Sydney buyer demand shifts to affordability

Sydney buyer demand shifts to affordability

Posted on Thursday, January 19 2012 at 11:45 AM

Affordability is the key this year as Sydney buyers shift attention to older, more affordable units in prime lifestyle locations along Sydney’s inner coastal areas and also to cheap housing on the metro city fringe, according to WBP Property Group New South Wales manager Chris Lackey.

Even though the NSW Government has been demanding developers to provide ‘affordable’ housing stock in new growth areas southwest and northwest of Sydney, the problem is that between $400,000 and $450,000 is as cheap as it comes, said Lackey.

“Land prices aren’t going down and building prices will continue going up – you can’t stop inflation.”

Lackey said the death of the NSW stamp duty concession for non-first homebuyers has tamed what the average buyer can afford now, leaving many with no option but to borrow less and look further out to even cheaper areas in the southwest such as the Campbelltown LGA (local government area) including suburbs such as Macquarie Fields, Ingleburn and Minto, all 40-something kilometres southwest of the Sydney CBD, said Lackey.

Other buyers chasing affordability are more likely to consider older units in prime coastal spots within 20 kilometres of the CBD, said Lackey.

The prime coastal spots Lackey refers to are predominantly those in the Sutherland Shire; beach favourites like Cronulla, and parts of the northern beaches.

A trend Lackey predicts will occur as a result of the stamp duty concession burial is that buyer demand will slow down more noticeably in established “areas on the edge” of where new growth centres are springing up, “because the new houses still attract the building grant and are suddenly closer in price to the five to 10-year-old established houses attracting no government incentives”.

He said suburbs like Hoxton Park and Prestons are examples of areas to potentially be affected by this buyer demand fallout.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/API_Property_News/~3/HTAkISWVTqw/sydney-buyer-demand-shifts-to-affordability