In Love With Little Bay

There’s something in the air at Little Bay 

There's something unique about having your own beach, surrounded by coastal golf courses and contained within a thriving new coastal community, with quality infrastructure, where properties range from $600,000 to $6,000,000. With the area flourishing more with every passing year, there are some fascinating market trends that you may be interested to hear.

Doing the numbers

The combination of record low interest rates — with the cash rate currently levelling out at 1.5 per cent — and a genuine shortage of properties to sell, has translated into a record amount of growth in the past three years in the Little Bay precinct. We can reasonably anticipate these trends to continue, with buyers coming from all over Sydney and abroad wanting to live on the southern tip of Sydney's eastern suburbs. Proof of this is in the indicator that statistically 50 per cent of Little Bay residents lived at another address five years ago — 20 per cent became residents only in the past 12 months! The south-eastern migration is a real phenomenon, with buyers looking outside of the inner eastern pockets of Sydney to secure greater value and a coastal lifestyle. 

You might call it a perfect storm in terms of the Sydney property market, and the numbers bear that out. Data suggests that median capital growth in Little Bay over the past three years has been a staggering 72 per cent for houses and 41 per cent for apartments. To put it another way — since 2013 the median value for a house has skyrocketed to the tune of an estimated $700,000 — now sitting at an unprecedented $1,775,000, which clearly represents some of the highest growth recorded throughout the wider Sydney basin. It's worth noting that most of these gains were made, as you might expect, over the peak spring selling season. However, even in the past three months as we approach the festive season we’ve still seen 3 per cent capital growth, with auction clearance rates consistently eclipsing 80 per cent — creating a smooth round-off to a truly stunning 36 month period. 

Similarly, investors and landlords have seen encouraging progress, with median rental return on houses increasing around 20 per cent in the past 12 months to finally hit the $1,000 a week mark. This represents 3 per cent yield, which can be considered a successful return on investment, especially when taking into account the growth figures above. With just under 40 per cent of all property in Little Bay marked as successfully rented it's reasonable to suggest that demand will persist well into the future. 

So what does this mean for you?

Little Bay property owners can take confidence in the value of your asset. If you’ve made the decision to buy in this vibrant and flourishing community, then it represents a savvy investment. Perhaps now is the time to start laying out a plan for the duration of your ownership. You need to have a firm grip — not only on the current market conditions, but also what might be likely to happen in the coming months. This can be intimidating work, as small adjustments in rates and policy can have considerable flow on effects. 

This is where the NG Farah Little Bay team can help you. We are the only dedicated, market leading, real estate office in Little Bay, and we're unmatched in terms of local experience and industry knowledge. A short chat to one of our friendly experts can establish all the details you need to be able to maximise the return from your investment. Armed with the right information and the help of the NG Farah Little Bay team, the future for Little Bay property owners remains bright.