By Denise Deason
THE great Australian dream of owning your own home is still alive and well in Werribee, according to a leading local real estate agent.
Bob Westwood, managing director of Westwood First National Real Estate, Werribee, says young couples can still buy a good three-bedroom home in the area for $175,000 to $200,000.
His comments follow a horror week for homeowners and buyers in Melbourne, with the Reserve Bank of Australia raising interest rates by one-quarter of a percent to 6.5 per cent -the highest rate in 10 years.
This will add about $50 a month to repayments on the average $250,000 mortgage.
The rise comes on top of a report by the Urban Development Institute of Australia showing housing prices have almost doubled on average in the past six years.
The explosion in house values has virtually locked out most young people wanting to purchase their first property in inner and middle-suburban Melbourne.
The UDIA report found only nine per cent of inner-Melbourne homes remained affordable last year, relative to household incomes.
The average borrowing capacity of an inner-suburban family was almost $400,000, but the median house was $640,000.
Families in the middle suburbs, such as Ringwood, Dandenong and Frankston, could afford to borrow $300,000 on average, but the median price in those suburbs was $377,000.
UDIA state executive director Tony De Domenico said the report showed housing affordability had reached a crisis level in Melbourne’s inner suburbs and warned it could also reach this point in the middle suburbs within five years.
The Real Estate Institute of Victoria said high demand, stimulated by an increase in population, had pushed the Melbourne median house price to a new high of $420,000, up 10.2 percent in the past three months.
However, the story is different in Werribee, where the median house price is at the reasonable level of $250,000, still within reach of a young couple or family, said Mr Westwood.
“The reason prices haven’t escalated in Werribee – and this also applies to Hoppers Crossing and Wyndham Vale – is that there’s still new land being opened up for housing estates,” he said.
“This keeps prices at a reasonable level.
“For instance, you can still buy a block of land in the area for about $100,000.
“Compare this to a suburb like Yarraville, not that far away, where all the available land has been taken up – and this pushes prices up.”
Mr Westwood, however, issues a warning.
“It’s not going to stay like this in the Werribee area,” he said.
“I would like to say to young people: ‘Don’t leave it too late. Buy a property now.’
“This area will run out of land, too, and prices will escalate.”
Werribee, and the greater Wyndham area, was a rapidly growing municipality that was about half-an-hour by car from the city of Melbourne and followed the western coastline of Port Phillip Bay – both appealing features.
“There is very good infrastructure in roads and trains, and the schools are good,” Mr Westwood said. “Young couples and first home buyers are what we want in our community – we have the facilities they need.”
