PHOTO: Sydney, Australia
Australia’s median house price has reached a record high, with house hunters now spending about $150,000 more than they did a year ago on the typical home.
Australians need to fork out $955,927 when buying at the nation’s median house price, which jumped 5.8 per cent over the quarter and a whopping 18.8 per cent over the year, according to Domain figures.
What you can expect to buy on such a budget varies across the country. From barely habitable houses to large family homes, here’s what the median price will get you in some of our biggest cities.
Sydney
As the nation’s most expensive city, with a record median house price of $1.41 million, those with less than $1 million to spend on a house in Sydney have slimmer pickings than in other cities.
Still, buyers could get their hands on a typical house in suburbs such as Condell Park ($955,000), Bankstown ($955,000) and Bossley Park ($945,000) in the city’s south-west or head to the likes of Leura ($945,000) in the Blue Mountains.
At the median price, buyers in the Canterbury Bankstown region would likely get a duplex, townhouse or villa. However, some older free-standing houses on smaller blocks may be within reach, said Ali Saleh of Harcourts Greenacre. He recently sold a new three-bedroom, three-bathroom duplex in the region for $950,000.
The price point is dominated by first-home buyers, though downsizers and buyers upsizing from units also compete for such homes, Mr Saleh said, with the area increasingly drawing buyers priced out of other markets, such as the inner west, Sutherland Shire and the St George area.
Elsewhere, buyers have recently purchased three-bedroom houses in suburbs like Sevens Hills, 27 kilometres north-west of the CBD, and in Mount Druitt, 38 kilometres west, for close to the national median.
Melbourne
In Victoria’s capital, the median house price sits at a record of almost $1,023,000, and house hunters need to turn to the city’s east to find prices close to the national median.
Suburbs like Croydon Hills (with a median of $957,500) and Heathmont ($952,000) in the outer east – both more than 20 kilometres from the city centre – are almost in line with the national median, while MacLeod ($947,500), about 14 kilometres north-east of the CBD, and Frankstown South ($940,000), more than 40 kilometres south-east, come in a little under. Buyers would typically be looking at a three-bedroom house, with one or two bathrooms, at those price points.
Of course, they would get more (or less) home for their money in different areas. In Hoppers Crossing, about 23 kilometres south-west of the city centre, a five-bedroom on a 1012-square-metre block sold for $950,000. Meanwhile, in inner Melbourne, a two-bedroom, one-bathroom semi in West Brunswick and a four-bedroom, one-bathroom house without parking in Footscray sold for the same amount.
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