Sydney’s North Shore has seen increased buyer activity over the last few months, according to local real estate agents, developers, and industry leaders.
The North Shore suburbs include: Roseville, Lindfield, Killara, Gordon, Pymble, St Ives, Turramurra, Warrawee, and Wahroonga.
Australian Property Monitors’ senior economist Dr Andrew Wilson toldProperty Observer that New South Wales’ middle and upper North Shore is a growth area, and has recorded “around 10% growth generally”.
“Areas around the St Ives’ vicinity are a solid middle-prestige market. It has residential infrastructure in place, like schools, and are considered leafy suburbs,” he said.
He added that the nature of the locality has attracted “strong interest from Chinese buyers”. This is likely interest from offshore Chinese buyers.
Moving into 2014, Dr Wilson believes the North Shore area will continue to “show quite reasonable growth”.
“There should be around 5 to 7% growth in most of those areas, moving into next year. Those suburbs have an underlying popularity to them because of the infrastructure and the prestige element,” he said.
New development The Uptown, located in Roseville, has been popular since its launch. Property Observer reported earlier this year that 80% of stage one apartments were snapped up at launch.
The Uptown’s developer Longton Property’s spokesperson told Property Observer that Roseville is an area that “not a lot of property comes up for sale”.
“With limited real estate on the market, we’ve received quite a lot of enquiries. We get a good mix of enquiries across all nationalities, from Australian to European to Asian,” Longton’s spokesperson said.
Andrew Taylor, co-CEO of international property portal Juwai.com, toldProperty Observer that the Ku-ring-gai area in particular is one of the really popular areas for Chinese buyers.
“It’s got great schools, transport and services. It is wealthy, with about double Australia's median household income. And it offers a good mix of new construction apartments and existing single-family houses,” Taylor said.
“Ku-ring-gai is popular with both offshore Chinese buyers and Australians of Chinese descent. Already, Ku-ring-gai has a relatively big Chinese population, with 9% of its residents being of Chinese ancestry,” Taylor added.
Taylor also revealed that two Ku-ring-gai suburbs, Turramura and St Ives, are amongst the top ten most popular Sydney suburbs for Chinese buyers, according to activity on Juwai.com.
“Chinese buyer interest in Ku-ring-gai is growing faster than in Sydney overall. Investor interest in Ku-ring-gai is up 579% so far this year, compared to a 266% increase for Sydney,” Taylor revealed.
Matthew Bourne from McConnell Bourne Lindfield said that while investor enquiries have increased especially from the Singaporean, Hong Kong and Chinese market, he has found only 24% of buyers are of an Asian background.
"The majority is the market - 61% - is still made up of Australian buyers. The Australian market is upgrading into the local area. While there is an increased enquiry rate from Singapore, Hong Kong and Chinese-based market, when it comes to buying, only 1 in 4 of them do," he said.
Bourne added that within the Ku-ring-gai area, he has found that 42% of buyers are either upgrading or downsizing their properties, and transaction values are up 30% compared to the previous calendar year, with increased activity in the last four months.
According to the latest RP Data report, the median house price in Roseville is $1,472,500, down 7.1% on last year. The average discount required to sell a house in Roseville is 5.2%, while private treaty sales average 91 days on market.
The median asking rent for houses in Roseville is $950 per week, while gross rental yield currently stands at 3.4%.
According to the latest RP Data report, the median unit price in Roseville is $692,500, up by 4.3% on last year. The average discount required to sell a house is 4%, while private treaty sales average 66 days on market.
The median asking rent for units in Roseville is $660 per week, while gross rental yield currently stands at 4.5%.
According to the latest RP Data report, the median house price in North Turramurra is $970,000, up 0.4% on last year. The average discount required to sell a house is 5.5%, while private treaty sales average 121 days on market.
The median asking rent for houses in North Turramurra is $840 per week, while gross rental yield currently stands at 4.5%.
According to the latest RP Data report, the median unit price in North Turramurra is $827,500, down 2.1% on last year.
According to the latest RP Data report, the median house price in South Turramurra is $865,000, up 2.4% on last year. The average discount required to sell a house is 3.1%, while private treaty sales average 42 days on market.
The median asking rent for houses in South Turramurra is $780 a week, while gross rental yield currently stands at 4.7%.
According to the latest RP Data report, the median house price in St Ives is $1,120,000, up 6.7% on last year. The average discount required to sell a house is 6.1%, while private treaty sales average 85 days on market.
The median asking rent for a house in St Ives is $1000 a week, while gross rental yield currently stands at 4.6%.
According to the latest RP Data report, the median unit price in St Ives is $647,000, up 7.8% on last year. The average discount required to sell a unit is 5.3%, while private treaty sales average 117 days on market.
The median asking rent for a unit in St Ives is $640 a week, while gross rental yield currently stands at 5.1%.
