sees a larger apartment as the only option.
But there just aren't many options for families.
Where are all the three-bedroom apartments?
In Sydney, less than 16 per cent of all properties have three bedrooms or more, according to 2021 Census data — and the extra room is far more expensive.
The average price of a three-bedroom apartment in Sydney is about $1.3 million, which is about $500,000 more than the average price of a two-bedroom apartment (Domain, 2024). It would take about 18 years to pay that off for an Australian on the median salary of about $72,000.
The median cost of a three-bedroom unit increased by 18.1 per cent in Sydney between March 2023 and March 2024. Source: SBS
It also found the government's target of building 1.2 million new homes by 2029 is falling behind: with an extra 262,000 homes needed.
RMIT University urban planning expert Liam Davies told SBS earlier this year that developers rarely build three-bedroom units in high-rise apartments, preferring to focus on smaller options that cater primarily to investors, as these are more profitable.
"People will pay more per square metre for a two-bedroom apartment than they will for a three-bedroom apartment," Davies said.
When three-bedroom apartments are included, they’re often positioned as luxury offerings, like penthouses, which allow developers to charge premium prices. And as a result, they’re out of reach for most Australians.
The endless search is starting to take a toll on Jess' life: with weekends spent inspecting properties with a protesting baby.
"Taking a three-month-old out on a Saturday for inspections is just hideous … she has started hating the car, so it's become even worse," Jess says.
The '2.5-bedroom' apartment
Some apartments are being passed off as three-bedroom on listings where the third bedroom is intended as a study — or part of a living area.
Jess says one of the apartments she inspected had previously been used as an investment property: with a third bedroom carved out of the dining room. This isn't uncommon, according to Michael Fotheringham, managing director at the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
"Listings of properties and the number of bedrooms are open to some interpretation — you'll often get a three-bedroom property that might more accurately be called a two-and-a-half bedroom property," Fotheringham says.
He says historically, Australia hasn't built enough variety in numbers of bedrooms as apartments have been traditionally viewed as only suitable for singles or couples.
Some floor plans won't show the dimensions for the smaller third-bedrooms, like this apartment in Sydney. Source: Supplied
Gautier Lam, a real estate agent in Sydney, told The Feed properties are being inspected by up to 100 people — and often get snatched up within a week.
"It's volatile at the moment because there's such a severe lack of stock for three-bedroom units," Lam says.
"They get chewed up almost immediately."
Lam says a boom in labour and building costs since COVID-19 are also to blame for high prices and few options.
"A lot of people see a price and they expect another two-to-three hundred grand on top of that just because of how much competition there's been recently."
What it's like being in the three-bedroom market?
The Feed met with real estate agent Jackie Wang to inspect a three-bedroom apartment valued at $1 million in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Ashfield.
"For this particular apartment we've had close to a hundred inquiries … and so far had more than 40 groups through the open rooms," Wang told The Feed.
Source: SBS / Edwina Storie
The property sold before auction for $1.21 million — $200,000 over the asking price. And this underpins why Jess, who admits she's "better off than most people", feels locked out of the housing market.
"We both have good jobs. I've got three post-grad degrees. I worked full-time before I had a baby. We saved a lot of money," Jess says.
"We're just stuck in this cycle."
