Are you a property snob?
March 27, 2012 - 12:04PM
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If you live in a major city and you haven't looked further than 10 kilometres out of the CBD, you could be a property snob.
That's the accusation of one property expert, who points the finger particularly at his hometown – Sydney – saying there is plenty of affordable property, people just aren't looking hard enough.
Not that Robert Mellor, managing director of BIS Shrapnel, used the word snob, but he did have this to say: "People have got to ultimately balance up where they want to live, where they can afford to live versus where they want to live and unfortunately Sydney people have been a bit slower to make that judgment than other parts, particularly compared to Melbourne.
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"If you look in the Sydney market now, in the outer suburbs of Sydney, the lower quartile price in Sydney is now less than Melbourne."
Does Mellor have a point? He is probably one of the more qualified people to speak on the issue – by virtue of where he lives – Rooty Hill, 42 kilometres from the Sydney CBD. The suburb with the massive RSL that Julia and Tony chose to speak at during the last election when they wanted to get in touch with "the people".
"I've lived out that way [all my life]," Mellor told me during a BIS Shrapnel housing presentation late last week. "I lived in Mount Druitt on a poultry farm when I was growing up and then after I married, I lived in St Marys for a number of years and I've been in the Rooty Hill area for about 25 years."
Mellor says if you're looking in the right suburbs, there are plenty of properties under $400,000.
"There's certainly a stack of property below $400,000, and if you go under $500,000 then you are talking, in most areas [of western Sydney], it's 90 per cent of property basically," he says.
"You can find plenty of properties in western, south-western Sydney, established properties that are well-priced and well within the means of people if they want to get into the market. There's still a gap between established prices and new dwellings but that premium has now narrowed compared to what it was three years ago."
Perhaps Sydneysiders could take a leaf out of their southern cousins' books?
"In Melbourne they seem to be quite happy to continue to buy up in these new suburbs 30, 40 kms from the centre of the city but not in Sydney," says Mellor.
Admittedly, it is often surprising to see the prices in many of Sydney's outer areas when you consider the median price of the city overall is $636,822 (according to the Fairfax Media-owned Australian Property Monitors), which can create the illusion that buying a home anywhere in Sydney costs that much, too.
One of the problems, says Mellor, is that "people in Sydney are fairly ignorant" when it comes to what services are available in some of the western areas.
Take public transport, for example.
"The western line has actually got a fairly good train line, yes it's getting more towards capacity but you know, I can get a fast train from Mt Druitt, I get a seat 90-odd per cent of the mornings," says Mellor.
"If I don't get it straight away I get one by Parramatta. So it's actually quite well-placed but it's not on most people's radar."
Incidentally, the fast train trip from Mount Druitt to Town Hall takes as little as 46 minutes.
Part of the problem, says Mellor, is the media's fascination with auctions – which are popular in Sydney and Melbourne, but aren't the prime method of selling in many outer suburbs of the Harbour City.
"We put all our focus on auction figures but in the western suburbs of Sydney you'd be lucky to get 5 per cent of property selling by auction," Mellor says.
Do you think home buyers need to look further afield? Or are there very good reasons for sticking with what you know?
