The Tasmanian city of Hobart has been highlighted as Australia’s most affordable capital city according to data from CoreLogic RP Data.
Research analyst Cameron Kusher said: “When talking about affordable prices for capital city housing, Hobart is the location of choice and the city where property prices are much lower than in mainland capitals.”
To highlight this Kusher’s analysis looked at the selling prices for the bottom decile of homes over the three months to January 2016. A decile simply divides a group into ten equal parts. What this means is if there were 20 sales over the three months lined up with the sales up from lowest to highest, the second price is taken as a representation of the most affordable segment of the market.
Over the three months to January 2016, the 10th percentile price of a house across the combined capital cities was AUD$ 315,000 and the 10th percentile unit price was AUD$ 255,000. Over the same period, the 10th percentile house price across the combined regional markets was AUD$ 175,000 compared to AUD$ 180,000 for units. This again highlights that housing tends to be much more affordable outside of the capital cities.
Hobart has the lowest 10th percentile house and unit prices of all capital cities at AUD$ 205,000 and AUD$ 167,000 respectively.
Darwin was the second most affordable for houses at AUD$ 229,000 while Adelaide is in second place for units with a price of AUD$ 222,000.
Kusher added: “At the other end of the spectrum, the 10th percentile house price is highest in Sydney and Darwin (both AUD$ 430,000) and the unit price is highest in Sydney at AUD$ 360,000.
“The more affordable nature of Hobart housing is evident when you look at the most affordable lists for each city, particularly for houses.
“The five most affordable suburbs for houses in Hobart are all more affordable than the most affordable suburbs in each other capital city. The data also highlights that housing costs in Sydney, Darwin and Canberra tend to be more expensive than the remaining capital cities.
While this latest affordable housing data shows myriad options are available in most capital cities however, Kusher said these tend to be located on the outskirts of the capital cities.
“Of course Hobart, Adelaide and Brisbane tend to have much more affordable housing options relative to the other capital cities. Meanwhile, regional markets often offer up even more affordable housing alternatives,” he said.