What would you do to get into the housing market?

Would you ditch renting and house-sit indefinitely in the hope of saving up for your own place? Would you move to a remote location, leaving family and friends behind?

These are just some of the options Australians are embarking on — and it's little wonder why.

According to the ABC's Australia Talks National Survey, 61 per cent of us believe that the next generation will be worse off than their parents.

It's a view that's consistent across all demographic groups.

The majority of Aussies — 63 per cent, to be precise — say owning a home is now out of reach for young people.

But it doesn't stop with home ownership. The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has shown young Australians are being priced out of rental housing, too.

Still feeling like you want to give home ownership a crack? Great.

Let's take a look at some of the more unconventional — but not unrealistic — options out there.

Do you really need to rent?

Carmen's story is a familiar one. Like many others her age, she was struggling to save up for a house deposit.

But what started out as a favour to a co-worker ended up becoming the beginning of something exciting.

Carmen swapped the cost of renting to an often-uncertain future in house-sitting. ( Supplied )

"One of my managers at work was one of the first to ask me to house-sit," she explains.

"Then another person heard I was house-sitting and asked me to do it [for four months] and it kind of went from there."

Eventually, Carmen decided to keep up the house-sitting gig and use it as an alternative way to save for a deposit.

So she decided not to renew her lease agreement, instead creating a Mindahome.com.au profile in the hope of nabbing more house-sitting jobs.

The jobs mostly involve looking after someone's house or pets, but while Carmen doesn't get paid for housesitting, she says most owners will leave petty cash to cover any costs that come up when looking after pets.

She's also not alone in doing the scheme. Carmen says she's found more of her friends are also house-sitting to help save for a deposit.

But she knows how lucky she is to be able to stay with family and friends if there is ever a gap between sittings. She also uses it as a chance to go on a short holiday.

And Carmen has managed to save money without giving up too much of her lifestyle.

"You can save for a house and enjoy your luxuries while also helping people out [as a house-sitter]," she says.

Are you brave enough to leave town?

Samantha has been trying to save for a house for the past four years.

She was working as a teacher in Melbourne and had managed to put some savings together, but it just wasn't enough to get into the market.

"I want to buy in remote Victoria, but in the years that I was saving I noticed that all the way to Ballarat, house prices just kept increasing," Samantha says.

"I was worried about keeping on top of those house prices, and wanted to find a way to save more quickly so that I could buy soon."

The 25-year-old was already thinking about moving to remote Victoria, so she began looking at opportunities to teach in other remote locations.

"At my university, we had people come and tell us the benefits of moving to remote Queensland, where there was a teaching shortage," she says.

Samantha ended up moving to outback Queensland only a few months ago. She says after just one term, she saved double the amount of money each week.

"Rent is roughly $70 a fortnight here [because it is subsidised for teachers]," she says, adding it was a lot cheaper than anywhere in Melbourne.

"I'm able to save half my pay cheque each fortnight, which has been really good for helping me save for a house."

But it hasn't been without some drawbacks. Samantha says it's "definitely a mixed bag" as she misses her friends and family back home.

"I like this town and there are things to do, but there isn't as much of a music scene here," she says.

"I couldn't have done it without the internet, which has allowed me to stay in touch with everyone."

Samantha says she's now more optimistic about getting into the housing market and hopes to buy in the next few years.

"A couple of years ago, I didn't know how long it would take me to save or if I'd be able to get enough," she says.

"I found I wasn't as focused on saving in Melbourne, but now I've been able to save by setting up an account that is hard for me to access."

A fixer-upper — but with rotting fish and leftover hydroponics

When Chelsea first moved in to her fixer-upper, she discovered a tank full of rotting fish. ( Supplied: Chelsea )

Chelsea and her partner, Stephen, were faced with few options when they tried to get into the housing market.

Having spent nine months searching for the right place, they found they could afford very little in Perth until they discovered a fixer-upper they could negotiate down in price.

But there was a catch. It still had an agricultural set-up in the garage, they say, with the previous owners having left behind some weed.

And their dead fish.

"There were rotting fish left in tanks in the house, they'd obviously died some time ago but they were just left there, so the whole house stank," she says.

"We could see people during the inspection walk into the house, breathe in and just walk out."

Eager to get into the housing market but with a limited budget, Chelsea and Stephen, who were only 21 and 24 years old at the time, say they put their blinkers on and did a lot of work themselves.

To save money, the couple spent their free time scrounging around rummage yards or demolition sites looking for useable materials.

"We furnished most of the house for about $2,000 this way and found it helped us to spend more on the things we couldn't do ourselves, like the electrical work," Chelsea says.

She said when they weren't working, the pair would be renovating the place — cleaning the floors, patching walls and painting.

"The big thing was sanitation, we couldn't move in until we had done some of the rooms because we didn't know what had happened in them," Chelsea says.

"It was a race against our budget to get it liveable before we moved in."

So what does the expert say?

Finding new and interesting ways to get into the housing market can deliver great results. But it's not an option for everyone.

According to those in the know, it really comes down to the obvious — making houses cheaper and rents lower.

If changes are not made soon, younger generations won't be able to buy a house, Dr Coates says. ( Pexels: Helena Lopes )

This means relaxing planning rules that make it hard to build lots of housing close to the centres of major cities, says Brendan Coates, the director of Grattan Institute's household finances program.

"And we need to reform the kind of tax settings, particularly at the Commonwealth level, that inflate demand for housing," he adds.

"So that's negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount and including the family home in the assets test, which is something the Government has recently ruled out in its retirement incomes review.

"But there are no easy answers here."

Despite there being no simple answer, Mr Coates says if changes are not made soon, then younger generations will never be able to buy a house.

"And for older generations, their kids certainly won't be out to buy a house in the same suburb that they're living in and we'll have to live with the consequences of that inaction," he said.

"That does mean any younger Australians will no longer be able to look forward to realising the great Australian dream of homeownership."

What have you had to do to get into the housing market?

We want to know if you have had to make an extreme sacrifice in order to save up for your own home.

Let us know using the form below.