IF YOU can’t find a home in Sydney, maybe you should look in Tamworth.
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Remember when Barnaby Joyce tried to home in on a solution to purported housing crises in Sydney and Melbourne.
Go bush, he said.
Life is peaceful there.
A new report has highlighted how affordable Tamworth truly is for renters, taking into account prices and median incomes.
A Tamworth household has to bring in more than $1050 bucks to avoid housing stress with median weekly rents at $315 and medians incomes at $1163, before bills and other costs.
It has been listed as one of the most affordable local government areas in NSW.
However a number of cities have outdone the capital music capital, in terms of affordability, namely Orange, Bathurst and Wagga.
Conversations about the price of housing are completely whitewashed by the scenario in Sydney and regional areas never get a look in.
By the numbers, it is cheaper to live in Tamworth, but our pockets are barer.
The most recent census figures showed more than 6.4 per cent of locals were unemployed and a further 28.8 per cent were only working part time.
While hospitals were the town’s biggest employers, their figures were dwarfed by the combined number of people working in supermarkets, fast food and meat processing.
On top of this, we’ve seen stories in this paper recently of “metropolitan real estate investors are snapping up homes in Tamworth, sometimes only a day or two after they hit the market” and predictions a “super-charged” North Tamworth is about to see its average house price jump.
It must be hard for the 7.7 per cent of Tamworth’s population working in supermarkets, fast food and abattoirs to see a way in.
The state average for employment in the aforementioned industries is 4.4 per cent; the national average was 4.5 per cent.
Further to that, more than 900 people visited the annual homeless connect day this year looking for local support.
Relatively cheap it might be, but affordable is another question.
Is Tamworth an affordable place to live? Write a letter to the editor. Click this link to have your say.
