THE skyrocketing cost of fuel is forcing local families living far away from their nearest town centres to sell up and move closer to where they work.
One such family are the Jovanovics of Lower Portland
who are letting go of their idyllic home on the banks of the Hawkesbury River.
“It’s an absolute shocker with fuel costs because you actually need to make a lot more money each week to pay for fuel so it’s no longer practical for us to live 45 minutes from town,” Bobby Jovanovic, a computer company employee, told The Gazette.
“I travel nearly 1000 kilometres every week to get to work at Homebush, spend $35 a day for petrol and $20 on toll fees.
“We love our home but the cost of petrol is getting worse, so if we live in town we’d be saving money because I’d be taking the train to work which would only cost me $40 a week,” Mr Jovanovic said.
His wife Jennifer went back to work part-time to help pay rising mortgage costs and bills but their income has not improved either.
“I don’t see my money at all,” Mrs Jovanovic, an employee at UWS-H, said.
“The day I get paid, the money is gone for petrol, childcare for my kids and bills.”
Local real estate agents agree it makes a lot of sense if families are opting to live closer to where they work due to escalating petrol prices. However, they warned that if the demand for housing near town centres also escalates, it will further push up property prices, particularly rental homes within walking distance to public transport.
KPMG demographer Bernard Salt recently made a forecast that property values around Sydney would rise further in the next decade particularly for properties near train stations or within less than 30 minutes drive to work.
The housing trend in Sydney reverberates in the Hawkesbury, but according to Michael Bennett of Bennett Property, “it’s happening from East Kurrajong to Richmond and Windsor”.
“I’ve just come from a property in East Kurrajong because they are selling up to move closer to town, having four kids in school and working, so they are travelling at least 10 times everyday on average,” Mr Bennett said.
The Hawkesbury is also one of the areas near Sydney where houses prices at the bottom end of the market are still relatively low.
Starr Partners North Richmond agent Catherine McManus revealed they have doubled their sales figures compared to the same period last year with their recent buyers unmindful of rising petrol prices and interest rates.
“Those people who are coming out this way are not worrying about petrol prices at all,” Mrs McManus said. “They’re coming to live here because of the lifestyle that the Hawkesbury can offer to families and it will always be that way.
For the Saunders family, their new home on a two-and-a-half-acre block in Glossodia is a dream come true so they can bring up baby Hunter in an environment where there is plenty of room to “ride a horse and have chooks, to grow vegetables and fruits and have privacy from neighbours”.
“It’s the lifestyle we came here for, so the distance and travelling was not an issue at all,” Michael Saunders, a builder, said.
Georgina is a horticulturist and landscaper who now has plans to work from home where the open space is ample to sample some of her landscape designs.
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