Apartments offer Canberra first home buyers chance to get on property ladder

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Apartment living is presenting exciting opportunities for first-home buyers to get on the property ladder, while offering a quality of life not available when living in a house on a tiny block in the outer suburbs.

Canberra-based apartment and hotel developer GEOCON is leading the charge to provide affordable housing for young Canberrans who don’t want to miss out on the lifestyle an inner-city home affords.

The company’s sleek Wayfarer development – the tallest apartment building in Canberra – brought more than 330 new apartments to the market in February, 38 per cent of them snapped up by first-home buyers.

The complex, with its rooftop infinity pool, sky lounge, bird’s-eye views of Canberra and Tetsuya Wakuda-designed kitchens, is just steps from transport, shopping and entertainment.

GEOCON managing director Nick Georgalis says negative perceptions that apartment living is a compromise for those who can’t afford to enter the housing market are outdated.

“It’s not a case of ‘settling’ for an apartment or townhouse,” Georgalis says.

“It’s an opportunity to be part of a vibrant and diverse community with everything on your doorstep.

“It’s a false economy to buy a property out in the sticks if you have to spend $200 a week on transport and parking. At our

Midnight development on Northbourne Avenue, for example, you don’t need a car or, at the most, one car per couple.”

With entry-level prices from $282,900, GEOCON’s apartments are pitched well below Canberra’s median house price of $403,969.

Domain Group’s recently released First Home Buyers’ Report found that Canberra no longer had a single affordable suburb for a house – making dreams of owning a home on its own block a distant reality for young Canberrans.

“One of the big problems for first-home buyers is they don’t have a deposit,” Georgalis says. “They may be earning $80,000 a year, and they have no savings.”

GEOCON has introduced a number of assistance packages for first-home buyers, including pre-paid credit cards offering buyers $20,000 on settlement to put towards furniture or other essentials. It has also topped up the First Home Owner Grant.

Its most recent initiative, GEOPAY, lets buyers put down only $1000 on an apartment, and pay the full five per cent deposit later.

“GEOPAY is essentially a savings plan,” Georgalis says. “It provides buyers peace of mind that they’ve secured an apartment, and then gives them time to save their deposit.”

The offer is available for apartments in GEOCON’s Midnight development, as well as Southport in Tuggeranong, and Republic in Belconnen.

Republic, a groundbreaking series of “vertical villages” punctuated by laneways, an urban park, live performance space, restaurants, cafes and a bicycle “hub”, was designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects, the visionaries behind world-renowned MONA in Hobart and Canberra’s NewActon precinct.

“We’ve sold half of the first buildings released in Republic and construction hasn’t even begun,” Georgalis says.

Of these sales, he says, many are to first home buyers.

The development, Georgalis adds, is particularly appealing to a young, environmentally conscious market that demands sophisticated solutions when it comes to maximising public space and amenity.

“We love working with great people like Fender Katsalidis, landscape and urban designers OCULUS and music and nightlife collaborators The Aston Shuffle to create cutting-edge living and work spaces,” Georgalis says. “They are world-class partners who have helped bring our vision to reality.”

For more information visit geocon.com.au