Go west or south for a better deal buying a property

HOMEBUYERS looking south and west of the CBD may find it easier to get a good deal on a purchase, despite the cutthroat nature of the market.

REIQ generic house sale

HOMEBUYERS looking south and west of the Sydney CBD may find it easier to get a good deal on a property purchase, despite the cutthroat nature of the real estate market.

Core Logic RP Data figures show vendors in a handful of Sydney’s middle and outer ring suburbs have taken longer to sell their homes, increasing the likelihood of buyers being able to negotiate discounts off the listed price.

Sydney as a whole remains an extreme sellers’ market where the average property has sold in less than 50 days but some vendors have had their homes on the market for more than three months without selling.

Such incidents are concentrated in suburbs that are close to Fairfield, such as Regents Park and Carramar.

Properties in each suburb took more than 100 days to sell over the past 12 months — more than double the city average — and buyers took advantage of anxious sellers by negotiating discounts that tended to range between 10 and 15 per cent off the original listed price.

Buyers in Sydney at large tended to get an average discount of only 4 per cent over the same period.

Other areas where slow sales helped buyers nab similar discounts included southern suburbs Bexley North, Sans Souci, Yowie Bay and Burraneer, as well as Kemp Creek, near Penrith.

Selling agent Stewart Maloney of Century 21 said houses in the Sutherland region may have been taking longer to sell because increasing prices had made buyers cautious.

“Some properties have teetered back a little — the benefit is that your money tends to go a lot further down here,” he said.

First homebuyers who have seized the chance to get more bang for their buck include Michael Etheridge and Bethany Gerrie, who recently purchased a home in Bluestone Property Solutions development Woolooware Bay, near Cronulla.

“We had looked around at other areas but we quickly realised there was a lot more choice in the Shire,” Mr Etheridge said.

The development they bought into includes a rooftop cinema, lagoon style pool, waterfront cafe and ‘men’s shed’ and Mr Etheridge, who hosts the Mikey and Emma Show on 96.1 the Edge, said they wouldn’t have found this kind of value close to the CBD.

PRD Nationwide researcher Harrison Hall said that rampant price increases had weakened the position of sellers in areas that were not as well connected to transport infrastructure or remained more expensive than neighbouring areas.

“More than 65,000 new dwellings have been approved in NSW over the past 12 months and this is going to affect the supply and demand ratio in some areas more than others,” he said.

Originally published as Go west or south for a better deal buying a property