The housing market in Dubbo is strong, despite potentially negative influences like the drought, says the Real Estate Institute of NSW-Orana Division.
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Core Logic real estate data shows the median house price for Dubbo was $372,000 in the 12 months to November 2019.
REI NSW-Orana chairperson Adam Wells said the median house price, combined with a total of 776 sales for the year, showed the strength of the Dubbo market.
"The house price has moved between $370,000 to $375,000 in the last year, despite the drought, the election, the royal commission - all of the factors that might have affected the market," Mr Wells said.
"That's important because it shows the stability."
It's also a good sign for people looking to invest in Dubbo.
"In the investment market you're competing with all of Australia. Every major agent in Dubbo managing residential properties would have investors from every state and territory on their books," Mr Wells said.
And each investment has a flow-on effect.
"If it's invested here it's managed here so it employs people in that office, there's a receptionist, it gives work to the tradespeople in town as well. It's such a huge impact, it's not just the one sale," Mr Wells said.
Based on figures calculated from REI NSW- Orana using the Core Logic data, the one year investment return for a Dubbo house is 6.9 per cent, while the average return for five years is 8.54 per cent.
In addition to the 776 houses sold in the 12 months, there have also been an additional 32 units sold. Each of those sales has also had an impact on the greater Dubbo economy, Mr Wells said.
The REI NSW-Orana chairperson said while it was hard to know what the coming year would bring, he expected the market stability to continue into 2020.
"Sydney is a boom/bust market because its population grows so quickly. Dubbo is the opposite. We can chug along even if the tough times," he said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if this time next year the median house price is not much different. It might have just gone up by two per cent.
"I think to know what's going to happen in the future we look at what's going to happen in the past. I think we've got good demand, there's incentive for investors and there's low rental vacancy rates."