Looking for Flat

Sydney CBD and Chatswood topped the list for new-dwelling sales in the last quarter of 2007.

“Ready-to-build-on land sales are barely registering a pulse in Sydney. The fact is that first home buyers don’t want to live in the infrastructure black hole that is the outer suburbs,” says Australian Property Monitors general manager Michael McNamara.

“Developers can’t sell the land they have already got, let alone bring new flats on stream out there.”

New house and land packages at Kellyville Ridge are the exception.

“With blocks of land costing around $280,000 and an average new house costing $200,000, that means a first home buyer needs $500,000 to live way out west,” McNamara says. “With interest rates at 9per cent, it’s a lot of dough.”

BIS Shrapnel’s senior economist Jason Anderson says the hotspots for new apartment building in Sydney are occurring around Parramatta in the Merrylands and Holroyd areas.

“You can say all you like about everyone wanting inner-city living, but it’s those areas around Parramatta and at the end of the Pacific Highway in places like Wahroonga that are undergoing the most development,” he says.

“Middle ring and outer ring areas have a healthy level of construction right now – there has been a decline in CBD and South Sydney while Hornsby and Parramatta LGAs [local government areas] are actually building the most.”

Keep it going guys