Where Can You Buy a Cheap House in NSW Under $500,000 in 2025?

Affordable real estate is not a thing of the past—it's alive and well in regional New South Wales! What if I told you that your dream of owning a property under $500,000 is still within reach? On today's Taylored Property Wealth Podcast, I, Casey Taylor, will guide you through some of the hidden gems tucked away from the bustling metro areas. These regional locations not only offer unique lifestyles but also present promising investment opportunities. From the quaint allure of Lightning Ridge with its incredibly low median value, to the robust market in Glen Innes with its amazing growth over the past five years, there's something for every aspiring property owner.

Join me as we journey through five fascinating suburbs, dissecting crucial market metrics like median property values, days on market, and vacancy rates. Imagine settling into the mining-influenced town of Narrabri or basking in the scenic charm of Inverell. I'll even break down what your mortgage repayments could look like on a $500,000 property with a 20% deposit, making it clearer than ever how achievable home ownership can be. Whether you're looking to escape the city bustle or seeking a strategic investment, this episode is brimming with insights tailored for you!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Tailored Property Wealth Podcast. My name is Casey Taylor and I'm the host of the podcast, and in today's episode we're going to be talking about properties you can purchase under $500,000 in New South Wales in 2025. There's still a lot of suburbs out there under $500,000. Is that where you ultimately want to purchase is another story. However, it's just going to give you a good indication of there is affordability still out there, when there's a lot of people out there talking about how it's so unaffordable to purchase. So there are options out there. Yes, they're in regional locations. It's not your typical metro locations, but you might want to live in a regional location. You might not, but you might want to live in a regional location. You might not. Now, just before we get into five suburbs that we'll be discussing today what the median value is, what the median days on market is, change in value over the last five years in the vacancy rate. Just wanted to break down quickly what repayments would look like if you were to purchase a $500,000 property. So, assuming that you make a 20% deposit plus costs for that $500,000 purchase, you would have a loan amount of $400,000. Now, assuming a 6.5% interest rate for principal and interest repayments, your monthly repayments would be $2,529. So you do the math. Is that something that you could entertain? But that's a lot more affordable than going out there and having to spend 700k on a property, for example at the moment.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Example at the moment let's get into suburb number one in super regional New South Wales and that is Lightning Ridge. Not sure if you've been to Lightning Ridge, you can blink and miss it. It's a cool, funky little town to go through and visit. It is right up near the queensland border. Median value there is 169 000, so extremely cheap. Um, it's a. Yeah, it's an interesting town. But of that, median days on market for lightning ridge is 81 days. So it's taking two and a half months for a property to sell. So that would be showcasing. There's not much demand there at all. Change in value over the last five years is 61.6%. That's inclusive of a COVID boom in there as well. Vacancy rate 1.6% as per SQM research. So that is Lightning Ridge. Median value $169,000. So if you can live remotely and you want to go out and put up with 40 plus degree weather consistently in summer, lightning Ridge is the place for you.

Speaker 1: 3:01

All right, suburb number two, which is Narrabri, new south wales. Median value in narrabri is 387, 000. Median days on market in narrabri is 41 days and the change in value over the last five years is vacancy rate 0.2 percent as december 2024 as per sqm research. So price point has jumped up for narrow bri still very affordable median value for narrow bri. It is like a bit of a mining town out there. It's a couple of hours away from tamworth, which is more of the the main hub out there. So if you want to move out there, go for it. 387, super affordable.

Speaker 1: 3:55

We move on to the next suburb and town, which is gunnedah, new south wales. Median value 428 000. Median days on market 55 and the change in value over the last five years is 60.4 percent. Vacancy rate 1.6 percent as December 2024. Moving on to the next suburb, which is Inverell Now Inverell, new South Wales again, median value $361,000. Median days on market is 71 days. So it's taking over two months to sell there as well and the change in value over the last five years is 58.1% and the vacancy rate is 0.6% in December 2024 as per SQM research. And the last suburb, glen Innes Median value $368,000. Median days on market is 74, over two months to sell there as well. Now, change in value over the last five years is 105.8%, so it's the top performer of these suburbs, and vacancy rate as of December 2024 is 1.8% as per SQM research. So that's it Five suburbs under $500,000.

Speaker 1: 5:25

We are not by any means saying going investing there. That's what we do. We focus on metro locations as they outperform all other asset classes, as per CoreLogic releasing data in 2022. Houses metro locations outperformed by 453%. But it's good to see what's out there, see what options you have, see what is affordable still in the marketplace. If you want to purchase, you might live in one of these locations and you know, hey, it's still not unaffordable to purchase where I wish to purchase. You might live in one of these locations and you know, hey, it's still not unaffordable to purchase where I wish to reside. Is it going to be that long-term performer that you want? Probably not. All right, but gives you those options. Hope you saw value in this one. Provide some feedback if you want to see more of these episodes where we're just breaking down options in different categories, different solutions out there in different states. Thanks for listening. Hope you have a great day and we'll see you on the next one.