Geraldton home buyer takes punt on travel rebound

It might seem counter-intuitive to buy a property during a global pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped Lucie Taylor from taking the plunge. “Anytime you buy, you take a risk,” she said. For her, the current climate is perfect to build capital. “There will always be people who sit on their hands,” Ms Taylor said. She has plans to use her new Mount Tarcoola property as a bed and breakfast and said she was confident about Geraldton’s future as a tourist hotspot. “We’re in a prime position as people start to discover the north,” she said. Buying might also be a smart move for first-homebuyers. National property researcher Risk House released figures on Monday suggesting principal and interest repayments in Western Australia were lower than annual rent, given buyers could put down a 20 per cent deposit. In other words, their research indicated buying might be cheaper than renting in many cases. “In many areas, rent money is dead money, (and) renters with secure jobs are better off buying a house than continuing to pay somebody else’s mortgage,” CEO Doron Peleg said. Ray White Geraldton principal Peter Sukiennik said it was not that simple and was a “fallacy” to suggest renting was generally more expensive than buying. “It really depends on how much money you have,” he said. Mr Sukiennik said it was a great time to buy in Geraldton because house prices and interest rates were low.