Act quickly when buying a home in fast-selling Canberra suburbs

Buyers looking to purchase a home in certain suburbs need to act fast. On average the time to sale for a home in Canberra and Greater Queanbeyan is 62 days but some suburbs fall vastly below this benchmark.

Based on sales over the first 10 months of the year only three suburbs had an average time to sale of less than four weeks. This is the indicative time scale for an auction campaign, indicating many of the transactions were sold at auction. The time to sale is based upon the average of when a home was listed for sale on allhomes.com.au to the time marked as sold.

Homes in Lyneham are snapped up quicker than anywhere else in the region. Family homes on average spent 24 days on the market. This prime real estate is clearly creating fierce competition between buyers. This single insight should boost the confidence for any prospective Lyneham vendor. Over the first 10 months of the year seven out of 10 homes sold successfully under the hammer. With the median sale price at $773,000, the area is certainly not attracting the price-conscious buyer.

The second-fastest selling home market was Pearce, with homes spending on average 26 days on the market, closely followed by Aranda at an average of 27 days. The median price of both Pearce and Aranda sit significantly above the current median house price of $631,500 for the region. The median price for homes in Pearce, based on properties sold during the first 10 months of the year, was $775,000. Homes in Aranda demanded an even higher price at $882,500.

Despite the fact not a single Queanbeyan suburb made it into the top 10 fastest selling home markets, the Canberra suburbs that did make the list were spread across Canberra. In joint fourth place, with the time to sale at 28 days, were Holder and Macquarie, followed by Cook at 29 days. Out of the top 10 suburbs Cook had the lowest median sale price at $626,375. Duffy came in at seventh place with homes selling on average in 32 days. Homes in Hackett and O’Connor were joint eighth, with an average path to sale of 33 days. Palmerston completed the top 10 fastest-selling markets with homes taking on average 34 days to sale.

According to the latest data from Allhomes the demand for homes has eased annually but it is evident in certain suburbs competition between buyers is rife.

Nicola Powell is a property expert for Allhomes. Twitter: @DocNicolaPowell. The MIX106.3 Real Estate Show, Saturdays 9-10am.