I’m at a bit of a crossroads and I’d like some wisdom. We sold our PPOR this year, it was an apartment with issues and we were very glad to offload the thing. We though we’d never be able to buy a house in Sydney but with the recent drops we thought we could. We’re currently renting. We have two IPs in Brisbane, both performing okay, want to keep both. We are renting in Ermington and love the area. With the funds from the sale of our PPOR though, our max purchase price is $1mil, which won’t get us far. It’ll also take away most of our buffer, and given our two IPs are slightly negatively geared it concerns me. At the moment, we are $30k short of fully offsetting one of our IPs, so we have no financial worries. I don’t like the idea of worrying about money so buying a dump for $1mil (realistically that’s what I’ll get for $1mil around here) and being stressed is not appealing. We have family out in Glenmore Park and it would be nice to raise a family around our family. But gosh it’s far away. The commute to work for me will be 45mins, I’ve gone further before, I’ve done the hour commute and haven’t minded it, but it’s not ideal! We could buy a house there and have heaps of money leftover and again, not be worried about money. And house would be massive. Or we could keep renting, which isn’t ideal either, I don’t like the idea of being kicked out looming over my head. I’d wait, see how things go, but I feel a bit of time pressure as we want another child (concerned about impact to borrowing capacity). I know this is a decision I have to make myself, I’d just like some wisdom from people who have been there, done that.
I had to look both places up on a map. But they are a long way apart. Could you go half-way, cut the commute but be reasonably close to family, and still get a decent house?
