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The cheapest homes in Sydney
July 10, 2007 Sydney Morning Herald
Experts are divided over whether the cheapest houses in Sydney are a good investment.
It's turning into a tale of two cities: Sydney suburbs where property prices are static, or are falling, and those where values are increasing hand over fist.
With a record 1400 auctions in Sydney's west and south-west for the year to March 31 indicating a big rise in forced sales and repossessions in the region, prices are still failing to bounce back there.
But a cloud for some could have a silver lining for others. While prices, mostly out west, are proving very slow to recover, houses in the worst-hit areas can represent excellent value for canny buyers, whether investors or families who can't afford to buy closer to the city. "In Sydney, where affordability is such a big issue, these do represent more affordable housing options," says Australian Property Monitors general manager Michael McNamara.
Rents continue to rise in those areas, too, as a result of purchasers delaying buying property because of speculation over increased interest rates, baby boomers' children leaving home and population growth. In Harris Park, for instance, the median weekly rental for an apartment is $250 and for houses it's $380 - up from $230 and $325, respectively, a year ago.
"Yields are quite good," McNamara says. "For houses, they're about 4.5 per cent, and for units, 5.8 per cent. Those houses can be a good investment as far as income goes, although there's still not much capital growth and I don't see much capital growth in the near future."
Some investors see opportunities. Raine & Horne St Marys agent John Killen has just sold a three-bedroom home in Bidwill to an eastern suburbs buyer. "Houses there are very affordable - it sold for $210,000 - and rents are good," he says. "For this one, he'll get $200-$210 a week, which is a good return on an investment."
TUMBLING PRICES
Looking for a house in Sydney for less than $200,000? Lethbridge Park, just north of Mount Druitt in the west, is your place. Named by property researchers PRDnationwide as the cheapest suburb in Sydney, its median house price at December last year was just $199,375 - down 10 per cent from the year before.
There are plenty of other suburbs, too, where prices have fallen over the past year. In nearby Bidwill, for example, prices have slumped by a staggering 20 per cent, to a median of just $210,000. West of Liverpool in the city's south-west, prices in both Sadlier and Miller have fallen by 16 per cent to a median of $235,000 and $252,250, respectively. Close by, in Cartwright, the median price has fallen by 14 per cent to $228,750.
Meanwhile, on the Central Coast, Canton Beach near Toukley has the dubious honour of having fallen by the second biggest margin - 19 per cent from December 2005 to December last year. There, the median house price sits at $246,250.
That's all in dramatic contrast to the other Sydney: areas such as Darling Point with a $4 million median, where house prices have risen by 34 per cent over the past year, and Palm Beach, which has experienced growth of 39 per cent, to reach a median price of $2.97 million.
" Prices in the cheaper suburbs have remained low due to the oversupply of houses outstripping the demand for them, which coincides with an increase in the number of housing estates in and around these areas," says PRDnationwide NSW research analyst Mathew Tiller.
"The increase in interest rates over the past year has also caused an increase in the number of mortgagee house sales within these suburbs, which has kept the prices low. These interest rate rises have also forced lower- and middle-income earners to rent within the area rather then to buy."
GOOD NEWS FOR BUYERS
But the news isn't bleak for everyone. Sliding prices and low median values offer purchasers the chance of some good buys. For investors, the continued rise in rents helps their returns, while for families they're affordable places to live, although analysts are divided over the long-term prospects for capital growth.
" Prices will bounce back in a good market," says Kim Quick, a senior valuer for Herron Todd White. "It might take a few years, but prices will still always be lower than in other suburbs."
Careful buying can, however, offer good deals.
PRDnationwide's Tiller says: "The good news is that there are bargains to be had for first-home buyers and investors alike. While the median house price may be low, areas out west often have good education institutions and shopping facilities as well as good transport links to major town centres such as Parramatta, North Sydney and Sydney's CBD."
