Ballina Information Blog

Building your ideal home in the Ballina and Lennox Head areas is now more attainable for those on a budget, a recent report has found.

The report by PRDnationwide Queensland research analyst Aaron Maskrey provides an area overview of population, age structure and area characteristics while highlighting the housing market and outlook within the area.

“The Ballina and Lennox Head area offer an affordable range of coastal housing options for residents wanting a ‘sea-change’. These ideal locations are supported by strong infrastructure such as employment, health, education, and road networks,” Mr Maskrey said.

The area’s housing market has continued to increase in price regardless of the long-term decline is sales activity.

“The release of new land estates has decreased the number of housing sales and many people are choosing to purchase land for building their new home compared to investing in older stock,” Mr Maskrey said.

This growth declined between January and June 2008 with the number of house sales declining to just 969 transactions.

The median house price increased during the six months leading up to September 2008 to $525,000 – a steady growth rate of 8 per cent.

The bulk of transactions during this period was achieved within the $500,000 to $599,000 price bracket – making up 23 per cent of sales.

“An impressive 20 per cent of sales occurred in the price range of $700,000-plus,” Mr Maskrey said.

East Ballina recorded 26 sales – the most settled transactions between April and September 2008.

Mr Maskrey said that due to the recent economic conditions, the unit market experienced a decrease by 33 per cent in the six months leading up to September 2008, to register 108 settled unit transactions.

The median price saw a slight decrease of $3500 to record $361,500 for the year ending September 2008.

The majority of unit sales were recorded within the $200,000 to $299,999 bracket – with a total of 32 per cent of sales.

“The Ballina and Lennox Head unit market has experienced significant transactions in the upper end of the market, with 7 per cent of sales occurring in the $700,000-plus price range,” he said.

“The most affordable unit sale took place in Isabella Drive for $185,000, while the highest-priced sale was for $950,000 in Pinnacle Row.

“There is no shortage of demand for vacant land in the area.

“During the six-month period ending September 2008, the Ballina and Lennox Head area recorded 17 vacant land sales – registering a median price of $430,000.

“The reason why this trend of low transactions has been seen in the area is due to developers controlling the amount of land being released onto the market so that maximum sale prices are attained.

“Annual growth was at an impressive 19.4 per cent which equates to a $70,000 increase over the past year.

“Vacant land sale prices varied during the six months ending September 2008 from $130,500 on 860 sqm, to $2.75 million on 3,935 sqm.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.