NSW PPOR: Northwest Metro | Upper North Shore | South Line

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all of the insights on the forum, it's a wealth of knowledge for someone less experienced than I am as I have only started researching seriously over the past few weeks and I'm sure my fundamental understanding of property is limited.

I'm hoping you can help me learn more so I can make a more informed decision for my next property. Would be grateful for your insights! Thank you.

My current situation is:

• Hold - Commercial IP with decent yield that I'll most likely hold for a while.
• Sell - PPOR (apartment in Chatswood) that I'm planning to sell or rent out for a bit longer and sell towards end of the 6 month dual main residence exemption.
• Buy - PPOR ($1.3m to $1.5m) in family area, newish house (you know, like I want to enjoy being home), <10mins from station, reasonable proximity to the CBD for work after metro is finished (eg I'm calculating Norwest to Chatswood as 38mins and that's about my limit on travel time)

Our (wife and I) long term goal is to buy a PPOR to raise a family (family PPOR) that we would be happy to live in for 20-30 years, with investment property to supplement our retirement and help the kids. With this in mind, we are considering to either:
i. Family PPOR with rezoned profits: (a) Buy a PPOR in a rezoning area (b) Sell to developer in <5 years (c) Buy the above family PPOR - the higher risk, higher return play

eg. South Line: We saw an R4 zoned house in Kogarah about six months ago and wanted to buy. Finances were not organised yet. House has now been sold to developer. Considering places with R4 rezoning potential in future (Rockdale, Kogarah, Arncliffe, Banksia, Hurstville)

ii. Family PPOR now and then IP: (a) Buy family PPOR now (b) buy IP - the safe bet

eg. Northwest Metro (Norwest, Bella Vista, Epping, Castle Hill) & Upper North Shore (Warrawee, Waitara): We have seen a few houses we quite like in Norwest and would be happy to live in. When we sell Chatswood, we would then look to reinvest into a new IP.

So the key questions that we are having challenges answering are this. Thanks in advance for your insights and taking the time out to share!

Norwest - long term lifestyle choice

1. There seems to be an oversupply of apartments coming in and limited supply of houses and townhouses close to metro station. How will the oversupply of apartments impact property value?

2. What are the changes that the population growth (business/job driven) does not come through Norwest as predicted?

3. What are the chances of a high school being built here (there was a vertical high school proposed that was denied)?

4. Will the extended travel time to work be worth it?

Warrawee - safe capital growth

5. What will the lifestyle be like? We quite enjoy Chatswood being a mini city and everything being so accessible and right at the door.

6. Would it be worthwhile in the future, building a granny flat and therefore looking for something suitable?

Rockdale - temporary PPOR

7. Will it be noisy with the airport being close by?

8. If after 5 years we don't sell it to a developer, what will the capital growth be like?

9. Or would we be happy to keep living here for 20 years maybe?

10. Is it worthwhile looking for the properties that have a separate area / granny flat that can be rented out to help with income?
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