VOICE of BYRON regular, Byron Bern, shared this article by Vivienne Pearson in domain.com.au, highlighting the increasing gap between those who can afford to live in Byron Bay and those who can’t.
Vivienne writes, “In the last 60 years, Byron Bay has morphed from an industrial whaling town to one of Australia’s most desirable destinations. Could you afford to live there?
Looking over the beach from a house valued at upwards of $18 million, real estate agent Liam Annesley answers the question clearly. “Byron Bay isn’t out of reach, not at all.
[xyz-ihs snippet=”Servo”]
His clarification sums up factors contributing to the town’s housing boom. “It depends on which position in Byron, how you classify affordable and who is buying,” he says. “If you are coming from Sydney, prices are not out of reach.”
Nor from LA, with Chris Hemsworth the latest to join the Byron Bay celebrity trend.
For locals, the story is somewhat different.
With the median price of a three-bedroom house at $938,000 and almost nothing available for under $800,000, Byron Bay is not a first-home-buyer market. Renting is similarly seeing skyrocketing prices and high demand.
The other end of the affordability equation is income, with Byron’s predominance of employment based in low-paying and heavily casualised fields, such as hospitality.
“Ten years ago, many people happily existed on a three-day a week job,” says Paul Spooner, general manager of the Byron Bay community centre. “That’s impossible now. Many young people have four or five part-time jobs just to pay for their accommodation – and that’s if they can find it.”
The shortage of accommodation in Byron Bay is partly thanks to the trend towards holiday accommodation.
With more than 2000 properties in the Byron Shire listed on Airbnb, houses are sold with the lure of turning the garage or spare bedroom into a rental, and local tenants are being evicted in favour of holiday letting.
“People are starting to factor in moving out of their homes to rent them during peak periods, like January and festival times,” says Spooner, who is also a Byron Shire councillor.
A new development in planning, West Byron, is unlikely to help. “In a new development, I’d like to see 25 to 30 per cent allocated for some level of affordable housing,” says Spooner. “We need that here desperately.”
[xyz-ihs snippet=”MCG-480w-01″]