QLD Looking to buy in Wynnum / Manly..

Hi All,

This will be our 3rd week in Manly West and we are REALLY enjoy it. We are currently living in a 3 bedroom unit in, which seems to be central to most things.

The whole esplanade from Lota to Wynnum is really stunning and has such a good feel about it. Its where we want to be.

My daughter is at Wynnum State School and is really enjoying it there and has started to make some friends.

As mentioned, we currently renting a 3 bedroom unit. Previously we lived in our PPOR, with 4 bedrooms on a 1200sqm block.. so its been a little bit of an adjustment (renting again and living in a unit).

That said, I think this has given us motivation to buy our own place when our 9 month lease runs out. We will look at Lota, Manly, Manly West, Wynnum and Wynnum West.

I have started looking on RE.com, but there appears to quite a number of units (for around $400k), however very basic houses are starting at around $500k(roughly where our budget is).

As mentioned, we want to be close to my daughters school (Wynnum SS), so hopefully something will come up when we in a position to buy, so we just want to educate ourselves as much as possible about property in the area.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Robbie

 

Hi Robbie, buy the house, and even look at buying it before your lease is up!

Yes, it's a great part of Brisbane, glad you like it!

 

Buy what house? Or do you mean by a house over a unit? Why the rush to buy so soon (given I have only been in the state for 2 weeks)?

 

Yes, buy a house over a unit.
Good to be looking, that way you'll get a really good feel for property in the area. And if the right one comes up (ticking all the boxes), I'd put an offer in. I think breaking a lease isn't the worst thing to do in the world and the owner needs to mitigate their losses by advertising and getting a new tenant in. Or you could always rent out the new property for a while.

It can take a while for the ideal property to come into the market.

 

Thats the thing though.. the houses I have seen in my price range, dont tick all the boxes, however i think once i familiarize myself with the area my criteria might change

 

Or go up a price range but say something like "My budget is x. Please present the offer to the owner." You never know your luck.

Otherwise, you can compromise on some things. But don't compromise on location. You can always change the house, renovate, add rooms etc., but the location can't be changed.

 

Have to agree with @Gockie on this one - definitely go for house! I purchased a well located T/H in Wynnum beginning of 2015 and it hasn't moved much whilst in that time houses have seen 9.1% average growth from Jun 2016 - Jun 2017 (saw this stat on Jane Slack-Smith's recent webinar).
Some decent money is being spent in the area with Esplanade Aqua Park undergoing a facelift, new library for Manly West and multiple low-med density blocks going up near Bay Terrace which should include cinemas.

If you must go for a unit/townhouse in the area, ensure it has an ensuite as all new builds with 2+ bedrooms have this. Buying anything with 1bathroom will see downward pressure on your rents so you will suffer both CG & CF wise.

 

Hi robbie_p thanks for sharing your situation.

I agree definitely a house over a unit in Wynnum. Manly I don't know much about - a lot more expensive than Wynnum. Manly west is a bit more affordable but I found a lot of people selling seem to expect manly prices so I haven't spent much time here either. Wynnum I think is a good place to buy a house as it's right by the water and close to manly but definitely more bang for your buck here. There's also a lot of gentrification in Wynnum itself (more than Wynnum west IMHO). 500 in Wynnum is a competitive price point and I agree quite basic for what you get however if you look at Wynnum west you'll have more options at this price range. Moving even more away from the water (but closer to the city), you'll also find reasonable value in Tingalpa (but totally different vibe to Wynnum). There's a great contrast between million dollar + houses and small run down cottages in Wynnum and Manly that I don't see in Wynnum west or tingalpa - I think this shows the desirability of being close to the water.

Of note, you'll see that there are a large number of character residential zoned houses. I personally like streets with character residential houses but if you own one of the character properties then this restricts what you can do to the house (mostly involving demolishin control but also affects potential future sale-ability - so buy at the right price) - see Brisbane website for specifics.

For years I've thought of wynnum as a low socio-economic area but this is changing. Ultimately I was driven to Wynnum for affordability but I think as you've pointed out - it's a unique and beautiful part of Brisbane.

Looking forward to seeing how you progress.

 

Thanks you all for your feedback. We love the area and are definitely keen find our own place.

As mentioned, we have only been here for 2-3 weeks, so have only been spending time on the esplanade (Lota to Wynnum).

We dont have to be walking distance the the esplanade, but would be happy with a short drive. My daughter is at Wynnum SS (year 1) and we plan to send all our kids there (my sons are 4 and 2), so its important that we close to their school.

There is still a bit of work i need to do before i can buy (i.e. sell my Sydney IP), but for now i can familiarize myself with the area, as well as other neighboring areas (Tingalpa, Wakerley etc)

 

Thoughts on Wynnum west?

Could provide the convenience without the price tag?

 

Definitely one we looking at

 

Why not buy a house as an investment property in the best location and then keep renting. You will get to live in a better place than your budget allows and your IP house will look after your CG.

 

Excuse my ignorance, but how will the IP house look after my CG (capital growth)?

 

If you rent only then you get to live somewhere nicer than it would cost you if you owned the place BUT you don't own anything. So you could rent a nice new 3 bed unit in Manly village etc

Then buy the worst house in the best location you can afford (ie the land) as an investment property. Get the tax benefits of an investment property along with the capital growth that is more likely to come with owning well located property with a high land component.

 

It’s boom time for Brisbane’s bayside suburbs-Manly, Wynnum
No Cookies | The Weekly Times
“The landscape of Wynnum is changing dramatically, so if you can get a development site, then that becomes extremely valuable and people are jumping at those opportunities.”
Some land in Wynnum especially near the train station can be medium or high density land for a development later.
Also council has got an eight-cinema theatre plan, 65-residential units plus cafe and retail space at 82-90 Berrima St and 73-75 Bride St, Wynnum.

 

@robbie_p, good to see that you have made it over the border. You PM’d me about renting a townhouse in Manly West. Is that the one you ended up renting?

I know most people want to buy their PPOR and it is ideal if it meets all of their requirements and is in a good GC area.

But, as @RPI posted, there are times when rentvesting makes a lot of good (financial) sense.

Our situation is different to yours but we bought our future PPOR on the Gold Coast last year. We were concerned that the GC would go up so fast, that we would not be able to afford to buy such a property when we move down there in 3 to 5 years time. Our concerns and our strategy have already proven correct - only after 18 months, our future PPOR would be unaffordable for us if we were trying to buy it today.

High growth properties have lower yields. Our future PPOR is no exception. The property is NG but we get good depreciation allowances which are not cash out of our pockets and the tenant helps with the interest payments (our major cash expenses).

When we finally move down to the GC, we will rent for some time. There are a number of reasons for this which I won’t go into here. This rental property will cost us about half what our tenants are paying us. Thus we will become true rentvestors.

While we are doing this, we expect the growth on our future PPOR will way exceed the rent we are paying and the income shortfall on our rented future PPOR.

So, you could pay rent on a property that totally suits your family needs but buy and rent out another property with great CG potential (suggest house with large land content as close to the water that you can afford).

I trust this makes sense. I am happy for you to PM me if you want to discuss further.