The surprising suburbs where paying off a mortgage is FAR cheaper than renting – with the Australian dream of home ownership costing as little as $250 a week
- It’s cheaper to repay a mortgage than pay rent in 97 Queensland suburbs
- 12 of the enviable suburbs identified are in the Greater Brisbane region
- Many of the cheap prices even apply to house purchases but also some units
- The surprising data comes from lender Aussie.com.au and Core Logic
Australian homeowners are finding themselves saving money when buying houses as opposed to renting, with mortgage payments cheaper than renting in some areas.
This is the case in 97 Queensland suburbs, including 12 in the Greater Brisbane area.
Currently it costs less than $250 a week to repay a mortgage in those areas, based on local median house or unit prices in research done for lender Aussie.com.au.
This one bedroom beachfront apartment on the Esplanade at Torquay – for sale for $228,000 – is an example of many Queensland homes that could be cheaper to buy than to rent according to research by Aussie.com.au
A two bedroom, one car space unit at 33/11 Island Drive, Cannonvale is on the market for just $170,000
In 58 of the suburbs, it was cheaper to buy a house than rent, and in the others it was cheaper to buy a unit, according to The Courier Mail.
This is the case in a huge range of suburbs in towns and regional hubs spread across Queensland – as far north as Cairns, inland to Charleville and south to Brisbane.
The surprising findings come from numbers crunched by Core Logic, when it calculated repayments for a 30 year loan at a variable rate of 3.65 per cent and or a fixed 2.35 three year rate on the median prices across Queensland.
Two suburbs showed rock-bottom weekly mortgage repayments of under $100 – Charleville and Collinsville.
Both suburbs also had median house prices under $100,000.
According to the data, the Greater Brisbane suburbs and areas were mortgage repayments can be cheaper than renting mostly applied to units and include Brassall in Ipswich, Russell Island, and several parts of Logan.
Those included: Central Logan, Springwood, Browns Plains, Eagleby, Mount Warren Park, Beenleigh, Waterford West and Woodridge.
This three bedroom house at 45 Dingyarra Street, Toogoolawah west of Caboolture on an 875 square metre block sold for $200,000 in January
$179,000 could get you this three bedroom unit with a car space and access to a pool at 41/279-283 Kingston Road, Logan Central – 30 minutes from the Brisbane CBD
Several beachside suburbs made the cut, including Cannonvale near Airlie; Torquay at Hervey Bay; Cairns North, Parramatta Park, Manunda and Manoora in Cairns,; East Innisfail, and Fraser Coast suburb Maryborough.
In Charleville, the average mortgage repayment is $87 a week, while in Park Avenye it’s $216 a week and in Cannonvale it’s $215 a week.
In Torquay, it’s $238.
Aussie chief executive James Symond said especially outside the major towns ‘it is cheaper to buy than rent with many suburbs under the $250 a week threshold’.
‘Why pay your landlord – when you could potentially pay the same amount or less monthly – on a house or apartment you can call your own?,’ he said.
While it seems difficult to find a home for under $100,000, this two bedder at 6 East Street, Charleville, Queensland is priced at $98,000
This two bedroom unit in the centre of Rockhampton is selling for just $179,000