Average Home Loan Deposit Exceeds $100,000
The barrier for first home buyers tops six figures.
By Terry Christodoulou
Tue, Apr 13, 2021 11:58am
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As record-low borrowing costs, stimulus payments and low stock levels send home prices to unprecedented heights, the average deposit required by first home buyers has topped $100,000.
Recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data has revealed the national average deposit needed to secure a mortgage is no $106,743, a 16% increase from January 2019, and the first time in Australia’s history the average deposit has exceeded $100,000.
The ACT had the largest house deposit increase since 2019, with the upfront amount required surging by 24 per cent to 117,790. NSW was just 1% behind at 23% for an average of $128,469.
The average deposit in Tasmania has climbed by 17% to $81,438 while Queensland (13%) and Western Australia (14%) sit at $95,784 and $92,784 respectively.
South Australia is the only capital city offering stable first home buying conditions with an 8% increase since 2019 to $85,710.
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A five-bedroom Palo Alto home designed by Steven Ehrlich is listed for $44 million, making it the city’s most expensive listing. Built around a dramatic concrete spine, the home features four courtyards and a pool.
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For years, tech entrepreneur Asher Waldfogel and his wife, Helyn MacLean, dreamed of building a modern house in Palo Alto, Calif.
The couple, however, worried about clashing with the Mediterranean-style architecture typically associated with their neighborhood of Old Palo Alto.
So they tapped architect Steven Ehrlich to create a design that paid homage to its surroundings with stucco, mahogany and titanium zinc cladding. They spent $20 million over several years building the house, completed in 2005.
Now looking to be closer to their adult daughter on the East Coast, they are putting the five-bedroom home on the market for $44 million—the most expensive listing in Palo Alto.
Waldfogel is an angel investor who co-founded Redback Networks, a telecommunications-equipment company. MacLean previously had a career in fundraising.
The couple purchased the roughly 0.4-acre site for $7.1 million in 2000 and demolished a circa-1930s Spanish Colonial home. The house they built pinwheels around a central staircase. It has 7,900 square feet of livable space, with four distinct courtyards and a pool.
A key feature of the home is a cast-in-place concrete wall, or spine, that is two stories high and about 80 feet long. “There’s a little bit of controlled chaos in what comes out of the form,” unlike a perfectly uniform surface, Waldfogel said. “If you want that, you do it in plastic.”
Waldfogel said he and his wife are thinking about the next phase of life now that their daughter is grown, although they have not decided where they will move. They also have a home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“Right now we’re just trying to emotionally let go and decide what to do next,” he said.
Palo Alto, an epicenter of venture capital and tech startups in Silicon Valley, is home to some of the country’s biggest tech titans. Sales volume and prices are rising, with a median sale price of $3.5 million for the three months ending in August, up 5.8% year-over-year, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin.
Arthur Sharif of Sotheby’s International Realty—San Francisco Brokerage has the listing.
