25 October 2012

Charnwood cheapest in most expensive capital city

| johnboy
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The ABC has the grim news that despite the best part of a decade of housing affordability plans Canberra remains the most expensive place in Australia to buy a home.

Charnwood, our cheapest, is four times the price of Australia’s cheapest suburb, Tasmania’s Queenstown:

Charnwood is Canberra’s cheapest suburb, coming in at 1,260.

Charnwood has a median house price of $381,579, more than four times more expensive than Australia’s most affordable suburb, Queenstown in Tasmania.

Ngunnawal ($417,925), Macgregor ($427,661), Holt ($429,121) and Higgins ($439,925) round out the ACT’s five cheapest suburbs, based on median house values.

But Craig Bright from the Real Estate Institute says the figures work off median house prices and do not present an accurate picture.

“Most suburbs in Canberra have a wide diversity of housing and that will of course, depending on what is selling, throw the median price out,” he said.

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But Craig Bright from the Real Estate Institute says the figures work off median house prices and do not present an accurate picture.

I’m wondering if this guy actually knows what a median is. I’m also willing to bet that the 50% of properties available for less than the median are clumped rather close to the median, while those above are spread out quite high in Canberra. The Mean is probably higher in Canberra for most suburbs. Will have to go look now to see if my suspicions are correct. I’;ve never heard anyone with vested interest in property ever tell the truth, worse than politicians.

We bought in CharnyHeights (as opposed to ‘down-the-hill and down-in-the-heel’ NearTheShopsCharny) a few months ago. At our end of the suburb, towards Fraser, it’s mostly privately built houses on elevated blocks. We bought a great place we couldn’t have afforded anywhere else. As a result of buying a reasonably priced house our mortgage repayments are less than renting and we are waaay less stressed than we would have been if we bought elsewhere. Most properties in Charnwood seem to back onto a cycle/walking path and we are really enjoying living in the area.

threepaws said :

arescarti42 said :

Sweet fancy Moses! Queenstown must be a total dump.

It looks like Mordor. Copper mining has stripped the town of vegetation and the footy field is gravel. Literally gravel. Not a single blade of grass.

Sounds like you know the way if you ever want to visit me…

Tetranitrate3:20 pm 25 Oct 12

RedDogInCan said :

On the flip side, Canberra is now a great place to sell a house and buy elsewhere. Sell your Charny rental and pick up 4 Queenstown rentals with a taxpayer subsidised annual holiday to boot!

arescarti42 said :

Sweet fancy Moses! Queenstown must be a total dump.

“The study by data analyst Tim Lawless has found the median house price in Queenstown is $90,732. That makes Queenstown the only town studied with a median house price of less than $100,000. Mr Lawless says it was a surprise considering many houses in the mining town have historical significance.”

Historical significance = major renovation headaches

They clearly didn’t study all that many towns.
Off the top of my head, Broken hill would have a median price of something similar, and does have employment if you’re in the right industry.
However there actual properties on the market are not a representative sample of the housing stock (mostly much newer).

On the flip side, Canberra is now a great place to sell a house and buy elsewhere. Sell your Charny rental and pick up 4 Queenstown rentals with a taxpayer subsidised annual holiday to boot!

arescarti42 said :

Sweet fancy Moses! Queenstown must be a total dump.

“The study by data analyst Tim Lawless has found the median house price in Queenstown is $90,732. That makes Queenstown the only town studied with a median house price of less than $100,000. Mr Lawless says it was a surprise considering many houses in the mining town have historical significance.”

Historical significance = major renovation headaches

arescarti42 said :

Sweet fancy Moses! Queenstown must be a total dump.

It looks like Mordor. Copper mining has stripped the town of vegetation and the footy field is gravel. Literally gravel. Not a single blade of grass.

shirty_bear said :

What city do they consider Queenstown to be a suburb of?

+1 That’s what I was thinking!

I’d like to know how they measure affordability. Surely a component of that measurement must be the availability of paid employment and the value of that employment, although as has been pointed out already, since this is such a stupid study, they probably haven’t factored in that aspect of affordability, and if they did, not only would Queenstown be less affordable, Canberra would be more affordable!

Chop71 said :

Pretty good shops and take away places. New emergency services depot. http://esa.act.gov.au/community-information/esa-new-stations/proposed-sites/charnwood/
and new buildings next to Maccas, (and no stabbings since 2008) the place is pumping

Ha, they should have a sign at the entrance to the suburb to that effect. Something like “Welcome to Charnwood – No Stabbings Since 2008”

In all honesty though, Charnwood isn’t any where near as bad as some people make it out to be.

Pretty good shops and take away places. New emergency services depot. http://esa.act.gov.au/community-information/esa-new-stations/proposed-sites/charnwood/
and new buildings next to Maccas, (and no stabbings since 2008) the place is pumping

arescarti42 said :

Sweet fancy Moses! Queenstown must be a total dump.

It makes pre-restoration Captain’s Flat look like Nob Hill.

eyeLikeCarrots10:46 am 25 Oct 12

Actually, Queenstown is off the charts as far as ‘quaint’ goes. The pub is a great place to have a fight on friday or saturday night and on sundays you can drive the family to Zeehan and sneer at people who are even more disadvantaged.

What city do they consider Queenstown to be a suburb of? Greater Queenstown? It’s not in the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from there.

Hope no-one had the temerity to claim a paypacket for drawing that comparison. They then go on to deride median price as an accurate comparison tool; any better suggestions?

On top of announcing that nothing’s changed, it’s all a bit silly.

Sweet fancy Moses! Queenstown must be a total dump.

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