Inner city bargains in Brisbane and how to find them

With Brisbane’s median house now at $655,000, the chance of finding something close to the city can seem a little idealistic, particularly on a first-home buyer budget.

Most of the inner-city has medians over $1 million, like New Farm, where the median price for a three-bedroom home is $1.35 million, and Teneriffe, where the median price is $1.15 million.

But affordable inner city housing does still exist. At Kelvin Grove, a two-bedroom gabled renovator on 521 square metres recently sold at auction for $670,000. Five registered bidders, most of them first-home buyers, fought to secure what is an unusually large block of land only two kilometres from the CBD.

At Brooks Street, Windsor, only three kilometres from the CBD, a three-bedroom, one-bathroom Queenslander on an elevated block went to auction with an opening bid of $600,000 before the hammer came down at $685,000 — nearly $200,000 below Windsor’s median house price.

According to Place New Farm agent Alex Rutherford, you need to be patient, eagle-eyed and able to move fast.

“Yes, the bargains are out there. Properties do come up from time to time but there’s no luck involved when it comes to who buys them,” Ms Rutherford says.

“You’re not going to stumble across a bargain property that no one else knows about – everything is out there for everyone to see – and when it comes to properties at this price, in these areas, the interest is generally pretty huge.”

Ms Rutherford’s advice for buyers wanting to break into the inner city market is to be ready.

“It’s very competitive obviously — there’s a lot of first-home buyers and investors looking — and so you need to be in a position to bid,” she says.

“The people who bought that house at Windsor had been looking for a long time, they had their final approval from the bank, had viewed the property four times and had all their inspections done. They knew what they were doing.”

Even if a property is not going to auction, it’s important to have those elements taken care of because properties in this price range often end up in a multiple offer situation, Ms Rutherford says.

“I can tell you that not every offer accepted for a property is the highest. The conditions of an offer are just as important,” she says.

“Buyers need to be organised, have their ducks in order and realistic about what they are going to get for their money inner city. There will need to be compromises made and they need to have accepted that, so that when something comes up…they can recognise it as a great property and be ready to move.”

Gary Rose, agent at Century 21 Prestige, is currently marketing an original three-bedroom character home at Jubilee Terrace, Bardon.

Its owners are wanting a quick sale and it’s likely they’ll get it. Mr Rose expects the character home will sell somewhere in the mid to late-$600,000s.

“Bardon is a great inner city suburb so close to the city with great amenities and this property has got that old world charm that buyers want in this area,” he says.

“This is where the market is going … to buy in this area in this price range is always difficult as they don’t come up often but when they do, they’re popular.”