The high cost of buying on Melbourne's fringe revealed
Buying a house in Melbourne’s outer suburbs could cost as much as $12,000 extra per year just from driving into the city for work, 7News Investigations reveals.
An average motorist driving 40 kilometres into the city each working day incurs extra costs including tolls, fuel, car depreciation and parking, which adds up to a large sum of money for families living on the fringe.
Residents of Lilydale commuting into the city are paying almost $10,000 extra per year for their lower cost house in the outer suburb, and residents of Sunbury can spend almost $11,000 because of the commute to work.
People travelling to work from their Narre Warren home are spending nearly $12,000 per year, while a Werribee resident driving into the city for work is $8,500 out of pocket.
For the England family, who have two cars and two kids, the costs quickly adds up to $603 dollars per week, which equates to $27,000 per year – the same as their mortgage repayment.
The Englands love their neighbours, the space and outdoor lifestyle on offer in their estate, but with 328 families moving to the outer suburbs every week the commute is set to become far worse.
But there's hope for Mark and Jeanette, with improvements to public transport promised for their neighbourhood.
“We need to get this city moving, we need to either get people from suburban housing into city centre jobs, or another way to do this is to transfer city centre jobs to the suburbs,” Demographer Bernard Salt said.
