DH and I were chatting about our previous loan and what we class as a small/big mortgage, wondering if we are delusional!! I think $300k is average anything under smallish and anything over 4 big!???
What do you think?
DH and I were chatting about our previous loan and what we class as a small/big mortgage, wondering if we are delusional!! I think $300k is average anything under smallish and anything over 4 big!???
What do you think?
I would be thinking more like 400K is normal in Melbourne.
But are you talking about Australia wide?
I think given the median house price (in Melbourne) is about $550k, I would consider a $300k mortgage tiny.
I guess we were thinking Melbourne/Victoria when chatting! Trust us to live in one of the most expensive cities and now in an expensive sea side country town!!!
I reckon Sydney is probably just as expensive- of course my information is from watching Location, location and selling houses Australia :)
We live in rural VIC and our mortgage (minus first home buyers) is 97K for of the the best and biggest houses in town.
how long ago Char?
I reckon anything between 300 and 400 is average, i am in Adelaide though where house prices are less than melb or syd :)
In Melbourne I would think at least $350k depending on what suburb you live, some would be higher than that.
We moved regional to make it affordable for me to be a SAHM as it wouldn't have been possible if we stayed in Melbourne with our mortgage, I would have had to return to work to make ends meet.
We purchased 4yrs ago in a tiny town 30mins from Ballarat and our mortgage was approx. $100k less than our mortgage on our Melbourne property.
I think it is all relative to where you are living. I living in a country town, $400,000 would get you a brand new brick home on a large block, if not a couple of acres. In my area probably $250,000 would be considered average.
My mortgage was $100k nearly 10 yrs ago. I love in rural Vic to and I would say average in my small town would be $200k but in the bigger town 15 mins away would be 250 - 300 and that's still classed as rural.
Around here (south west WA) $300 - $400k is pretty good. Anything under is cheap and over is pricey.
Keeping in mind there's a difference in mortgage amount and house price.... I would imagine most people would have at least a 10 per cent deposit. Houses in my suburb have a median price of around $550k (35km from city) so imagine average mortgages would be $450-500k.
Eta - then again, this area isn't really a first home buyer area so I guess people have capital from previous house sale, so mortgage would probably be less.
It is definitely relative to where you live and the population. A town full of older people will have far lower mortgages than a town of mainly younger people.
Here $300 000 won't even buy you a one bedder unit.
In the town in country NSW where we have our mortgage, even though our house is on the cheaper side, we have what locals class a huge mortgage at $350 ish because many of them are older, and retired and have no/hardly any mortgage.
We bought our 4 bedroom house 8 years ago for 295k. Same house now in this area (30km from cbd) is on average 480-540k depending on which 'pocket' of the suburb you buy in.
Good point, we were chatting as owners changing over to our 4th property with a substantial amount in the bank. First home owners would be different I guess but still having a 10% deposit and starting a bit smaller.:
Our first property was purchased in Bayswater for 100k about 15 years ago and sold for 260. Crazy.
This is similar to where we live. My mortgage as an 18year old for a small house (2 bedroom) very large block in a very good area was $48,000. My husbands for a big brick modern home was $200,000. In 10years there has been a huge increase in prices (I was able to sell my 1st home after renovating it for 3times the amount I paid) You can get brand new basic brick homes (home and land package) for $290,000 and for something special around the $450,000 plus.:
I do think people answers also different depending on whether looking to buy first or recently bought first in past couple of years compared to subsequent purcahses or if bought more than seven years ago - with first groups definition of average being higher than second.
In UK they always said three times household annual income was about right for mortgage (not house price)- so in my mind I classify anything above that as high, with that as average. Any direct comparisons are a bit futile IMO because of the massive variation in house prices across country. Our mortgage is 350k I class it as high because is just over the 3 times rule when I am working, but entering the housing market for first time in past couple of years in melbourne and sydney can be quite difficult to stick to three times rule.
It's all relative to where you live of course. If you are in the city - one of the bigger ones I'd say the average would be around the $400 000 mark. If you are rural, in my area, the average would be around $200 000 or less.
My mortgage 10 years ago was $70 000 in a rural area.
Like all averages, there are some huge variances to get that average.
I was going to say around 300 000 Aust wide. I lived in a small town on the East coast & the low end was 220 000 - 300 000, but here in a small South WA town, the priciest house in town is $130 000. There's a cheaper one here for only 60 000 & its not a bad place.
I would like to point out that, yes, house prices might seem higher in some areas, but also that a lot of houses in my area that young couples purchase are not the typical "first home" fare. +study, +separate dining, +family room/rumpus/2nd living area, +2 door garage, +ensuite, +extra bedroom(s) are all features that are not found in starter-uppers. Interestingly though, many young people now expect their first home to have some or all of these features (AND be pretty too). In the meantime, developers & investors come through snapping up all the more modest homes, slap a cheap facelift on them, then onsell or rent at an inflated cost while laughing all the way to the bank.
