Suburban bliss: Cost of living crunch pushes buyers further out – and they love it
When Katie Collins decided to move her family from inner-city Brisbane to the Moreton Bay region, a 45-minute drive out of town, she wasn’t sure how it would pan out.
But today, looking at the house she and husband Matt have built in Mango Hill and will be moving into in three weeks’ time, she has no doubt that it was the best decision of her life.
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but we all love it here and don’t miss the city at all,” said Katie, 28, who works in real estate with Matt, 30.
“The kids love it too. They’re always in the parks as there’s so much greenery around here.
“It’s such a family-friendly place, and there are lots of pools and things for children to do. I can’t really imagine ever wanting to go back to city life. Life seems a lot more affordable here too.”
The Collinses, with their children Marcus, five, and Callan, two, are in the last stages of building their double-storey, six-bedroom home at the 12-year master-planned community Capestone, around a 12.8-hectare lake, by award-winning developer Urbex.
They estimate it will be worth around $1.5 million when it’s finished.
“To build something like that in Brisbane would have cost at least $1 million more,” Katie said.
“The land itself here is a lot cheaper and probably the build cost too. When we lived in Brisbane, in Nundah, we started out as two professionals living in a unit. But now we’re a family, so it’s much better, and cheaper, living outside the city.”
Katie and Matt are just one family out of the thousands who are leaving the inner city all over Australia for outer, more affordable areas, in order to afford a better quality of life – and loving the experience.
In Brisbane, for instance, where the median house price is now nearly $806,000, more than half of the 50 best-performing suburbs have homes costing less than $500,000, and nearly all are below $800,000, according to the latest Domain House Price Report.
Some of the biggest house price rises have been seen in the most affordable areas.
In Brisbane’s Lowood, in the Somerset region 66 kilometres west of the city, for example, the median house price is still just $415,000, after a 27.7 per cent rise over the past year.
“We’re seeing so many people moving here to take advantage of our lower prices,” said Zoe Wales of Ray White Ipswich, who’s currently selling a four-bedroom house at 33/12 Walnut Crescent for $357,000-plus.
“We’re seeing a lot of retirees particularly in that older age bracket buying here, and often with cash.
“They want to be out of town, and not paying so much for property, and want to be within 30 minutes of a hospital, too. Most of our buyers are coming from inner-city Brisbane.”
Other bargains being pursued are on MacLeay Island on Bayside South, where prices jumped 26.8 per cent to $390,500, in Ripley in Brisbane’s west, up 26.5 per cent to $620,000 and in nearby Kooralbyn up 25.9 per cent to $480,000.
In Sydney, it’s a similar story. Among the biggest house price movers there are out-of-the-city affordable spots like Werrington in the west where house prices have grown 14.9 per cent to $655,000 – a far cry from the Sydney median house price of $1,459,856 – St Georges Basin in Wollongong, up 14.8 per cent to $845,000 and Nowra not far away, up 14.7 per cent to $690,000.
In Wollongong, there’s a four-bedroom house for sale on a nearly 700-square-metre block at 17 Allan Street, Port Kembla, for $790,000 to $860,000.
Spinelli Real Estate agent Adam Spinelli says that an equivalent home could go for as much as $1.5 million in Sydney.
“A lot of our buyers are Sydneysiders coming down because they find the property here a lot more affordable and offering better value for money,” he said.
“They’re buying and propping prices up as a result. The younger first-home buyers in particular are keen.”
Meanwhile, in Melbourne, there are also a number of more affordable areas that have shown strong house price growth.
These include Maddingley in Bacchus Marsh to the west of the CBD, where prices have risen 10 per cent to $635,000, Lynbrook in the south east, up 9.3 per cent to $814,250, and Kurunjang in the west, up 8.4 per cent to $558,500.
They’re all in clear contrast with Melbourne’s median house price, now sitting at $1,023,116.
“People were really stretching themselves to get out here during COVID, and 150 blocks of land got settled in a couple of months,” said David Buchanan of G.J. Gardiner Homes, who’s currently selling a four-bedroom house at 29 Brighton Rise, Maddingley, from $576,486.
“I think it’s been pretty consistent. We now have a steady trickle of people wanting to build out here. They see under $600,000 as a real bargain.”
We thought you might like
States
Capital Cities
Capital Cities - Rentals
Popular Areas
Allhomes
More
