The " Good Value " Option !

The housing market in Australia's major cities is very much like that child's party game called " Musical chairs ".   When the music stops the group circling those chairs rushes to sit down, and some are left standing because the number of chairs have decreased.

It took us two hundred and fifty years to create the stock of ten million homes on individual blocks of land that serves the twenty-five million people who live in Australia, but in just sixteen years we have created one million high rise apartments within our eight major cities.

Within those cities the number of free standing homes is diminishing as the land is bought for high rise development and the new homes on individual blocks of land are being created on what was farm land on the city perimeter.  As a result we are spending billions of dollars to build both a road network and public transport to get those people to their jobs in the city.

The ultimate dream for most families is to live in a home with a backyard in a nice city suburb.  The ever escalating price of such homes is making that financially impossible.   The alternative is the " vertical village ", an apartment in a high rise building and this has become financially viable because such apartments are increasing in price at about half the rate of individual houses.

In fact the price of many high rise apartments has actually decreased due to a scare about building faults causing subsidence and the use of flammable cladding on exteriors.  The prices for apartments varies widely, depending on whether they are located in the more salubrious suburbs and what views can be seen from their windows.

The statistics are compelling.  In the ten years where house prices rose a hundred percent, apartments in Strathfield rose by just twenty-nine percent and those in Ryde by twenty-five percent.   There is every indication that this will be the trend in the future.   New tower blocks will hook up to existing water and sewage and avoid the huge cost of supplying these services to new estates on the city perimeter.  The other great advantage is that community transport is already in place and providing service right at the apartment dwellers doorway.

In fact, the impetus of spending has dramatically changed and the public transport option is now dominant.in Sydney.   After a long absence city trams are returning and both existing rail and the new Metro systems are encouraging commuters to consider alternatives to the use of cars.  In many parts of the world the adoption of " congestion taxes " is decreasing the number of cars coming into the centre of cities.

For many, the advantages of apartment living is the new reality.  All housing has become very expensive, but in comparison high rise represents good value.