Nearly three times as many people bought their first home in Tamworth in 2021, compared to 2020, in an unprecedented housing boom.
The state government statistics cover the 2021 financial year, which ran from June 2020 to June 2021.
Just 35 people claimed the grant in 2020.
Local real estate agents told the Leader the statistics square with their experience of the city’s biggest housing boom in decades.
Ray White principal Malcolm Campbell said the statistic was also reflected in other sections of the market, like investors and upsizers.
“There’s a lot of investors out there at the moment, simply for the fact that money’s cheap,” he said.
“On the back of COVID people are starting to reassess their lives and where they’re at and what they want to achieve, which is then also driving the market in respect of people saying … we always contemplated about having a bigger block for kids, well blow it, let’s do it now.”
He said a combination of record low interest rates and lockdown-enforced savings had put homebuying in range of more people than ever before.
Burke and Smyth director Jason Wherritt said the homebuying boom can continue, if the city can resolve supply constraint issues.
“I think it can [continue]. The only issue we have now is supply issues. So we don’t have a banked-up volume of properties that we did have [last year] probably from the effects of the drought, when the market was slower,” he said.
“So, I would imagine a lot of agencies are the same as us at the moment, where stock levels are low. Hence why the building game is also so active now. Buyers don’t have much to choose from at the moment so they’re choosing to go down the line of building a home. But I think the demand will continue for a while, interest rates are still low.”
The state government’s First Home Owner Grant Scheme pays a new homebuyer $10,000 for buying a newly-built home.
The busiest months for buying were November 2020, and February and May 2021 – a dozen homes were sold in each of those months.
All told, the state government gave $880,000 to local homebuyers through the scheme in 2021.
Just 57 people claimed it in 2019, 67 in 2018 and 69 in 2017.
It was a similar story in Armidale. The government recorded 32 home sales funded through the scheme in 2021 in the city’s 2350 postcode, compared to 16 in 2020, 26 in 2019, 15 in 2018 and 18 in 2017.
In Gunnedah, 19 house sales were covered by the scheme in 2021, a huge jump from just six in 2020, 4 in 2019, 12 in 2018 and 9 in 2017.
The boom appears to be a mostly regional phenomenon, with statewide figures remaining relatively flat. Across the state, the scheme helped fund the purchase of 7,751 homes in 2021, compared with 6772 in 2020. There were more first homes purchased in NSW in 2017, 9130, and 2018, 8900.
Source: Cessnock Advertiser