NSW Orange, NSW

You obviously never been there....

Streets can go from one side of town to the other, or span the whole town !

 

I was wondering what the hell....

I forget Orange is a fruit name, but hell, Orange is the Apple city...apples and stone type fruit and berries are the fruits, not Oranges...forget Bananas....you would go bananas trying.

 

Rent affordability is the worst for six years hitting single people hardest

 

Our latest Dual Occ nearing completion on Miriam Drive, Orange - @ 600 metres from Charles Sturt University

3 Dual Occ packages about to be released....

 

Hi, I just recently started to get into property investments and was looking at Orange, as I live in sydney and the prices are just too high for me atm now ( im only 21 y/o) so i was hoping to purchase a price in Orange. I have researched and had sought that there is some good positive cash flow properties over there but i just want clarification that Orange is a good investment.

 

You need to work out what a good investment is in your opinion, otherwise you're basing a very important decision indeed on the opinions of others. No one has a crystal ball, you need to able to work out whether or not a purchase stacks up for you. People on this forum are from the full range of experience level, financial profile and risk tolerance. What one person sees as a great investment others will literally see as rubbish because it's outside their strategy/comfort zone etc.

I don't know anything about Orange but stamp duty would put me off buying there unless I could see that the rent covered all regular property costs and/or I knew I could make a worthwhile profit from subdivision or Reno etc.

 

Stamp Duty on my dual occ house and land deals in Orange will set you back less than 5K, as the land component is under 200K.

Rents are achieving $680 per week on my Dual Occ's, and they are being tenanted within days of handover. May not stay that way forever, but with vacancy rates falling to @ 1.2-1.3% the chances are that rents will maintain that performance or improve further. Right now that's $35,360 per annum of rental income on a sub 600K purchase. 600K ( allowing for the stamp duty) at 4.2% IO is 25.2K per annum in total repayments . Running costs are an additional @ 6K per annum... so you are looking at total running costs of @ 31.2K against total rental income of 35.3K , meaning you are running at @ 4K positive before tax. Depreciation is massive as you are getting 2 dwellings, so you are looking at an additional 3,4,5,6 K of ATO refunds ( depending on your MTR) for a total CF+ result of 7-10K ( depending on your MTR ) Or you could run it P&I from Day 1 and be neutral for the first few years, graduating to several K CF+ as the debt starts being retired and rents increase .... Either way, you aren't going to be topping up the mortgage repayments to the tune of thousands per year with one of my Dual Occ's. P&I is easily handled.

But whether Orange is for you @Christopher Majeed is something only you can decide. All I'm saying is - look at those numbers. Look at all the high paying medical, mining , university and Govt jobs headed there over the next 2-3 years. Look at the low vacancy rates. Look at the fact Orange has been the most consistent property market in the land for 20+ years - Is this location Australia’s most consistent property market? - Propertyology. Look at the unemployment rate of 3.8% . Look at the acute shortage of registered land available for the several hundred people moving there each year. What does that add up to? A good place to consider parking your money, with strong prospects of further rental increases and price growth.... or a bad place to consider parking your money, with prices sliding? That's really a call only you can make ....

 

Hi Christopher (and guys)
I saw you asked for any info about investing in orange . Good on you for looking further out . I have found orange is a great spot to invest . I like the properties that are way under the median price though(eg $150-$270k) to help protect yourself with any unforeseen circumstances. (Eg; interest rate increases , oversupply -as there is plenty of land in orange,vacancies - high costs on tenant changeover,bad management,etc ).
You can then do small Reno’s on them and still have equity in them being the properties owe you in costs under what you could re sell them for . The area gets good rents too . Be careful paying big $$ though as in any area over the median price but especially here as remember you are in the middle of great big vacant parcels of land surrounding orange .

 

Hi Chris, I am just beginner but I can see price variation in Orange 250k to 1 mil. Not sure why so much difference. Is it because some areas are really bad?

 

Orange prices are up and vacancies are low so good times for investors who are already in. I love Orange.
Always in regionals you have to keep your feet on the ground as there is serious flux and flow with prices, vacancies and rental income. Only a few years ago, there was very little happening in Orange property-wise, though there'd been a boom a few years prior to that. Good times come and go.

Also, as I've said before, although I recommend looking at cheaper properties, there are some areas that are just not appealing to the kind of tenants you ideally want to attract.
For me, I want a tenant who will stay in the property and look after it and, obviously, pay the rent regularly. They can be on benefits, that's fine. But they will be the type looking for an affordable better life. You really need to look around and ask on the ground yourself. It all looks beautiful but you can't tell a book from its cover. Orange has some bad ass parts for sure. You need to go in with your eyes open. Having said that, I wouldn't go upmarket unless it was for a beautiful old federation, and only then if I had the cash to throw around.
There were some ex-houso going very cheap a few years ago. All well and good, you can do well. But there would be inevitable difficulties too. Orange is trying to change that, hence the sales. There is some gentrification but it's not overwhelming. Better to find an area you're comfortable with.
There are immigrants in the area and that's a market I'd be aiming for investment-wise. Up around the station is a fairly middle of the road area but watch your step.

