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.
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"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 Melbourn e 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 re…
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