Looking for somewhere to rent or buy in Blayney?
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Well, join the queue because Blayney is experiencing a housing shortage unlike any that it has seen for years.
Lucy Nell from Ray White Emms Mooney said that normally there would be one or two people at an average open house in Blayney, but that number has exploded.
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"It has just gone ballistic," she said.
"At a recent open house we had 18 groups come through and five of them had finance organised and were ready to pay more than the asking price."
Ms Nell believes that in Blayney low interest rates are allowing families to purchase their first home for less than they would be paying in rent, however the rental market is also extremely short on listings.
Cathy Smith from Blayney Real Estate said that they have had no rentals listed for nearly three months and Blayney was very popular for people looking for a quieter place to live than Orange or Bathurst.
"There's a lot of construction going on around the region at the moment and they're looking to live somewhere central like Blayney while working elsewhere," she said.
With vacancy rates for rental properties in Orange down to just one per cent, those looking for a property are also heading to Blayney in droves, looking to either rent, or purchase their first property.
Mrs Smith said their main enquiries have come from families with young children or retirees looking for a quiet life, but had been expecting this to happen for quite some time.
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"We've been talking about this for nearly two years, it's going to get worse and I don't know what we can do about it," she said.
Blayney mayor Scott Ferguson said that there was certainly a wave of development and interest in real estate underway in Blayney, but it's not a new phenomenon.
"Historically there's always been a shortage of rentals in Blayney because we have a lot of long term renters in town that don't move," he said.
"But with pressure coming from Orange and Bathurst it is making it much more difficult at the moment."
Cr Ferguson believes that within 12 months the situation may begin to ease as new developments are released.
"The new development on Athol Street will release new blocks onto the market in the new year," he said.
HAVE YOUR SAY:
Have you been impacted by a shortage of housing in Blayney?
Mark Logan
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
