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The housing market is predicted to slow significantly in the year ahead as interest rates start rising sharply later in 2022, but there are plenty of opportunities for families looking for larger properties to cash in on the next wave of growth, industry experts say.
Buyer demand has fallen sharply since the peak earlier in the year, as affordability worsened, making the market less competitive for investors.
At the same time, listings have surged across the country’s biggest housing markets, offering more options for buyers, and in particular families—looking to upsize while having greater access to lifestyle attributes and amenities, looking to negotiate a good deal.
According to research from Well Money, family-friendly suburbs have surged in popularity throughout the pandemic with amenity-rich suburbs in Queensland topping buyers’ wish lists.
Well Money chief executive Scott Spencer said buying conditions were now easing off the back of rising rates, further macro prudential intervention, affordability constraints, a pick-up in new housing supply and an increase in property listings.
“During the past three months, inventory levels have increased in all the suburbs in our top 20, which means there’s more stock on market,” Spencer said.
“Buyers have more options and downward pressure is being placed on prices, which should translate into discounts sooner or later.
“While it’s nice for people’s homes to increase in value, we don’t want working families to be priced out of the market.”
Top ranking family housing markets
| Rank | State | Suburb | Median house price | Increase in inventory (3 months) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Qld | Barellan Point | $807,000 | +3.3 months |
| 2 | SA | Willunga | $607,500 | +3.3 months |
| 3 | Qld | Mons | $1,100,000 | +3.3 months |
| 4 | WA | Boya | $620,000 | +3.0 months |
| 5 | Qld | Nudgee | $855,000 | +2.8 months |
| 6 | Vic | Gisborne | $1,050,000 | +2.7 months |
| 7 | Vic | Junotoun | $750,000 | +2.6 months |
| 8 | Vic | Silvan | $1,395,000 | +2.5 months |
| 9 | Qld | Camp Mountain | $1,300,000 | +2.5 months |
| 10 | Qld | Newport | $1,350,000 | +2.4 months |
| 11 | Vic | Selby | $1,000,000 | +2.3 months |
| 12 | WA | Warwick | $630,000 | +2.3 months |
| 13 | SA | West Lakes Shore | $842,000 | +2.4 months |
| 14 | WA | Edgewater | $630,000 | +1.9 months |
| 15 | NSW | Bolwarra Heights | $940,000 | +1.9 months |
| 16 | Vic | Torquay | $1,330,000 | +1.9 months |
| 17 | ACT | Curtin | $1,421,000 | +1.8 months |
| 18 | Qld | Black Mountain | $950,000 | +1.8 months |
| 19 | NSW | Saratoga | $1,300,000 | +1.7 months |
| 20 | Vic | Viewbank | $1,270,000 | +1.7 months |
^Source: Well Money
More than half of the most family-friendly suburbs were in Queensland and Victoria.
Barellan Point, west of Brisbane in the City of Ipswich, topped the list with its inventory level increasing by 3.3 months—meaning that it would take that amount of time for all of the houses in the suburb to be absorbed assuming no other listings were added to the market.
Silvan, 40km east of Melbourne, alongside Curtin in south-west Canberra, were the most expensive suburbs to make the list with a median price of $1.39 million and $1.42 million respectively.
“All the suburbs in the top rankings are family-friendly, which means they contain a lot of families, they contain a lot of owner-occupiers, they’re relatively close to capital city CBDs and they’re above-average in terms of educational and occupational status,” Spencer said.
To gauge family-friendly housing markets, the report takes into account a number of factors and then ranks them based on change in inventory levels over the previous three months.
Family suburbs—having a median house price between $200,000 and $1.5 million, and a higher proportion of freestanding houses as well as a higher percentage of owner occupiers, with at least 2.5 people her household—have been in high demand in recent years as the pandemic pushed many buyers to “rightsize” as the market heated up.
Family suburbs are also those with a low crime rate, below-average unemployment and amenities, such as shopping, health facilities and schools, within a 5km radius while holding a socio-economic index for areas education score of at least six.
Having a score of at least six puts the suburb in the top half of the country for “educational and occupational status“, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
After this criteria was met, suburbs were ranked based on historical NAPLAN results for schools in the wider area.
“Families want to live in suburbs that have lots of other families to socialise with, a high share of owner-occupiers to provide stability, and good schools to educate their children,” Spencer said.
“They also want to buy into suburbs that are likely to enjoy reasonable capital growth over the long-term, even if it’s not necessarily market-beating growth.”
Prices in popular school zones in every capital have typically outpaced median price growth through double-digit growth over one and three years.
Properties in popular school zones in Sydney and Brisbane posted some of the biggest gains in the past year, boosted by demand from expat families returning to Australia and others moving interstate to areas less affected by the pandemic and lockdowns.
Spencer said the popularity of regional locations throughout the pandemic had also been reflected in many aspects of the popular family suburbs.
According to Corelogic, detached house values increased 24.6 per cent in the past year, outperforming the 14.2 per cent uplift in national unit values.
Similarly, the 25.2 per cent increase in regional dwelling values surpassed the performance of the combined capital cities 21.3 per cent as more buyers went in search of tree and sea change.
“This may in part be attributable to how Covid-19 continued to shape demand trends, with coastal or leafy settings being more desirable as some workers were empowered to work remotely,” Corelogic head of research Eliza Owen said.
“The constraints of slightly tighter credit conditions, the erosion of housing affordability and a higher level of listings being added to the market are expected to see softer growth rates across property values in 2022.
“These forces are an accumulation of headwinds for property market performance.”
“Softer growth rates are likely to coincide with fewer purchases, where sales and listings activity eventually move with momentum in price.”
