Ep 73. End Of 2025
Welcome to the final episode of the year! 2025 has been a wild ride for buyers, and I’m here to share what’s happened and what’s ahead.
Here’s what you’ll learn from today’s episode:
Sydney prices jumped again — houses up $121k, units up $52k
What your budget really buys in the Inner West vs St George
Why location trumps everything (and why St George is worth a look)
Strata dramas: don’t skip the report, ever
2025 in review: queues, competition, and vendor-friendly clearance rates
What 2026 could bring — lending limits, interest rate pressure, and maybe a cooler market.
Speakers in today’s episode:
Michelle May - Michelle May Buyers Agents
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Please note that any views or opinions presented in this podcast are solely those of the speakers, and do not necessarily represent those of any business. These views and opinions are general in nature, and do not take account of your personal objectives, financial situation and needs. Please consider whether it applies in your circumstances and seek professional advice wherever appropriate.
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Michelle May
Hello and welcome to the Buy Your Side Podcast, the property podcast to help you make smarter property buying decisions. As I snuggle into this sofa here, this is my last episode for the year. We've made it, we've made it to the end of the year. Have you bought? Have you bought yet? Or are you just starting your property journey? Let me give you my two cents worth of what I think is ahead and just a review of this year. I just wanted to share this article with you. It's the 2nd of December today, but this article came out yesterday in the Daily Telegraph, Sydney house prices soar by 121,000 amid controversial first home buyer scheme.
Are we surprised? I'm not. I mean, anybody who knows anything about economics 101 knew that this was going to happen, right? Sydney home prices have lurched higher again, sending homeowner wealth soaring, whilst aspiring buyers have been left scrambling to simply get a foot on the bottom run of the ladder.
New prop track figures revealed city house prices have grown $121,500 the past year, whilst unit prices are $52,500 more expensive.
Jeez, that's a lot, isn't it? I mean, who can make that kind of money in a year, really? These rises followed a 0.4% average rise in Sydney prices over November, which pushed up total annual growth to 7%. A typical city house now costs about $1.62 million, up from just over $1.5 million at this time of the year, whilst the median unit price is $883,000 a rise from $830,500 a year ago.
So let me first of all tell you what you can buy for that, where a typical city house now costs $1.62 million, you can't really buy a decent house for that in the Inner West. I wouldn't take you on as a client to be honest with that kind of a budget because the house would be severely compromised in one way or another and that would be a really bad investment. With $883,000 unit price, you can probably buy a one bedroom apartment for that in Ashfield. Two bedders are going for $1.2 million dollars if it's Art Deco $1.4-$1.5 million dollars. You can probably buy something great in the St. George area of Sydney for $883,000, which is a lovely area, by the way. I reckon that is my first tip of this episode.
Check out the St. George area. Great connectivity. The city is still, if you have to get to your work, it's got train lines, lovely little village hubs, room for growth, capital growth, because people are being pushed out of the Inner West and are moving down. This is one of the biggest areas that we have started buying more and more in as buyers agents. My team and I really like that area. It's, you know, regenerating, reinvigorating and gentrifying. That's my one tip in this episode, If you are looking in the Inner West but you can't quite afford it, do not compromise on the quality of the location because you can't change that, you can change everything else just not the location and also buying into a shitty complex is just going to be the worst of all, so consider moving down to the St George area.
On that topic of shitty strata's I spoke to an old client the other day, and I'm hoping she's going to come on the podcast next year to talk about it, but she's just had a horrendous experience in a strata complex and yeah I think that if you are going to be moving into strata, there was also in the media the other day there's more and more strata complexes and committees taking each other to court because of disputes so do not skip the strata report if you're looking to buy a unit or a townhouse it is absolutely vital
I recently went to auction for a young couple and it was a complex of three where unit 1 didn't get on with unit 3 and they were you know argy-barging and unit 3 it was also argy-barging with the complex over the back fence and it was just like it was like sons and daughters, I don't know if you're old enough to remember that, but soap wise, it wasn't good. Anyway, we managed just to get to the nitty-gritty of it, I literally just ended up knocking on people's doors and asking, hey, what's the tea?
