This house at Scott Creek Road, Heathfield may beat Adelaide’s record house price of $6.5 million. Picture: David Cronin Source: The Advertiser

Heathfield property Kingsbrae is looking to top Adelaide’s record $6.5 million residential house price, set last year by Glenelg mansion Stormont.

Brock Harcourts Stirling agent Sharon Reeves said the home was out of the ordinary for prestige properties, which are dominated by historic mansions.

“It has something different to offer the top end in that it is a new build,” she says.

“Kingsbrae is an heirloom property that people will call home for generations to come.”

Klemich Real Estate has recorded the top two sales for this year and managing director Oren Klemich said the upper end had not been affected by the property downturn.

“It has been quite well documented that the Adelaide market has come down around 10 per cent in the last 12 months, but there’s no question that the high end is still strong,” he said.

“If three or four quality homes hit the market now at that five to six million range, we could find buyers for them.”

With the top sales for the end of last year, Medindie’s Willyama at $5.41 million and Ivanhoe at Gilberton for $6.2 million, Bernard H Booth’s Jamie Brown said attraction to high-end properties is partly down to lack of available stock.

“People are beginning to understand that it’s becoming harder and harder to get into the larger stakes because you generally find people hold on to the properties for many years,” he said.

“Historically, mansions have set the pace but this will change over the years, with people spending a lot of money in the building stages.”

Location is another factor, and Mr Klemich said the prime city fringe suburbs such as Walkerville, Medindie, Gilberton, North Adelaide and Unley Park – as well as prime beachfront from Glenelg to Henley Beach – will always be in demand.

“These types of suburbs and homes won’t suddenly come out of fashion,” he said.

Bankwest’s Key Worker Housing Affordability report, released today, shows police, teachers, nurses, firefighters and ambulance officers faced prices more than five times their earnings in two-thirds of Adelaide council areas.

Bankwest business chief executive Ian Corfield said the key workers were financially stretched in looking to buy their first home.

“These are the essential workers which South Australians rely on every day to provide important services and they face the possibility of being priced out of housing in the communities in which they serve,” he said.

“This means many are being forced to rent for longer or buy and face a long commute to work. Although we are highlighting how tough going it is for key workers, it reflects the broader affordability issues which affect first-home buyers in Adelaide.” The report also found:

NURSES faced the most difficulties in housing affordability.

AMBULANCE officers were the most likely of the key worker groups to buy a home.

WALKERVILLE was the least affordable council area in SA, where the median house price last year was 10 times the salary of a key worker.

PLAYFORD was the most affordable. The median house price was 4.3 times the salary of a key worker in 2010.

Nurse Bec Pearson, 23, bought a unit in Kings Park late last year with the help of her dad and stepmum.

She said without the help, home ownership would be a distant dream. “It would’ve taken me another few years of saving at least and no doubt I would’ve had to get them (dad and stepmum) to go guarantor still,” she said.

“Other girls at my work who have mortgages on their own say most of their pay goes to the mortgage and they have to work all the penalty shifts to cover their mortgage.”

The Bankwest report comes as new RP Data research shows property sales volumes in Adelaide last year dropped to their lowest in a decade. Analyst Cameron Kusher said affordability constraints were being felt and a lack of first-home buyers and investors was contributing to low sales volumes.

Source

WELCOME to Adelaide 2019 – where the typical house price will exceed $1.2 million.

That’s the figure home buyers will face if the state’s property boom of the past 10 years is repeated this decade, according to real estate analysts.

The predicted rate of price growth – the highest in Australia after WA – would propel tens of thousands of houses into the seven-figure price bracket, with SA’s median price forecast to exceed $960,000.

It will also create more than 268 million-dollar suburbs and towns across the state – up from the current four, according to data provided to the Sunday Mail.

And of the top 10 locations based on the rate of price increase, four are located in regional SA.

By simply projecting forward the price rises recorded in suburbs and towns over the past decade, Australian Property Monitors has provided a crystal ball for South Australians to gaze into the potential real estate market in three, five and 10 years’ time.

Since 1999 the median Adelaide house price has jumped from $148,300 to $427,260 in 2009, or 11.4 per cent a year, according to APM sales data.

If that rate of growth continues over the next decade, Adelaide median house prices will reach $1,231,000, according to APM calculations. The state’s most expensive suburb would be Unley Park, with houses typically worth $4.1 million.

Even the metropolitan suburb with the cheapest houses today, Elizabeth North, will more than quadruple from $180,000 to $589,000.

AMP economist Matthew Bell said several factors would drive real estate price rises.

“With SA’s increasing exposure to the resources industry, combined with the property demand driven by defence sector employment and the relative under performance in the last year or two, the longer-term outlook for prices is relatively good,” he said.

“The average long-term forecast of 11.4 per cent for the next 10 years is behind only that of WA.”

Leading real estate agent Anthony Toop said this projection could prove true.

“I definitely think it’s possible that the price increase of the past 10 years could be repeated,” he said.

“SA has a growing defence industry, an army battalion is being relocated to Adelaide and we are on the verge of a mining boom.

“The population is growing while a lack of supply of new housing will drive prices up.”

But such a price growth would provide a grim outlook for the next generation seeking home ownership, former valuer-general and current Independent MLC John Darley warned.

“This will continue to drive up prices in the future and from that point of view the APM price projections are probably justified,” he said. “Things are bad enough for first-home buyers and those on low incomes, but as prices rise so does the amount of stamp duty paid.”

Source: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/property/news/more-south-australian-homes-worth-1m/story-e6frefgc-1225854972482

THE median price of Adelaide homes has broken through the $400,000 mark for the first time, as a shortage of homes for sale fuels a price boom.

In the best sign yet of a local housing market recovery from the global financial crisis, Adelaide house prices recorded the largest annual growth in two years, Valuer-General figures released to The Advertiser show.

Although Adelaide prices are still the cheapest on the mainland, figures surged 14.08 per cent to a record $405,000 from the March quarter 2009 to the same quarter this year.

In the inner metropolitan region, prices soared 15.37 per cent to $640,000 while the state median increased 14.91 per cent to $370,000.

Brock Harcourts chief executive officer Greg Moulton said high demand and a stock shortage was a potent combination.

Harris Real Estate managing director Phil Harris said some homes were selling as soon as they hit the market – and often before auction.

He attributed the climbing prices to low supply, the momentum of the First Home Owner Boost and increasing population.

The rental market also is facing further upward pressure as investors looking for good returns flock to the market, he said.

Property owners have benefited from the 243 per cent increase in housing prices over the past 10 years, but those seeking to enter the market have fallen further behind as wages have increased only 35.5 per cent over the same period.

Real Estate Institute of SA chief executive officer Greg Troughton said while SA was still more affordable than other mainland states, it was becoming increasingly difficult “to grab that great Australian dream of owning your own home”.

Alexis Theodorou, 35 and her husband Trevor Jones, 36, are selling their Pasadena investment home for about $405,000 and are confident they will cash in on the capital growth from the past three years.

“I’m imaging that it will appeal to someone else for a similar kind of reason,” Ms Theodorou said.

Source: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/property/news/adelaide-homes-crack-the-400000-mark/story-e6frefgc-1225851129678