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By Daniella Gray
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A parent's decision to help an adult child onto the property ladder may not come down solely to their finances.
New research suggests many are guided by a desire to treat their children equally, with support for one sibling often influencing whether another receives help.
The study, published in the International Journal of Housing Policy, analyzed survey data from Australian parents to examine what determines whether they expect to help their children buy their first home.
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Researchers from Curtin University focused particularly on how parents' ideas about fairness shape their decisions.
"I think the most surprising thing was just how strongly parents were motivated to treat their children equally," lead author and Ph.D. candidate Paul Vivian, from Curtin Business School, told Newsweek. "It may be driven by keeping the family harmonious or just a general belief in equality but this was clearly the strongest aspect of the data."
The wider survey involved 3,039 Australian parents who provided information about 5,895 children.
For the researchers' analysis of fairness, they concentrated on two-child families, eventually producing 1,662 child-specific observations from 831 parents.
Among children in the first statistical model who had not yet bought a home, 78.6 percent were expected to receive some form of parental assistance.
This did not necessarily mean handing over cash: 46.4 percent were expected to benefit from living rent-free at home, while 44 percent could expect a financial gift and 26.1 percent could have a parent act as guarantor.
But one of the strongest predictors was what parents had done, or planned to do, for the child's sibling.
If a sibling had bought a property without parental assistance, the other child was 44.5 percentage points less likely to receive help compared with families in which a sibling had received help.
If a sibling had yet to buy and their parents did not intend to assist them, the other child's probability of receiving support was 64.1 percentage points lower.
The researchers interpreted this as evidence that parents generally seek consistency between their children.
Need mattered, too. Compared with children parents considered "prosperous or very comfortable," those perceived as "just getting along" were 9.6 percentage points more likely to receive assistance.
For children considered "poor or very poor," that difference increased to 16.2 percentage points.
Family relationships also appeared to play a role. Children described as not very close or not close at all to their parent were 16.2 percentage points less likely to receive assistance than those considered "extremely close."
Interestingly, traditional factors such as gender and birth order had far less influence overall.
Only one of nine sibling gender and birth-order combinations showed a statistically significant effect.
The findings align with what Melanie Zimmerman, owner of MVP Chicago Real Estate, sees among first-time buyers.
"Many first-time homebuyers I work with are able to purchase a home because a parent will contribute an amount of money, often $15,000, $20,000 or more, to bridge the gap and allow the purchase to close, and without that contribution they would still be renting," she told Newsweek.
Zimmerman said family support can create expectations among siblings. "In some families, once parents help one child buy, the others are entitled to expect the same assistance," she said.
Vivian said the findings also suggest many parents are balancing a desire to help their children with concerns about their own financial wellbeing.
"We are seeing strong evidence that parents really want to help their children buy their first home," he said. "Of course, it’s also important for them to consider their own financial wellbeing before committing too much with housing affordability a challenge for many aspiring first home buyers."
Reference
Vivian, D. ‘Paul,’ Phelps, C., Ong ViforJ, R., & James, A. (2026). Parental support for first home buyers: the role of fairness. International Journal of Housing Policy, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2026.2743776
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Kara Dolman and Emma Lee-Sang
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