Buyers need $200k pay to nab home

IF your household income is less than $200,000 a year, you are now priced out of 17 Gold Coast suburbs when it comes to buying a house.

Comparison juggernaut Finder has crunched the median house and unit prices and revealed the massive incomes needed to buy into some of the city’s hottest suburbs.

Mermaid Beach is king of the Coast with an annual aftertax household income of $342,728 needed to get into the suburb.

With a house median of $2.4m, the suburb is the third most expensive in the state behind Brisbane’s Teneriffe and the Sunshine Coast’s Sunshine Beach.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the average Mermaid Beach homeowner would be earning that type of money,” said Luke Henderson, director of John Henderson Professionals Mermaid Beach.

“The suburb is made up of developers, business owners, people in the medical and film industries, and there are a number of lawyers.”

In Surfers Paradise, you would need an income of $280,605 based on the $1,964,987 property price median and in Broadbeach Waters you would need $249,976 based on a $1,750,497 median.

Bundall ($247,713) and Tallebudgera Valley ($245,701) rounded out the top five.

Across the city, 34 suburbs had house medians of more than $1m while Mermaid Beach is the only suburb to hit $2m.

Buyers’ agent Oliver Dunstan, who is the director of Rose & Jones, said the Gold Coast’s changing landscape meant there were more employment opportunities.

“A lot of the price growth on the Gold Coast is off the back of people who do have higher incomes,” Mr Dunstan said.

“It comes down to the growth of the Gold Coast economy, the potential jobs here and potential earnings.

“The Gold Coast is maturing and there are more jobs and incomes than simply tourism.”

Sarah Megginson, the senior editor of money at Finder, said the economic environment had prompted many people to buy beyond their means.

“Interest rates are at an alltime low, but they’ll need to rise at some point, and unfortunately this means some Aussies are at risk of defaulting on their home loans,” she said.

“Ideally, you don’t want to spend more than 30 per cent of your salary on home loan repayments, but it’s good to give yourself a buffer.”

On the other end of the scale, the most affordable suburb on the Gold Coast for houses was Pimpama. It had a median of $652,342 meaning you would need to earn $93,156 before tax to buy into the booming northern suburb.

Springbrook ($93,568) and Coomera ($98,301) were the next most affordable followed by Nerang ($99,288) and Ormeau Hills ($102,909).

For units, the biggest pay packet needed was in Hollywell where you will need to be earning $161,806 before tax to get into the suburb.

Oxenford was the most affordable – an annual income of $57,218 before tax will get you a unit.

The data was based on homeowners using 30 per cent of their household income towards their mortgage and having a 20 per cent deposit.