NSW Q: Orchard Hills and its proximity to employment/airport

Hi everyone.

I currently have an opportunity to make an offer on a 1.5acre lot in orchard hills with a pretty huge house on it. The woman selling has specified that she is looking for about 1.6m or more and she prefers to sell without an agent (the house is currently unlisted on the market).

I'm somewhat familiar with the building industry and the house (about 20 years old) + landscaping looks like it cost about 800k-1m in work by itself!

The block is in a region where I assume there will be little to no rezoning in the future, however I am interested in potential intrinsic value of the place as well as future capital gains due to proximity to the upcoming employment centre and badgery's creek airport.

Its at the far east side of Orchard hills, to the east of the big 5acre+ blocks (which look like excellent land banking opportunities).

I'd love to get some of your advice on how 1. this area in general and 2. a block that has little intrinsic sub division value can still make capital gains.

 

I know the area well and I would say a couple of things. First off, are you looking at this as investment of to live? If its a PPOR and its a place that you want to spend a long time then fair enough, go for it if you can get a good deal. If however its for an IP then stay the hell away from it. There are really just so many reasons why it would not be a good investment. It would yield really badly, it sounds like a lot of upkeep for a tenant and the house + landscaping would possibly not be maintained so well. There is really not a big market for these types of properties anymore. We are moving toward higher density living that is convenient and lower maintenance and as you say- there will probably not be any rezoning anytime soon. Besides all of that- 1.6mill could be so much better invested in a much more diversified portfolio across a few states which would be far less risky and to finish on my last point of LAND TAX. You will get slogged with land tax on an investment like this considering the land value of something like that.

 

Thanks Inov8ive, very useful insight there

Definitely gonna avoid it then, as it would have been an investment.

I suppose its a unique case of being not worth the buy, even though the price is attractive.

 

Glad to help. And yeah sometimes we all get tempted by good deals that are just bad investments