Affordability, Value, Lifestyle - Sydney Vs. Hong Kong
While Sydney locals might bemoan the high prices they are paying for their mortgages, spare a thought for those living in other cities like Hong Kong, that simply don't compare with Australia in terms of affordability, value and lifestyle.
On the back of a record run for property prices on the East Coast of Australia, many buyers and investors have started to ask whether Australian property has become too expensive.
As of April 2019, you are expected to pay around $880,594 for houses and $687,327 for apartments in Sydney.
However, when we start comparing the value of Sydney property to other leading global cities such as Hong Kong, New York, London or even Vancouver, in terms of liveability, Sydney is a star performer.
For many years, Hong Kong has been the benchmark for sky-high property values and in particular unaffordability.
The average value of a Hong Kong apartment is approximately HKD$8,000,000 or AUD$1.427 million, according to recent data.
Sydney offers a far more enticing proposition by many metrics.
In terms of affordability, the average home in Hong Kong is in fact 17-18 times the median wage, compared to Sydney, where the average house price was recorded at 9.1 times the average income.
Size wise, Sydney is also a far better deal. With the average apartment in Hong Kong coming in under 40 square metres and priced at $40,173 p/sqm.
In Australia, you wouldn’t get many studio apartments that are less than 40 square metres and most owner occupier apartments are upward of 80 square metres.
For a Sydney city apartment, you are looking at roughly $14,300 per square metre, which is nearly a third the cost of the micro-apartments in Hong Kong.
To compare the point further we only need to look at what we can get for our money when hunting for a home in either Sydney or Hong Kong.
If you’re looking for an apartment in Sydney’s upmarket Eastern Suburbs, you are going to be paying around $1.3 million to buy into a highly desirable suburb like Bondi. That will get you a two bedroom unit, close to the beach and only kilometres from the CBD.
In Hong Kong, a small flat under 40 square meters on Hong Kong Island costs an average of HK$182,000 ($32,500) per square meter, or AUD$1.3 million with a vastly different lifestyle to that of Bondi Beach.
So while Sydney locals might bemoan the high prices they are paying for their mortgages, spare a thought for those living in other cities like Hong Kong, that simply don’t compare with Australia in terms of affordability, value and lifestyle.
