How close can you get to the CBD with $500,000?

While a $500,000 budget will put you a short walk from Hobart’s CBD, home buyers in Sydney face a marathon.

View of Sydney from the top of Tower 2 in Barangaroo. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Home buyers with a budget of $500,000 or less can get within 40-kilometres of Sydney’s CBD, 16km from Melbourne’s heart, or 3km from Hobart’s centre.

Research undertaken by CoreLogic examined the five suburbs with a median house value of under $500,000, that were closest to the CBD in each Australian capital.

Bar Point on the New South Wales’ Central Coast was the closest place to Sydney to fit the bill, with a median house value of $379,776.

The only other under-$500,000 location within 50km of Sydney’s CBD was Spencer, where $391,163 was the median house value.

CoreLogic property analyst Cameron Kusher said even with prices on the decline in Sydney, it was unlikely any more suburbs would dip under half a million.

“Values are falling but even a block of land costs $450,000 in brand new housing estates,” said Mr Kusher.

“It’s hard to see how you could put a house on that and keep the total price under $500,000.”

In the case of Melbourne, the cheapest suburb closest to the CBD at 16km out was Dallas at $447,221; and Brisbane’s best option close to the city was Rocklea with a median house value of $419,922.

The southside suburb was the only one inside 10km for under half a million, with the next best bet Hemmant, on $499,780.

“Most capital cities have seen a significant decline in suburbs with a median value below $500,000 over recent years, meaning that to access more affordable housing, buyers have to move further away from the city centre,” Mr Kusher said.

Hobart offered the cheapest “inner city” property with a median house value of $438,110 at Montagu Bay 3km from the CBD, followed by Hindmarsh in Adelaide where the median house value was $436,500.

In Canberra only one suburb had a median house value of under $500,000.

Charnwood, just over 12km from Canberra’s city centre, was valued at $452,226.

The next best value was Belconnen, 6.1 kilometres from the CBD with a median house value of $506,961.

Perth’s best value suburb was Glendalough, 5km from the CBD, with a median house value of $422,718, and Darwin’s was Millner, 8.1km from the city centre, where the median house value was $489,351.

Mr Kusher said the data highlighted that Hobart was a “really affordable good location” and in Perth, prices remained virtually unchanged from ten years ago.

Meanwhile, a third quarter update by affordable housing developer VillaWorld said it was well on track to exceed its sales target of 1400 lots for the 2017-18 financial year.

The company was now averaging 141-sales a month, with estates in the outer suburbs of Melbourne and Brisbane delivering the best results.

But the update did observe that due to recent events in the banking industry, “purchasers across all buyers segments were taking longer to gain unconditional finance”.