scratchey

hi
just wondering. is sydney really that expensive? is there no nice areas that are reasonable in price?

cheers
scratchey

mcstu1

yes it is expensive....in my opinion anyway. depends what you want? if you dont mind living nowhere near the sea and an hour or so from the cbd then you can get a big house out west....might feel a bit like living on a new build estate in the uk.......

CaptainMerton

Give it a year and by then the most overpriced housing bubble on the planet will have gone pop probably taking a few Aussie banks down with it.

DrWho

Here's hoping...

MartinH

I think you are wrong. The Australian residential market is clearly soft at the moment but that is despite tumbling markets in the UK, Spain and the US and interest rates which are significantly higher than both.

Why is that?

Well - the fundamental difference is lack of supply and increasing population. Lack of supply is forcing up rents which in turn supports the desire to hold and residential property. New build has been falling which is making the shortfall worse.

With falling interest rates I am betting you will see prices climbing again by the middle of next year.

MartinH

What are your relative terms of reference? Expensive is relative to what you expect i.e. how much do you expect to pay for a four bed house. Similarly, what do you regard as reasonable.

I think the answers to your questions are probably "yes" and "no" but we need some parameters.

Mikeyc

If you have a mortgage in Sydney it’s expensive, if you are renting it’s not so bad – my rent is $450 a week in the Sydney CBD (with heaps of facilities), but for me to get a mortgage on this exact apartment my repayments would be $850 - $950 a week (depending on which lender).

So renting is a lot cheaper.

General cost of living is higher compared to the income, but it is manageable. I find in terms of income with my outgoings that for me it works out more expensive here than living in Europe.

But you have to remember, 4 million people live in Sydney...... if it was that expensive then they wouldn’t stay. They do.

Mikey

ABCDiamond

Sydney median house prices:

July 2003 $445,000 http://www.homepriceguide.com.au/med...e%20010806.pdf
Dec 2006 $518,000 http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/con...6/s1577728.htm
Aug 2006 $523,000 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...179204746.html
Jun 2008 $542,488 http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...097383707.html

That's an average of only 4.04% per year growth from 2003 to 2008

Every other State has had about 10% per year on average. Will Sydney catch up with the others or has Sydney had its day ?

asher

have a look here for southern sydney http://www.integritypropertyagents.c...ale_frm_pg.htm

Rosscarbery

Yes it's expensive, yes it's worth it to live here

LittleKittyCat

We've jut been on our reccie to just north of Sydney and in all honesty we didn't find it too bad. We rented a holiday house so that was more expensive than I would imagine a normal rental to be, but other things weren't too bad. Because we were self-catering we just shopped as we would at home and even with things like nappies and baby food that we wouldn't usually buy (we use washables and make own baby food at home) and even buying branded (familiar) things because we didn't know what own brands were like, we spent around the same as in the UK. Some things were more expensive (I found some fruit and veg more expensive but much better quality) but other things were cheaper (meat and fish especially I found cheaper). I would imagine that once we are more used to shopping in Australia, using own brands etc, our shopping bills will come out slightly cheaper. One thing that I noticed that I particularly liked was that you are able to buy half a butternut squash, or a quarter of a watermelon, saves wasting food if you only eat a bit.

House price wise, we found that house prices in the south of Sydney (where hubbys job is) to be about what we expected. We were looking in Sutherlandshire and around there. Obviously, the closer to the coast you are the more you pay (especially if you can see the water - puts up prices massively). However, in the UK we live in the east of England, within commutable distance of London, so prices here are high anyway, so my view may be a bit skewed.

All in all, I think overall we will be no better or worse off in Australia. I think that it is all swings and roundabouts - more expensive balanced out by cheaper. For us it is more about a change of lifestyle for our children - we have two small children and it was great to be able to take them to a clean playground most days (had two days of torrential rain but otherwise lovely).

I haven't unpacked everything yet (only got back yesterday and feeling very tired!) but I did save some of the supermarket shopping receipts so that I could compare prices. I will put the prices for some of the basics on here if anyone thinks it might help.

ABCDiamond

I do believe that particular part of your comment is very valid.

Knowing where to buy, and which shops give discounts, just for asking, does make a big difference.

Beppe

Did US, Spain, Ireland, UK all tumble at the same time?
We're talking a 12 month spread!

Same as all countries with positive immigration & restrictions on building, UK included.

The smart residential investors are steering well clear of Oz property at the moment and are adopting a wait & see approach to 2009.

Yes construction has been receeding in the UK too.
It's a good indicator of the future expectation with regards to prices.

Only if credit restriction is eased and inflation and unemployment are kept in check.
Basically Oz would have to decouple from the rest of the world. Can't see it happening.

CaptainMerton

The problem in the UK is not that there is too much supply or not enough first time buyers or a lack of immigration or a lack of population growth or a lack of current buyers wishing to move or a lack of employment or interest rates that are too high. The problem is that all banks all of a sudden in the western world are only offering 3 times your salary and expecting 10-20% deposits on all mortgages. Its back to traditional lending practices of the 60s and 70s and people who would love to get on the property market even at current prices cant. Someone told me a mortgage broker in Sydney offered them 8 times their salary when they were looking to buy - think they bought in Summer Hill or around that area. That was about 4 months ago.

The credit crunch will get to Australia soon.

lochaberlass

we have just moved to the Northern Beaches, we spent 2 weeks looking around the area, briefly considered looking at eastern suburbs or as far down as cronulla, but after a week in temp accomodation in manly we were convinced this area was for us. Downside of here is the commute, it will be a bit of a pain to get to the CBD if thats where we end up working. We settled for Freshwater (or Harbord as it was formerly called), manly was out for us, as very few houses to rent, a lot of aparments and we wanted somewhere nearer dog friendly parks !

Anyway we are paying $640/week for an old 3 bed property but recently rennovated so new kitchen/bath, so yes i think it is pretty expensive but we are 1km from the beach, 1.5km from Manly. Also we did a quick look at property prices, and from our (brief) research we recon if we bought a similar property in this area our mortgage repayments would be way higher. Its pretty scary what various bank website calculators were offering (may be different if you actually put in applications now with the banks) as mortgages. They were offering 6-7 times our (expected) income, and doing the calculations it would mean that our mortgage repayments would take up over 60% of our take home pay - sounds crazy to me, i have never had a mortgage anywhere close to that big.

We had a brief look at rents in other areas, eastern suburbs seemed more exp than the areas we looked at in Northern Beachs, north shore was about the same and further south down to cronulla etc looked a bit cheaper. The inland areas of the northern beaches peninsula are cheaper, defo get more houes for your money in areas like frenches forest etc, but we really wanted to be nearer the coast.

As i said i think it is pretty expensive, but then again that is comparing it to living in a cheap house in a cheap area of manchester (it was cheap for a reason!!!) so its not really fair. At the end of the day its Aus's biggest city, so just like london and all big cities, its gonna be pretty hard (impossible?) to find a cheap amazing house in an amazing location !!!