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Canberra Today 13°/16° | Saturday, March 30, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

The region’s best suburbs to invest forecasted: report

SOME of Canberra’s suburbs and nearby surrounds are forecast to lead growth on a burgeoning property market around the country.

A new report suggests Franklin, Jerrabomberra and Coombs are among the leading locations to invest in bricks and mortar this year.

National real estate agency Upside released its annual state of the Australian property market report 2021 and found the market is enjoying a record high in buyer demand and also property values.

The findings that Canberra agent Catherine Halloran endorses may well surprise cynics considering the incomes of a number of householders had been slashed during the worldwide coronavirus pandemic last year.

But the three locations around the ACT were among the top 21 suburbs named in Australia ahead of 2021.

Canberra, overall, reached 7.0 per cent annual growth last year and was named the largest of all capital cities.

“The suburbs that have been targeted have been suburbs that traditionally performed well, but also have particular features that make them convenient,” Ms Halloran said.

“I think buyers are looking for convenience at the moment.”

That convenience appeals to buyers in different ways.

Franklin to the uninitiated to Canberra may look sparse and unconnected to the capital, but that has changed in recent years.

“Franklin (having) the light rail has made a really big difference,” Ms Halloran said.

“It’s really flat too, very convenient, a well-planned out suburb.”

Jerrabomberra was created as a master planned community that revived the perception of Queanbeyan.

But its now one of the few suburbs who, according to Ms Halloran, has benefited from the pandemic’s impact on lifestyle.

“Jerrabomberra with the covid changes and the arrangement of working from home and that sort of thing, people are starting to looking for properties that have more space, both internally and externally, because they’re at home a lot more than they have been in the past,” she said.

“And we are seeing Jerrabomberra being a really good value-for-money proposition now.

“They don’t have to be close proximity to work and they get a lot more bang for their buck.”

Coombs has reason to appeal in one of Canberra’s newest growth corridors.

The greatest appeal is that median houses prices are $575,000 and units are $485,000.

Franklin comparably is $812,950 for a house and $420,000 for a unit, while Jerrabomberra is $843,500 for houses to $467,000.

Coombs growth at 9.3 per cent with year-on-year increase in unit values compared to Franklin (0.5 per cent) and Jerrabomberra (1.9 per cent) sells the outer western suburb as a real buy.

“Coombs is probably the best value of them all in that valley area, with the Molonglo Valley being a developing district, which as a developing district has a growth streak around this time,” Ms Halloran said.

“That’s where we expect to see a suburb like Coombs on the list this year.”

While most Australian capitals appeal to inner-city lifestyles, Canberra’s best three suburbs have bucked the cultural trend.

But Ms Halloran felt that the leading outer suburbs are in line with a subtle change like the bush capital.

“I think Canberra, in particular, has a large public service population so being able to facilitate a larger work-from-home workforce is something we can more easily take in our stride than most other capital cities,” she said.

“But we’re definitely seeing that pull in other states too.”

Ms Halloran felt Canberra cast a perfect storm for sellers last year that will continue.

A low interest rate, little impact on the unemployment front and a “huge drop in stock” against an increase in high buyers’ demand has left the region’s property market unhurt.

“We’re still seeing, even through the stock levels are started to come back to where they normally would be, we have an over supply of buyers where they didn’t buy in the winter period where they normally would have – there just wasn’t enough stock to buy,” she said.

“While I don’t see 2021 peaking as hard as 2020 did, we certainly are not expecting the market to drop any time soon.

“It would more just start to flatten out a little bit. But I expect buyers do have some relief with more stock coming.”

 

 

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Andrew Mathieson

Andrew Mathieson

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