Mark Moraza, the state manager of researchers RP Data, also says that as long as areas have decent transport and are not too far from hospitals, schools and shopping, they won't fail to bounce back in a few years.
"If the basic infrastructure is sound, there's no reason that underperforming areas now won't do well in the future," he says. "There are areas out west, like the lower Blue Mountains, which are undervalued and they will improve in a couple of years."
He singles out Harris Park, near Parramatta, as a suburb that is not faring well. House prices there have slipped by 6.4 per cent over the past year, he says, dropping to a median of $376,402.
In 2004, Harris Park had a lot of apartment development and strong prices, but growth has petered out as developers wait for the area to improve. "There's a lot of daggy, older houses that need to be upgraded," Moraza says. "You can compare it to how Pyrmont used to be."
Trevor Elias of Gateway Real Estate says Harris Park is a sleeper that will wake up soon because of its proximity to dynamic neighbour Parramatta. "It's had a lot of bad publicity recently with this vigilante group (formed by locals after a spate of robberies and muggings in the area) walking around the streets, and a changing ethnic mix," he says. "But the returns are going to be very good in the future as people do up their homes, and rents rise. People are getting commercial rents in virtually residential houses and Parramatta is only five minutes away."
MORTGAGEE SALES
The agents selling in the Mount Druitt area - in places such as Lethbridge Park, Tregear, Bidwill, Willmot, Blackett, Whalan and Emerton - say their areas offer good buying at the moment.
"The Department of Housing has sold off so many houses, and that's keeping prices down," says Mount Druitt agent Angela Elliott of Elliott Shiner First National. "There have also been a few mortgagee sales and a lot of the suburbs around here in general are a little bit depressed at the moment. It means there's a lot of good buys around ... I believe prices will start rising in the next 18 months to two years as the market generally recovers."
It's all a question of timing, says fellow agent Terry Hansen of The Professionals St Marys & Plumpton. " roperty here has traditionally been among the cheapest in Sydney, and when the market improves, the percentage gain will be greater than in other areas in Sydney," he says.
"But when the market pulls back, it pulls back a little bit harder here. If you buy and sell at the right time, there are great gains to be had."
Yet even with cheaper properties, it's still essential to make sure you know what you're getting into, says Guy McGrath, joint managing director of legal and building advisory service HomeSource. "You have to do your homework before any major investment, as even investing in cheap property can lose you money," he says.
" People have to be wary in such an unpredictable market; it's not like in 2003 when capital gains were more or less guaranteed.
"Any buyers have to check the suburb, the location of a property within that suburb and other property within the neighbourhood. You've got to get into that level of detail to make sure you're making a good decision."
Find a suburb's recent sales and auction results.
Find a suburb's median property prices and demographics.
'MY BUYER WILL MAKE MONEY'
The value of retired accountant John Dolan's three-bedroom, brick-veneer house in Lethbridge Park (pictured) once topped $275,000. Today, he's selling it for $224,000. "It has cost us money, this house," he says. "We're selling it at a loss. At one point, it went up $50,000, but then it went back down. It's costing us every year."
If he hung on to his investment property for the longer term, Dolan is convinced he'd make money. But a momentous event recently - an OBE - made him decide to get out of property.
"That's 'Over Bloody Eighty,"' he laughs. "I'm getting a bit old to own and run property. There comes a time when you have to consider your lifestyle and there's more to life than property." Dolan has put his 20-year-old house on 651 sq m at 40 Mariana Crescent up for sale with co-agents The Professionals St Marys (9673 4422) and Solutions in Real Estate (9673 2444). With a good tenant living there paying $210 a week, he realises he'd be better off waiting until the market picks up.
"It'd be much more sensible to hang on, as it will clearly go up in the next two to three years by around $30,000 but there are other things I want to do besides worrying about property. Cheaper properties are usually the last to go back up and all the experts say that isn't far away. My buyer will make money."
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