Where can you buy a home in Melbourne on your wage?,名佳澳洲房产咨询微信公众号文章

BUYERS need to earn more than $114,000 a year to afford a median-priced house in Melbourne, research shows.

A finder.com.au study showed the gross annual salary needed to buy a house across Melbourne ranged from $49,000 in Melton South — where the median price is $235,000 — to $627,000 to afford the repayments on a $3 million home in Melbourne’s most expensive suburb of Toorak.

Six suburbs are at Melbourne’s median house price of $550,000 — Knoxfield, Sandhurst, Dandenong South, Attwood, Altona North and Airport West. According to the finder.com.au calculator, buyers would need to earn $114,000 a year to afford to buy in these suburbs.

Those looking for an apartment at the Melbourne median price of $452,000 have two suburbs to choose from: Moonee Ponds and Wantirna, where a household income of $94,000 is needed.

The findings were based on median house prices from CoreLogic RP Data for November, 2014, and assumed buyers had a 10 per cent deposit, would pay the average interest rate of 5.38 per cent on a 30-year loan, with mortgage repayments calculated at 29 per cent of household income, below the 30 per cent threshold considered for mortgage stress.

But finder.com.au money expert Michelle Hutchison said some of the salaries were shocking at first glance.

Especially considering the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded the average full-time wage was $1539 a week — about $80,000 annually — in November, 2014.

“Especially if you’re looking at buying a home on your own, or you’re in a family with one income,” Ms Hutchison said.

“But if you have two incomes, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

Ms Hutchison said figuring out how much you could afford to pay for a home was one of most difficult steps for home buyers because many initially looked to suburbs they wanted to live in and then compared sales prices of homes before considering their budgets.

“It’s hard to know how much you should spend on a mortgage and which suburbs you can afford,” she said.

The finder.com.au salary and suburb calculator was created to help people see how much it really costs to buy a home in their dream suburb.

While the research puts a value on what buyers need to earn to afford to buy a new home in their dream suburb, record low interest rates and a low supply of new listings is set to increase pressure on prices.

Cameron Kusher, CoreLogic RP Data’s senior research analyst, said dwelling values rose 3.5 per cent in the March quarter, on the back of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s official interest rate cut in February.

“Since we got that rate cut in February, auction clearance rates have been much stronger,” Mr Kusher said.

“There’s certainly been a lot more demand for mortgages out there.”

Mr Kusher said a further increase in values in April wouldn’t be surprising.

“It clearly looks like there’s some ongoing strength in terms of the growth in home values in Melbourne at the moment,” he said.

But Mr Kusher said the strength in the market was limited to the demand side of the equation, with new listings down nearly 20 per cent.

He said 6835 properties were listed for sale in the past four weeks, well down on the same time last year, while total number of homes on the market were 11.7 per cent lower at 29779.

“There’s a big reduction in the amount of stock that’s available for sale, and I think that creates a pressure on values as well,” Mr Kusher said.

“We know that interest rates, when they are lower, we do see more demand for houses. But we are not seeing the same response in terms of the amount of stock coming on to the market.”

Mr Kusher said incomes were keeping pace with house prices. He said annual growth in household incomes was about 1 per cent, while wages growth was around 2.5 per cent.

Ms Hutchison said buyers needed to work out a budget based on their personal circumstances, factoring in a buffer that allowed for an increase in interest rates of 2 to 3 percentage points.

“We’re seeing variable rates starting from 4.23 per cent. They’re interest rates that we’ve never seen before and it’s looking like we’re going to see another drop,” she said.

“So if you’re already above 30 per cent of your income going towards mortgage repayments, I guess it’s a bit of a scary situation because it looks like interest rates will rise in the near future.

“If they’re already stretching themselves, they will be in trouble once interest rates start rising and also if unexpected expenses come up or you lose your job. You should have a buffer there that you’re saving just in case this issue comes up.”