$200K or less: Where you can buy a cheap house in NSW

Affordable housing in regional NSW is enticing people to leave the big city and move to the bush. Here’s how you can join the club:

There are towns in regional NSW where it’s still possible to buy a house for under $200,000 – an alluring prospect for city dwellers considering a move to the bush.

The cheapest towns were mostly spread across the New England and Orana regions in northwest NSW and in the state’s far west.

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They included towns Condoblin, Gilgandra, Warialda and Barraba, where median house prices were around the $175,000 mark.

This would mean weekly mortgage repayments would be about $250 on a typical interest rate, according to modelling of CoreLogic property data.

389 River Street, Hay NSW real estate

Prices were even lower in NSW’s cheapest town – the small settlement of Hay on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in the state’s southwest.

The median value for a house was about $148,000 – or about $162 per week to pay down on a mortgage at the average loan rate, currently 3.06 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Sydney’s median house price is nearly $1.4m.

CoreLogic head of research Eliza Owen said the lower prices in regional NSW would be enticing for some accustomed to excessive city prices.

6/89 Ziegler Avenue, Kooringal NSW Real estate - Kooringal was the cheapest NSW suburb for units.

“The beginning of 2022 may be marked by a surge in demand for regional lifestyle markets, similar to the surge which followed the 2020 lockdowns,” she said in a CoreLogic Best of the Best report.

Demand for cheaper real estate in NSW would be driven, not only by rising home ownership costs in Sydney, but a broad shift by some professionals who worked from home to seek a lifestyle change.

“The relatively affordable regional NSW … has seen quarterly growth rates accelerate to 6.6 per cent in the three months to November,” Ms Owen said.

10 Cross Street, Warialda NSW real estate

The cheapest location to pay down a mortgage for a unit was Kooringal in the Riverina region. The median unit price was $236,118 – requiring about $259 per week to service. The analysis assumed a 20 per cent deposit.

CoreLogic’s report suggested the estimated value of Australia’s residential real estate had gone from $7.2 trillion at the end of November 2020, to reach a record high of $9.4 trillion in just 12 months.

TOP 10 CHEAPEST SUBURBS IN NSW

#1: Hay (Murray) $148,499

#2: Warialda (New England) $171,330

#3: Gilgandra (Far West and Orana) $177,376

#4: Condobolin (Central West) $179, 984

#5: Barraba (New England and North West) $183,911

#6: Berrigan (Murray) $191,440

#7: Coonabarabran (Far West and Orana) $194,411

#8: Jerilderie (Murray) $195,182

#9: Lake Cargelligo (Central West) $199,968

#10: Bingara (New England and North West) $202,818

UNITS

1 Kooringal (Riverina) $236,118

2 Muswellbrook (Hunter Valley) $238,122

3 South Tamworth (New England and North West) $238,134

4 Corowa (Murray) $257,865

5 Armidale (New England and North West) $258,039

6 East Tamworth (New England and North West) $258,256

7 North Tamworth (New England and North West) $260,973

8 Lavington (Murray) $262,346

9 Scone (Hunter Valley) $262,497

10 Young (Capital Region) $263,756

Originally published as $200K or less: Where you can buy a cheap house in NSW