Sydney - Recommendations please

Hello ,

Would appreciate if we can be guided pls , thanks heaps

Me -

• we are a small family of three , both me and my partner are in our early 40s
• Looking to buy our first property , a house
• Currently Rent in lower north shore
• Preference to buy in North shore
• Plan to pay 20% as down payment
• Budget about 1.7- 1.8m
• Looking for a house about 40 mins from cbd , child will travel to Moore park for school , so another 15 mins from central
• Must be 10 mins walk from train station
• Looking to stay for 5-7 years

Thought 1
The market seems to be insanely high , there is not enough stock within the budget , hold on for a while and keep renting for another 6-8 months and gauge - why rush

Thought 2
Narrow down on a suburb which meets criteria’s and move - the sooner the better

Thought3
Move to the suburb where we would like to buy , or closer ; buy an appartment stay there for a 8-12 months , then convert to an ip, this buys time and also an advantage of first home buyers grant plus save on rent so about 50k of saving ( given we pay about 25k a year)

risk - may not be an ideal one to rent out, given its price and may need some renovations , but could be affordable
Not sure of any tax implications
Somehow feel 50k is a big help

Regards

 

Move out west.

Not having a go at you but within the last week I've had more than 5 couples/groups complaining they cannot afford the north shore for their first house. Seriously? They are making $200k+ combined and have a sizeable deposit yet. Just seems to me many just have the sense of entitlement.

Why do ppl think they need to live there and buy there for the first house? Why cant you move to the inner west or even greater west as a first home?

Here is another story today. These guys must be joking/kidding themselves.
‘Scary’: $1.5m loan but can’t find home

 

A few things you can do.
Grab a map, and draw a circle showing the radius you would like to be within.
Then, open Domain and/or RE.com.au and start searching for what you can afford. You will soon be able to cross out suburbs that are out of your reach.

 

@NewBuyer - Have you thought about this one? Linky

Needs a little work, price guide was $1.3

 

That's a long way for the child to travel each way for school - 55 mins. I know people in Sydney think this is OK - I'm from Perth so I just don't get it. Wouldn't it make sense to be south of the CBD? Makes no sense to be in the north shore - another Sydney obsession I don't get.

 

I completely agree with you. I remember reading that article and was disappointed that the article was written. I know of and have met people brought up on the north shore and instead of buying in western Sydney or somewhere they could afford, they continued to rent on the north shore only to have no property ownership after a couple of decades of renting and are still renting.

 

If your timeframe is only 5-7 years, I'd rent somewhere in Randwick, Kensington or Kingsford (for your son's sake....is it SBHS?) and buy your future forever home as an IP and rent that out in meantime.

 

Thanks for your reply , yes we did , we can afford some townhouses/ villas in the upper north shore ( thorneligh/ Turramurra etc ) and a few options in Hornsby ; given that there are express trains from Hornsby to central , this was one option for a future home / suburb of interest for both - buy a smaller appartment , use first home buyer and then convert into ip , this would also help us gauge how feasible would it be to travel for 2 hrs a day , yet saving on rent

The other option was beecroft and Cheltenham - options close to station , there are a few listed currently ; but none that would give the value for money

 

Thank you for the reply

apologies we have been in Australia for 6 years and have lived in the north shore and are a little familiar with the west , south may not be an option for now

 

thank you for the reply

So probably going by thought 2 is it - where in west would you suggest pls , have explored parramatta/ Weatmead/ wenty / Blacktown and may not be places that we would like to settle in

 

Thank you for the reply , yes it is the school , given our ages personally renting in the neighbourhood for that long , was not an ideal option , additionally the rents for a decent sized house seemed to be a way too much , and since we have been living in an appartment for the past 6 years we wanted to have some more living space - given it will be 6 years of high school

 

Thank you for the reply , little difficult without garages though , we need two of them ; given crows nest has narrow streets , will surely look into it

 

There's no better time than right now to negotiate a decent price and long term lease for a 3 bed plus townhouse or similar in that particular area, and its ultra convenient. I know you'd rather buy, but that will come at a cost and more than just financial.

 

This looks very similiar to a number of posts on another forum ;-)

I think you might be having a bit of "analysis paralysis" and regardless of suggestions, what is your current personal preference from the above currently? (only you can make this decision)

P.S. if you go with option 3 this might also limit your borrowing ability for a larger PPOR down the track if you decide to do that as well. (just to confuse the issue some more)

 

thank you for the reply

Ah , The dilemma personally , a lot at stake

 

Look at Hornsby, Hornsby Heights, Mount Colah.. that’s arguably north shore and you may be able to get a house within walking distance to a train station.

Your original criterion is missing a 10 year time travel and you will have to compromise on a few things or bring the budget up by another million.

 

Thank you for the reply , yes Hornsby is certainly an option , given the express trains to central , may not be beyond

 

wondering why is it that no one thinks this could be a viable option , is it just that it impacts the borrowing capacity

 

I did that around 12 years ago .. bought an older apartment in a location we didn’t want to move away from and stayed there for a year to take advantage of first home buyer grants, then rented around that area to have a bit of space for growing family. At that point my end goal was to buy a townhouse of my own but wondered how would I afford the repayments (it was 5-6% interest rate era and I didn’t know anything about IO loans). To cut a long story short, we sold that apartment at around double the price (good timing) and put the money into our PPOR #2 .. we are currently at PPOR # 3 and multiple IPs, each more expensive than townhouses I thought I couldn’t afford.

Timing matters, our incomes grew, interest rates dropped, houses prices kept going up ..a perfect storm but no reason to believe it won’t happen again.

Just don’t put all your eggs in PPOR #1 and trust the markets and the process .. it’s like a clockwork always, you just need to be appropriately leveraged!

 

We lived on the Lower North Shore (3 bed apartment) for years and when it came time to buy a house we considered various areas of Sydney and ended up in the Sutherland Shire. I swore I'd never live here (!!) but we looked a little further north from where we were at the time and there was about a $500k difference, which has now grown even further. We could have done it, but didn't want to spend that much so ended up here. It's a great lifestyle and now I do the majority of our buying around here.

For $1.7-1.8m youll get a great house down this way within walking distance to a train line and tick all the boxes you're looking for, except the preference to live on the LNS.

I wouldn't be waiting though. I'm buying in this market every day and with rates the way they are and the place we're at, I think we're going to see a surge in demand without the listings to match once we come out of lockdown.

All the best.

- Andrew