Saturday, October 22, 2011

Ownership pushed to the suburbs?

I often fail to see past the obvious notion that our nation's journalists are a bunch of idiotic, moronic, 'non-life experienced' idiots. I mean for instance, read this article

While the statistics about how far people travel for work are indeed very interesting, the wording is just all wrong:

"Young people are most at risk as housing affordability worsens and first-home buyers are increasingly pushed to outer suburbs."

Does this writer suggest first home buyers should be buying the premium properties in the exclusive suburbs AS THEIR FIRST HOME? Get a grip please, a grip on the reality that the typical first home owner SHOULD NEVER buy ANYWHERE NEAR the CBD. No wonder we have our 20 and 30-somethings complaining about 'affordability'. 

In Brisbane, where should a typical first home owner, in 2011, buy their home? It isn't going to be any of the 'leafy' burbs, not the Indooroopily corridor, definitely not the CBD, not St Lucia, not Kangaroo Point, none of these places are for FHOBs. 

Young people need to get a grip on reality and realise that home ownership is rarely about living where you want to, but rather a compromise between four main factors: distance to work, the suburb 'age', the size of the property and the entry cost. 

1. Distance to work: As in the article, the closer the better, but this needs to be balance with other factors. 
2. Some suburbs, like those popping up near Ipswich at present, are new suburbs with new homes. These come at a premium. Some more established suburbs, say, Oxley, have generally older homes, but are a tad closer to the city. 
3. The size of the property is always a factor, and as the typical back yard becomes smaller and smaller (read 250 square), a premium is paid for the 'larger' lots.
4. Entry cost is probably the most important factor for FHOBs. The market dictates the overall value of a property, considering ALL factors related to the 'livability' of a property, and this is continually forgotten by many many people. Entry cost dictates basically where you will live, but FHOBs can not enter the market with a $700,000 inner ring home. The article talks about stress etc., imagine what it would be like when you need to make the repayments on something like that, AS YOUR FIRST HOME. 

Ciao.

1 comment:

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