Anyway, it was all fine in the end, but I was just making sure that you know exactly what's going on in the strata, and if that means knocking on people's doors, then so be it. It's a lot of money to drop for, you know, ending up in a disastrous community where people don't like each other.
So just a bit of a segway there, 2025 what a year, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. This year has been an emotional roller coaster for my clients. The market has just been nuts as this article agrees. Growth has just been ridiculous and it's just been extremely hard for buyers to get into the market. Whilst there was perceived a bit of relief coming from the government in my opinion, It's great that people now have that option if they didn't previously have an option to get into the market with a smaller deposit, but it has also meant that it's costing them more money in real terms to buy in, right? It's a race to the $1.5m, effectively. Who gets there first buys it.
I've had months and months of queuing to get into inspections, to see properties on weekends, if it was in the $1.2 million to $1.5 million dollar bracket and I don't think that's going to ease in the new year.
Cleanance rates are, you know, regularly into the 70 percentile which means it's a vendor's market and so as a buyer you're sort of at a disadvantage shall I say, but for 2026, what's going to happen? Now, don't give up before you've started. If you are on your property buying journey, 2026 might bring you a little bit of relief, I think. Yes, that first home, you know, 5% deposit scheme isn't helping your cause. If you're above that, obviously, it's not really hugely relevant to you. Although I would say that those that are selling sub $1.5 million dollars, they're going to be competing with you in that next bracket up, and so there may be a little bit more competition. We have certainly seen that, but one announcement that is going to put a little bit of a dampener on things I'm hoping is the announcement from APRA that from February next year, 2026, they will limit the conventional banks and conventional lenders to a maximum of 20% of their lending that they're doing to borrowers that need a multiple of six or more, therefore, they are asking them to be more conservative when it comes to lending so that section of the bracket of the market are people who are more highly leveraged.
So that means that you know people are going to come out with less money that they can borrow. To add to that, we've got now murmurs of you know the RBA potentially putting interest rates up and not down again because of inflation so that means again people are going to be able to borrow less than previously and I think that is going to keep price rises down somewhat and hopefully that's just going to take that little bit of heat of the market out because obviously when buyers leave the market there's less competition and so you don't have that fierce you know the FOMO and bid, bid, bid and boom, there's a crazy record price again.
Unfortunately, we're not seeing the new supply of properties and homes that the government's saying, yes, let's build, build, build. I am not seeing the new developments at the rate that the government wants to see them. So supply is still an issue in the Inner West of Sydney for sure.
It's a problem, I'd say, but on a different tangent here, it's a real issue that people are holding onto properties for 20 plus years and leaving them sitting empty, not renting them out, not selling them.
I live in the inner west of Sydney and in my street alone there's two houses like that, that have been empty for a very long time and they're not even available for tenants. So I think that it would make more sense for the government to actually do something about those issues as well as trying to just build, build, build.
If you are looking to purchase next year, just be mindful that if you are attracted to the newer complexes, the newer apartments, the higher density areas, there is an episode for you coming out about how density will affect your potential capital growth, etc and what to look out for, but I would say that obviously you're going to have more choice. There's more units being built than houses. That continues to be the case and land is limited, the only way is up, but just be careful that obviously you don't overspend. You do your research. You're going to have more choice, which is great. But just make sure that you actually know what it is you're buying into.
If you are unsure on what to look for in the Strata report on how to speak to agents, go back to my older episodes, I'm addressing all of these issues there, but if you have a question, by all means, send it to me on hello@buyyourside.com.au or reach out via Facebook Instagram TikTok and all of those forms. Like and follow, please, if you like this episode and the other ones you may have listened to before.
Share with your mates, with your family and friends, because, you know, they might get something out of it too. I think 2026 is going to be a better year for buyers. Fingers crossed and if you need any help, let me know. Thanks for listening and I hope you have a great break.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I've got something exciting coming out next year, which I can't fully tell you about, but I've been working on for a very long time. It's a way to work with me live, get more knowledge, work your way through getting you completely ready and utterly knowledgeable on how to purchase by yourself successfully, not get led up the garden paths and watch this space. I will tell you more very soon.