I blame those bloody home renovation tv shows for selling us all a dream that is bankrupting the nation's affordable housing stock [/RANT].
We are rural in a crappy old farm house, so our mortgage is only $140k, will go up to $300k when we rebuild on this block. Which is probably on par with the area and a reasonable home.
MD: this is what is happening 2 houses down. there was this 1 bedroom run-down victorian that the owners sold for about $550k!! INSANE. all the young coupkes came through, but it was too exxy for what it was so now we have 'professional renovators' that got it and are flipping it. now they will sell it for something in the mid 700k mark...kinda sucks to see ppl getting pushed out of the market like that by crazy housing prices.
back to OP...i would think that $400k would be pretty average for melbourne?? we are about that and had a 25% deposit for our 2 bdr place.
I would say around $300-350 is average. When we buy i won't be going over $320, I still want to be able to pay a mortgage off without eating tins of baked beans for the rest of my life! Where we would be looking you can still get a nice 3 bedroom home for around that. We live about 50km from the CBD, but we have everything here, shopping centers, train station, freeway, lakes.
Astrid i hear you. We live in a crappy old farm house. Decision is do wd renovate or rebuild. Both will cost around $300000
We live in a crappy old house on acres too. I just can't at this point justify bumping our mortgage up to rebuild. Our current mortgage is well under what I would think is average. Most people we know have between 350-400k as the average.
As N2L said, there is a difference between mortgage amount and house prices. I think I read recently that the average mortgage is somewhere in the 300s (don't remember the exact amount). Yes, some areas are much more expensive, but as others have said, I guess you'd generally expect that people buying in those areas have much more deposit to put towards it.
Some hard facts, from The Year Book, 2012:
Average loan for first home buyers $281,000
Changeover home buyers average load $326,000 (figures for 2010-11 = most recent national figures).
Average amount of mortgage outstanding ($,000) 2009-10
Sydney 239
NSW bal of state $168
Melbourne $207
Vic rest of state $138
Brisbane $220
Qld rest of state $202
Adelaide $180
SA rest of state $124
Perth $232
WA rest of state $172
Hobart $140
Tas rest of state $126
Darwin $247
NT rest of state $195
Hmmm, double post.
Yep I'd agree with that. That is what I was thinking when I read your title, but then again I am in Adelaide.:
We bought the house (which had been on the market 7 months) in Feb 2012:
Should have stated, in capital cities/suburbs as rural is a different kettle of fish.
ABS - from 10/11 - first home owners average mortgage amount is under 300, from memory was around 270, and changeover buyers was around 350,000 (Australian census).
Average monthly mortgage repayments are $1950 in Vic. (2011 Census).
300k seems like it would be average but I know it's not....400k s scary :o
The largest ours has been it around 250k, it's under 200k now.
300k seems like it would be average but I know it's not....400k s scary :o
The largest ours has been it around 250k, it's under 200k now.
OK I'm delusional *doh*
I thought that the average might be about 500k
Round here 700k buys you a run down house with garden. For a nice house that doesn't need any improvements you'll cough up about 1m.
Where i live, (Western Sydney) the average price for a half decent home (3 bedrooms, garage/locked carport, 1 bathroom, backyard, single living room/dining room) is about $400,000-$450,000.
If you go closer towards Sydney, (about 30 odd minutes away from us) you're looking at about $600,000+ EASY. that's for a much older house, with a smaller block and just a generally smaller house.
Although i'd love to live closer to the city, i'm SO not willing to pay that much for a house!! :/
I'm in outer eastern melbourne, houses here are around 500k+
Our house is worth around 500k
Not delusional at all, although I guess around 3-400 while Dh and I were chatting I was actually telling him that I am surprised that it is so low, we were outer east of Melbs and our house sold for over 600k recently, and although the median in the area was more like 480 I still find 300 surprising, although as we have stated it's not the house value but mortgage amount for changeover peeps. Still though Zazou that would mean for averages around you and as you head in from where we were in Melbs it would mean most people have a mortgage of around 300-400 and are paying 400ish cash?? I know it varies a lot obviously and I am making lots of generalisations, but its interesting what some people think is a large mortgage compared to a normal or small one.:
ETA: Just re-read my post and it's scatty as, can you tell I have had a Baileys? Can't go back and fix it because I have lost my train of thought :rofl:
Well there you go!! Then from REIV - the median house price in Melbourne is $555,000 and rurally is 305,000 for regional based on the December quarter. I still find that 350 figure low!