State of Markets – NSW February 2012

Sydney’s top investment suburbs revealed
Erskineville in Sydney’s inner west has been identified as the top metro hot spot to watch in the first half of the year.

McGrath Estate Agents’ chief executive, John McGrath, has named the Sydney metro areas that would continue to perform strongly in the coming quarter.

Among his top suburb picks were Redfern, Rozelle, Taren Point and Vaucluse.

According to Mr McGrath, all of these suburbs will perform extremely well in terms of housing, while Bronte, Little Bay, Milsons Point, Ryde and St Peters are the suburbs to watch for apartments.

Mr McGrath said he was confident that buyers would return to the market in the early stages of 2012, helping these suburbs to reach their true price potential.

“Australian buyers don’t need to see a lot of price growth to regain confidence, they just want to know that home values have stabilised,” he said.

“A lot of people are sitting there with cash in the bank waiting for the signal that the market has leveled and now’s the time to buy.”

NSW affordability is worst in Aus
New South Wales remains the least affordable state for property, despite new figures showing a modest improvement in affordability nationwide.

The proportion of income required to meet loan repayments dropped one percentage point to 33.6 per cent during the September 2011 quarter, according to the Real Estate Institute of Australia.

The proportion of income required to meet loan repayments across the state decreased by 1.6 per cent to 37.1 per cent – 3.5 per cent higher than the national average.

Victoria was the only state in which the proportion of income required to meet loan repayments increased, by 0.4 per cent to 35.6 per cent.

Western Australia saw the country’s largest fall, a 2.3 per cent drop to 23.9 per cent.

Over the September quarter, New South Wales also recorded the nation’s highest average loan size.