Time to spring into the market?
More than ever, all the planets are lined up in favour of the downsizer.
Spring is always a great time to contemplate how we want to live our future lives. Get into the spring selling market and you could be relaxing in a new home as soon as Christmas.
So, why is it such a good time to bite the bullet? With a busy, buoyant market, it’s a great time to cash in. Moving from a cherished family home to a property that will better suit your changing needs later in life can seem like a major challenge, but here’s some appealing reasons why downsizing should be on your radar.
Families crave space. If there is one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, particularly as we move from one lock down to the next, it is that being couped up in a small home with energetic children is not ideal. Spacious suburban homes, with room for a home office so we can work from home, and a garden for the kids to play in, are definitely back in vogue. Which means demand for family homes is soaring, while at the same time high-end apartments are still in plentiful supply. For the downsizer that means there is choice!
According to the data from CoreLogic, in the year to 31 July, house prices in Brisbane rose a whopping 17.7%, while apartments rose just 7%. So, while the cost of an apartment has certainly grown, it isn’t nearly as much the rise in the price of a traditional home. That means you’ll get good dollars for your home, while spending proportionately less for an apartment or townhouse. CoreLogic suggests that this trend has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The price gap between houses and apartments (and townhouses) has widened to such an extent it is now at a record high of 50% along the East Coast. In Brisbane the gap is higher at 58%. In recent years there has been an abundance of new apartments and townhouses coming onto the market, but, with a subdued investor market, demand has waned compared to the demand for family homes.
Apartments and townhouses are definitely not an ‘inferior’ living option to houses. Developers have been listening to the market and are now building spacious apartments to cater to a new generation of premium owner-occupier. In today’s housing market, downsizing doesn’t mean having to sacrifice comfortable living spaces inside your home. Many modern buildings offer amazing amenities that give you a house-like lifestyle, with all the benefits of a low-maintenance dwelling that you can lock and leave when we are able to travel once more.
Another incentive for downsizers is that you can invest some of the spare cash you make from the sale of the family home into your superannuation fund. Currently, as long as you meet the eligibility requirements, you can invest a lump sum of up to $300,000 from the proceeds of your home.
You may be asking has the boom in Brisbane just started, or after a frantic 18 months is it starting to slow? No one has a crystal ball, but what we can say for certain is there are buyers eager to secure quality family homes right now! What we do know for certain, though, is there will be a huge downsizing revolution in the next five to ten years as more baby boomers head into retirement. Couple this with young families being priced out of the housing market, and it makes sense to make the switch sooner and take advantage of the price gap before every other buyer like you decides to do the same.
All things considered, the time to move out of the family home and into a low-maintenance apartment or townhouse has never been better. It looks like this spring is shaping up to be an optimal time to consider biting that bullet and downsizing.
