Want to Buy a Bargain Home? Get to Geelong

Buying a home at the “median price” in inner-city Sydney is almost impossible but buyers can still get a bang for their median buck in Melbourne’s Geelong and Glenroy, property valuer Herron Todd White’s latest monthly review says.

For a median house price of $955,000 for Sydney, recent sales show buyers bought a 57sq m two-bedroom attached terrace with no parking in Surry Hills in inner-city Sydney but a 708sq m part-renovated, 20-year-old home with five bedrooms, double garage and a pool in Harrington Park, 60 kilometres southwest of the CBD.

For the median unit price of $720,000, homeowners got new one-bedroom 57sq m unit at 150 Pacific Highway in North Sydney. In Penrith, at 81 Lord Sheffield Circuit, about 40 kilometres west, home buyers also got a new unit but it was twice as big with two more rooms.

The comparisons in Melbourne are similar but two places there offer some extra value at the median price.
Geelong in particular is defying the downward price trend in Melbourne due to its affordability, the property valuer says. Further, a limited number of apartments at the median price of $555,000 in the Geelong CBD offer potential investment growth.

“Apartments located within the city are offering good investment returns due to limited supply because of the rise in popularity of Airbnb. A potential supply surplus may reduce demand with the completion of the Mecer Street Tower and Miramar Complex,” Herron Todd White said.

Glenroy’s median house price of $720,000 is 18 per cent lower than the median price of its local authority, City of Moreland, about 13 kilometres north of the Melbourne CBD.

Source ARF