“We’ve cycled from incredulousness, dejection — and a bit of rage as well.”

“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.”

But there just aren’t many options for families.

Where are all the three-bedroom apartments?

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

And new apartments — regardless of how many bedrooms they feature — aren’t exactly popping up at the rate of knots. A new report from the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council found that rising construction costs has led to less new residential projects, especially mid-rise ones, being approved. The biggest issues were in the capital cities.

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.

“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

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

“We need more diversity of our supply stock, more range of different sizes of apartments. It’s a real challenge in our system because the way we develop property tends to work to volume building,” he says.

“They get chewed up almost immediately.”

“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?

“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

She says only 17 of the 300 apartments she has sold in the last year featured three bedrooms.

“We’re just stuck in this cycle.”