With the Federal Budget handed down last week, Brisbane Agent and Auctioneer Haesley Cush reflects on the state of the market for first home-buyers
I had dinner with an agent this week. She is a young lady in her 20s and she is selling units in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. We were discussing the cost of 1 bedrooms apartments that she had recently sold or was currently negotiating. The prices of these ranged from $1 million – $1.7 million! When I asked her what was the main demographic, she said it was singles or young couples her age. What?! Oh, and for the record, these are roughly all under 50sq m without harbour or city views and some without car parks.
In a week where the Budget has seen measures to help first home buyers enter the market, I genuinely hope they’re not trying to push them into these areas. Most of the country is offering great value, but these inner city markets of Sydney and Melbourne are not the place for a first home buyer to be dipping their toes.
To give you some comparison you could do a search of Brisbane’s CBD and find 1 bedroom units under $200,000 or even in New Farm in the $200,000s. I completely understand the population benefits of Sydney but is Brisbane really only 20 percent (or less) of their price?
The budget does seem to have a plan to steer these first home buyers into the markets that are not overstimulated. There is a provision in the budget that extends the powers of corporate APRA which can dictate to the banks on some of the lending criteria for certain suburbs. This could likely mean the banks will be restricted on the amounts of money they can lend in these bull markets.
I believe this and the levies applied to foreign investors, if used in the spirit of the budget, could slow these super fast markets.
