NSW Investing in Albury region

Hi,

Recently I have been looking at Albury as a potential regional NSW area to invest in.

Could you please give me some pointers on where to find informations on good/bad spots in Albury. I talked to a few RE and they only spoke of the good side of Albury region properties.

Any personal experience in investing in Albury would be great. I have narrowed my search to Albury, East Albury, South Albury and North Albury due to their numbers regarding yield and position. But if there are any other potential areas, I'd like to have your thoughts on it as well.

TIA.
Tom

 

East albury is generally fine however, be aware of Commission housing clusters, such as eastern circuit,
also, the floral named street areas in west albury are also commission housing

nothing wrong with having commission housing in your portfolio, but you need to know what they are and what theyre' not

 

I was looking there too, few interesting opportunities in North Albury but then i saw the Facebook crime watch group and you can get good info which streets to avoid.

 

Best bet is to actually get out there, drive around. Have a look at the areas, streets etc. Think where would you want to own of you were a local.

Consider proximity to services (school, shopping centres etc).

Could also look at wodonga.

 

What is the reason to consider Albury / Wodonga?

 

As someone who knows fairly well the whole Victorian (regional and capital city) and Queensland markets I can honestly tell you the Albury / Wodonga region is the single best investment area in Australia!
You will find security in the five points of great investment: education, hospitals, transport, employment and then the pricing/yields. On top of this you can add localised military which is very rare in Australian regional centres offering general employment opportunities away from that base.
On top of everything else you have the option to go NSW or Victoria which diversifies land tax issues down the track and you're on your way.
Finally in many pockets you have near zero rental vacancy rates and the military turnovers of properties in the 3rd quarter each year puts a massive force on to any available properties so you have a perfect storm in particularly Wodonga.

 

why are yields still better in such a diverse investment area?

 

I think you have actually just answered your own question there!

 

I don't think so. Good yields for me means capital growth hasn't happened.

 

7.8% growth in Albury with the last RP Data I checked looks pretty damn good growth to me! That's the thing with Albury / Wodonga. It was having tremendous growth for such an affordable area. I hadn't seen that before anywhere else hence why I was bullish on that area over all of the other regional centres in Victoria.

 

Albury region has a good historical growth. Yield is still pretty good for me to put a property into a trust without having to put my hand into my pocket. My only concern is that the subdivision criteria is a bit high. On a rough calculation each subdivided lot must have minimum of 450-500m2 (correct me if I'm wrong).
However I can build dual living houses to further increasing the yield, so that's something worth looking into.

 

I have been following Albury market online since the initial COVID lockdown. Noticed a couple of houses uploaded just this week already under offer.

 

Totally agree - same here. Had a chat with two agents there and both said properties are going much quicker than before. I am interested to buy there too but looking at Tamworth as well.

 

Be aware of public housing clusters. With Albury/Wodonga, you can have one street that's highly sort after, then the next street is public housing. Resources like Microburbs can help give a rough guide, but your best bet is to get in touch with the local property managers. They are your best friend.

 

Agree, Albury is an interesting investment proposition at the moment. It's a rare situation where you can build a new house for the price of second hand. Also land costs seem very reasonable. You can still pick up a block for around $130k for something 500-600m2. That puts it as one of the cheapest regional cities for a block of land. Ballarat, Bendigo, Wagga, Bathurst, Orange, Dubbo, Goulburn are all now push beyond $150k, so Albury will naturally follow.