Mining for property gold
One of the most asked questions to our property coaches is, “Can you recommend any suburbs to buy in?”.
And the answer is firm: “you MUST do all the due diligence to find those suburbs yourself.”
This is simply because there are so many variables that are unique to each buyer, such as where they live, their budget, existing property, equity, personal family and business circumstances, lifestyle considerations, whether they are looking at apartments or houses, superannuation fund considerations, tax and much much more!
The good news is, there is plenty of market information out there these days to help you narrow down potential property hot spots.
What I always stress is that it’s crucial to draw your data from a variety of sources, so you get a complete picture of a city or region, and can you can drill down further to find your target suburbs.
Hobart IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Let’s take a look a look at Hobart, for example, and why it’s on the radar for a lot of property buyers.
According to the latest ABS statistics, Tasmania’s economy is one of the best performing in Australia. The ABS found national gross domestic product increased by 2.4 percent annually and 0.4 percent during the quarter, in seasonally adjusted terms.
There’s political stability in Tasmania, at least for the moment, with the re-election of the Liberal State government on March 3 for another term.
Tasmania is now top-ranked on relative population growth, according to the latest CommSec report, a quarterly scorecard that compares the performance of all States and Territories across many key economic indicators. It found Tasmania’s population growth is the strongest in 6.5 years and that the state has one of the country’s best performing economies. In the latest survey, it lifted from fifth to the fourth spot, behind NSW, Victoria and the ACT.
Finally, the state is in the midst of a housing boom. A recent CoreLogic report found Hobart was the strongest housing market in the country for the month, quarter and year. It was up 3.2% for the quarter and 13.1% annually – head and shoulders above the competition, and at a time when a lot of the other capital city markets are softening. Its affordability, compared to other capital cities, is a key driver for growth. According to CoreLogic, the median house price in Hobart stands at $432,035 (up from $306,858 in 2013) — compared to a whopping $1,048,371 for Sydney (up from $597,762 five years ago) and $832,972 in Melbourne.
And in a separate CoreLogic report earlier this month that ranked the fastest selling capital city suburbs, Hobart recorded the suburb (Mornington) with the shortest days on the market for house sales in the country. In fact, the five suburbs with the shortest days on the market for houses in Hobart have a shorter market time than the fastest selling suburbs in the other capitals.
Pull together the big picture
All the above is public information and freely available with a bit of Googling. It certainly won’t tell you which suburbs to target or guarantee that Hobart is a terrific market to buy in. The important point I’m making is that you can do so much important market research just by jumping online and spending a few hours focusing on areas you’re interested in.
I devote a whole module of my Cosmetic Renovations for Profit course to Suburb Due Diligence, which takes students through the rigorous research required to zero in on those key suburbs or regions to buy in. I won’t ever tell you where to buy, but I certainly make sure you have all the tools, calculators and intell you need to find those gems for yourself.
