A Keith and Sandy story — It has been interesting to see the debate continue around housing affordability over the past week. The latest story is the comparison between the Sydney prices and Auckland. Auckland is now more expensive than Sydney. This will have something to do with the recent price weakening in the Western Suburbs of Sydney bringing down the wider city average. No such sector decline in Auckland.
The issue of housing affordability is nothing new, but with the overall improving of the quality of the housing stock, it is becoming more difficult for buyers to reconcile what they can buy with the money they have.
It was only 20 years ago that Sandy and I managed to buy our first house together. It was a 55m2 1940’s 1 bedroom ‘bach’ on a cross lease title in the back of Mairangi Bay — you can just see its blue weatherboards in the image above.
Dan, our 5 year old son slept beside the washing machine in the laundry. We had to walk through this room to get to our bedroom! It was ours and we were thrilled with it! Many buyers had passed it over as ‘I couldn’t live in that’ material, but it is amazing what a coat of paint can do!
Our two auctions last weekend showed the benefit of buying and holding, getting in with the determination to compromise all sorts of aspects in order to ‘get in’. Our 11 Cooper Street property was purchased back in 2007 for $567,500. Big money for the time. It sold on Sunday for $1.27m. The 9 year growth was 123%.
2A Bayfield Road was purchased in 1981 for $58,000. Once again, a big price then. It sold on Sunday for $1.325m. You work out the percentage gain there but I have it somewhere north of 2000%!
The two things to take away are:
1. House prices in Auckland have consistently doubled every 9-10 years in the last 50 years, regardless of market fluctuations, and
2. It is worth compromising in order to buy now. It will always look after you regardless in the long term.
PS. If you don’t want to compromise, check out our new listing at 23 Georgina Street this week.