 

People often believe that because regionals have massive parcels of "land" around them, there is a lot of land available to build on. There is not. Orange council, just like Bathurst and Dubbo and others, have fallen way behind with services. Water, sewage, etc... this has resulted in a serious shortage of land available to actually build on. This is why land prices have surged in these larger regionals , and its also why vacancy rates have plunged, and it's also why prices continue to rise. There is a steady influx of higher paying jobs migrating to Orange over the next few years. They are almost all public service, medical and mining jobs , so they are well paid jobs. This means that over the next few years, there will likely be hundreds of new families moving there - so expect rents to continue to grow, vacancy rates to continue to fall, and land prices to climb further.

 

regionalpropertynsw.com

 

Check out ABC iView Escape from the City for an insight into Orange. Beware that there will be a very positive spin on the regional towns portrayed in this series.

 

Rental prices up six per cent with houses and units in short supply

Some good news on the rental front. Unfortunately I copped some more bad luck with my tenants deciding to move out the week before Christmas again making it 2 years in a row Activity picks up a lot mid Jan but ended up with 5 weeks vacant and now just signed a new tenant but another 2 weeks till they move in. Fingers crossed they stick around

 

I have said it over and over - larger regionals ( such as Orange - but there are a small handful of others as well such as Bathurst, Bendigo, Ballarat , Mildura and Wagga) with schools, medical and diverse economies are THE investment opportunity for the next decade.

1. There is a clear tree change effect underway. Sea changes used to be the big deal - and they still hold appeal to many retirees, but the reality is that sea change locations are pricey nowadays and not everyone can afford them. This is driviong an increase in tree change locations

2. Young families are leaving big cities for large regionals with good jobs and good schools - because they cant afford SYD or MEL or dont want to drive 90 minutes each way each day just to barely afford it.

These first two trends arent going to slow down. They are going to accelerate .

Look at the rental vacancy rates falling. Look at the rents increasing. Do the math.

And remember - the herd hasnt figured it out yet. They are still obsessed with metro/city deals and growth. They still havent realised that game is already redundant. So before they do figure it out - and they will at some stage- there's still good buying to be had before the herd picks up the scent. These locations are still quite affordable. They wont stay that way forever.

#Orangeisthenewblack

 

Quest apartments are well under construction.....

I hope Orange does not get too busy !

 

I think people see empty land, some with animals or nothing much & they assume you can just go off and buy it and start building 5, 10 100 or whatever houses.

This just shows some people have not put much thought into this or property, why they think country regionals would have no zoning or rules & regs to follow is quite amusing, and then it also reveals the lack of understanding of developing property if zoning does change or meet req, and planning and approval and cost of works, not to mention the whole area and surrounds are not a pile of cheap unwanted dirt, it is expensive for empty land even if not exactly grazing or other farming land as well, that part I do not like, but you can't have it all ways.

On top of that, people have obviously not watched and followed build costs, it is not Melbs where you could build a decent house for 160 a few yrs ago, 160 will only cover a granny flat in Orange....

So educate yourselves on all aspects & remember, it is not Sydney..

FWIW I think it is becoming too expensive

 

Had a squizz at this......

I think the only spin is the way it is done like a property show, was not much spin on Orange, and also some glaring mistakes, like place one only 15 mins drive from the CBD....lol....that is like another town.

I see a lot of places I know, and not really shown well, some fantastic places they went where it is only a glimpse on the box, while busy focusing about his expertise and what the couple wanted as per other property shows.

Then they had an odd perspective of the areas.

 

With all this orange spruking going on in this thread and may be Orange IS creeping up 5-10% yoy but does it offer jobs that pay that kind of mortgages? Can those salaries sustain that kind of price growth? Isn't the whole point of going regional a cheap property?

 

There is plenty of good housing in the 3-400k region in good spots.

The dollar is the same AUD, and if you look into costs to build etc, you will find it costs more for the same labour jobs in Orange than Syd, because it is not flooded with migrants who will work cheap or have no actual trade etc, and if your low end, you earn the same in wollies in Syd as Orange, so if housing is cheaper, then you have your answer.

It has also been said many times, it is not a one horse town.

If the property prices go mad, which I doubt, then yeas, it would be not as appealing, we will see, but I think they have had a good run and it will taper off, but have to keep in mind it has not been the Sydney kind of madness, it has been a nice orderly increase in CG over a few years, the median is only up 50k over that 2 year period.