Why Big Sized Properties Won’t Help Investors
What can we put down our fetish towards the really large houses to? It is something we choose to ignore till the time we are fed with glaring statistics. Let me propose a few. Over the last decade, the size of an average Australian home has shot up by 10%. Today, it stands at 214 square metres which is at least three times more than the square acreage of an average British home. What do we have to say to these stats?
Homes in NSW are way too bigger
Let me add another one that makes NSW an even bigger culprit. Here, the house size on an average is 262.9 square metres, higher than any other place in Australia and higher than any place across the globe, too. To think we have crossesd the USA in terms of average home size!
Medium and high density dwellings in inner city
So to come back to my question- what can we attribute our fetish towards the big sized properties? No rational answer to this I suppose! In my opinion, the investors are certainly missing the mark and terribly at that. Changing demographics, rate of gentrification, population explosion, all point towards the need for smaller homes. The most sought after homes from here on will be the medium and high density dwellings proximal to the inner city.
Population explosion and changing demographics support smaller homes
We are graduating towards thinly populated households and they are certainly not going to need the McMansions. Town planning legislations and missives from the local and state government all indicate growth in infrastructure around the inner city area. This is where people will look to buy mostly and investors must work towards filling these gaps in their portfolio.
And why not give apartments their due?
I also wonder why Australia is failing to adapt to the new wave of apartment living. I understand that detached houses have been the traditional favourites but if we see the tide changing (both are getting appreciated) there is nothing wrong in devoting a part of our investors’ portfolio to the apartment units, too.
I would wrap up by saying that bigger is not necessarily the better and residential investors have got to understand this sooner rather than later.
How do you divide your portfolio in terms of housing density, choice of home and property location?
