Heartbreaking tale of homeowner Marcus Graham as he was forced to sell because of rising costs and lost ‘everything’, including his marriage

A man went from a happy homeowner to a divorcee and back living with his parents after drowning in his mortgage payments and losing everything.

Marcus Graham, 27, was forced to sell his Cranebrook home in Sydney’s west in June 2022 for $100,000 more than he bought it for in 2018 – but he has nothing to show for it.

The three-bedroom house was the first property purchase by Mr Graham and his then wife, and repayments were going well until the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Despite a freeze on mortgage payments, the interest on the couple’s loan continued to rise until they could no longer keep up and everything began to fall apart.

Now Mr Graham is asking others with similar stories to come forward and grow the ‘collective consciousness’ of how bad the cost of living has become.

Mr Graham paid $580,000 for his home and made steady repayments for four years before falling behind on payments of $32,000 after losing his job in the early months of the pandemic.

“I lost my job and from then on, as the lockdowns started to get more severe, I faced a mental health crisis and things spiraled out of control,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

‘It felt like all the security I had built up was being taken away, and rising interest rates made it completely impossible to keep up with mortgage payments.

‘Once the financial security was gone, all safety and security in my mind disappeared. I thought I had nothing and that it was the end, everything I worked for is over.’

Despite banks issuing mortgage freezes for six months, interest on Graham’s home loan continued to rise beyond its means.

He spent months skipping jobs and even starting his own photography company as a way to supplement his income, but after his wife also lost her job, the repayments became impossible to keep up with.

If Covid hadn’t hit, Mr Graham progressed to being a customer service manager, but instead hired himself as a real estate photographer.

He also worked as a warehouse worker, sometimes unpacking shipping containers in 40 degree Celsius heat.

Yet it still wasn’t enough to pay the bills and in December 2021, his marriage fell apart and the couple agreed to go their separate ways.

“Financial pressures were the main cause of the breakdown of our relationship,” Graham said.

“We were a two-income household, which then turned into a one-income household and then into a no-income household.

‘It spiraled very quickly, the stress and the pain we felt and the emotion eventually got the best of us both and unfortunately we fell out of love.’

Two years later, Mr. Graham is still trying to save the $1,000 it will cost to file divorce papers.

“That’s how hard it is to live right now,” he added.

His now ex-wife moved into an apartment of her own around March 2022 and Mr Graham tried to save the mortgage until the sale of the house became inevitable.

He lived alone in the house for three months in a state of ‘second-degree homelessness” before moving into his parents’ playroom.

‘My mental health was absolutely in tatters and it became quite serious,” he said.

‘Luckily my parents were able to help me find a spare room. I know there are many people who don’t have that and I am extremely grateful for that.

“I know people who lost their leases and were just pushed onto the street, and that’s it. You can try to queue for social housing for ten years, or you can go couch surfing, but it’s really tough.’

People in similar situations to those Mr. Graham faced in 2022 are what he calls the “invisible people,” and they often suffer alone.

While living with his parents for three months, Mr Graham said things continued to get worse for him until he found his new partner, who he is still with.

Together they found a new place in St. Lucia and made it home before Mr. Graham’s bad luck continued.

“The landlord ended up kicking us out because one of their friends got pregnant,” he said.

‘We were informed at the beginning of December and then we panicked during Christmas and thought: “What are we going to do?”.

As rents continued to rise across Sydney, Mr Graham ventured back to Penrith where he attended inspections with 50 other applicants.

None of the homes he or his partner inspected offered long-term leases, which increased their stress levels after already being evicted from one place.

“I feel like a lot of agencies are opting for short-term rentals and then re-listing at a higher price,” he noted.

Ultimately, the couple found a small local real estate agency that had fewer applicants and were able to secure a home that was lower quality than their first home but still cost about the same price due to rent increases.

Now happily settled in his new home, Mr. Graham remains optimistic about the future, but still harbors a sense of bitterness about the struggles he endured.

“It’s definitely a sense of betrayal to some extent. As a child, I was told that I had to go to college, get a degree, find a nice job, earn a lot of money and that everything would be fine.

‘And then everything collapsed, even though I had done everything right.

“Right now I think the Australian Dream is dead.

“The Australian Dream in the 1980s was very different to the new Roaring Twenties, which is a lot like the other Roaring Twenties, where we have something akin to the Great Depression.

‘There is a lot of uncertainty. I think it’s a scary time to be in Australia.

‘I will reassess the situation from time to time and see whether it is plausible to reenter the real estate market. But for now, for the foreseeable future, I will be a tenant for a very long time.

‘I’ll have to get three jobs to supplement an income big enough to get back on the (property) ladder.’

But as Mr Graham continues to rebuild his tattered credit score, he said he will remain optimistic because without it there would be nothing left.

‘I try to stay optimistic every day. But personally I don’t think I can get back on the property ladder in the next ten years.’