Sydney prices for established homes in the more desireable suburbs have tended to increase by around 6% in the long term. After the boom in prices between 1998-2003 we've now had several years of flat prices. According to Australian Property Monitors there will be a 5% increase in property prices in the next 12 months. This agrees with the recent increases observed in average home sales prices in the two suburbs where we have our home and rental property. There have also been reports that the boom in Western Australian house prices over the past three years (driven by the commondity/mining boom) has come to an end, so I expect house prices in WA and NT to be flat or decrease in the next 12 months and house prices in Sydney to increase by more than 5% - perhaps as much as 10%. This will be good news for my net worth as DW and I have equal shares in around $1.4m of real estate with about $0.7m of mortgage debt. With a mix of variable and fixed rate loans, our overall mortgage interest rate is currently around 7.25%, so an increase in house prices of 10% would boost our home equity by 12.75%.

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