Two-speed market creates opportunities
IT HAS never been as good a time to buy Toowoomba real estate, with low interest rates and constrained price growth providing the ideal environment for both first-home buyers and investors.
But there is a catch. You need to have money. “I think the cheaper homes are really good buying, but they are hard to sell,” PRD Nationwide Toowoomba principal Kim Taylor said.
“People do not have much disposable income and people on lower wages do not have the money to save, but they should be buying.
“Their repayments are going to be cheaper than their rent.”
Mr Taylor forecast improving conditions for buyers as Christmas approached. He expects the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut the cash rate at least once and maybe twice more.
While lending conditions are tough after the fallout from the Financial Services Royal Commission and the wider Australian economy teetering on the edge of the recession, Mr Taylor said buyers should dive in and pick up a property.
“You never buy in a booming market, because you do your money,” he said.
The big movement was at the top end of the market.
Mr Taylor took a 13-block residential development at St Peters Close in Mt Lofty.
Nine blocks sold within a month. They were priced up to $800,000.
“People contacted us before the subdivision was complete, because there was a real shortage of East Toowoomba land,” he said.
“The better blocks sold before the cheaper blocks.
“The people who are buying them are more affluent, professional people who can get the money. A lot of them are in the medical industry. The banks look at them more favourably.
“There will be multi-million dollar properties up there.”