What is the price paid in inner Melbourne homes per square metre?
Not too long ago, land size and location were considered to be two major factors in choosing a home, according to Secret Agent’s latest report.
People wanted big yards to play and entertain in.
The more land the better, because the focus was on the value of land rather than the property itself.
For many people these priorities have changed.
Inner city living allows us to access parks and gardens easily when we want to, without the hassle of keeping a yard in pristine condition.
Kitchens have also become a popular place for entertainment, replacing the role traditionally held by the backyard.
Today, it seems the more land a property is on, the more of a burden it is.
Maintaining a garden 365 days a year is hard work.
At the same time, Secret Agent has noticed a shift in the desires of our clients over the past few years.
They are becoming more specific in the amount of internal space they need for the rooms they use regularly.
The number and sizes of bedrooms, number of bathrooms and size of kitchens and living areas tend to be known from the outset.
Land size and backyard space are less important, particularly if they are not looking to renovate.
As long as there is some kind of outdoor area, there isn’t much of a preference for how big it should be.
Market value of property in particular suburbs is often reported and analysed on a cost per square metre rate.
This is a good metric if land is important.
However, now that some people are caring more about internal usable space, not land size, this metric can be misleading.
Secret Agent created the index to reflect the shifting values of inner city buyers, by revealing the price per square metre of indoor space.
Purchasers and local experts can use it to understand the true value of any property in the inner city suburbs.
This can be achieved by comparing the indoor area of a property to our benchmarks of average price per square metre by suburb.
“Our report will provide an overall price per square metre summary of terraces and townhouses by suburb; highlight the most and least affordable suburbs; and take a closer look at the cost of each room in a house. Finally, an update to our apartment index will be presented,” the report stated.
To create the index, 705 terrace, 232 townhouse and 1303 apartment sales across 31 suburbs in inner Melbourne were analysed.
All sales took place between January and December 2016. Each floor plan was manually measured to ensure accuracy, and floor areas in marketing copy were disregarded.
A terrace was defined as a house (freestanding, attached or semi-detached) of Victorian, Edwardian or Federation style.
These are mostly single storey, but several Boom-style two storey terraces or single fronted homes with rear extensions were also considered terraces.
A townhouse is any other attached or semi-detached house with a footprint over multiple floors, usually built in the last 20 years.
For all area measurements, only the internal habitable space was included. Balconies, courtyards, backyards, front yards, garages, sheds and additional storage rooms were excluded.
Tables 1 and 2 show the price per square metre of internal habitable space in terraces and townhouses respectively.
Terraces are often valued much higher than townhouses and it seems that this assumption is true.
Across the sample of 2016 sales, terraces attracted an average price premium of 52.43% over townhouses.
In terms of price per square metre, this difference is even larger at 56.98% on average.
This means that not only are terraces much more expensive than townhouses on average, they are often smaller than townhouses in total internal area.
For more information from Secret Agent, click here.
