Twenty-four-year-old Bella, and her partner Riley were hoping to buy their first home. Combined, the pair earn more than $100,000, with $35,000 in savings, but it wasn’t enough.

But that may be about to change. 

A coalition-led inquiry calling for the lending rules to be loosened for first-home buyers, to even the playing field.

The main recommendations include a change in the rules so fewer home-buyer hopefuls have to fork out for lenders mortgage insurance

Also recommended is to lower the buffer which forces prospective buyers to prove they could still afford their mortgage, if interest rates were 3 percent higher than they actually are.

But the nation’s banking regulator, APRA, is having none of it. It’s concerned that at a time of high household debt, high cost of living, and anticipated higher unemployment, changes to the buffer, could put young Aussies like Bella at risk.

Economist Greg Jericho from the Australia Institute and took part in the inquiry, and told The Project that lighter lending rules wouldn’t do much to help first home buyers.

“I think this is actually the wrong solution to actually kind of the wrong problem. The problem at the moment isn't there are not enough first home buyers, roughly 35 per cent of the new loans are going to first home buyers, that's high,” Jericho said. 

“The problem is it's too expensive. The first home buyers are older, they're carrying much more debt because of the house prices. In fact it will make it worse because it's giving people more ability to borrow more money, they will bid more for houses and that juices up demand.”