Sydney, the most populous city in Australia, voted one of the most livable cities in the world and also the most expensive for houses and apartments. This is more so evident in the North Shore which generally covers all the suburbs North of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The region is safe, surrounded by beautiful national parks, big luxurious family homes and some of the best private schools in Australia which makes it very attractive to affluent new immigrants and young families.
My name is Gerard Dallow, and I represent Micropest Pest Control Sydney. Having worked and lived on Sydney’s North Shore for twenty-five years in the pest and termite control industry, I am well-versed in assisting newcomers from overseas and interstate. Often, I am their first point of contact for termite and pest inspections. One frequent question I encounter is: Why are houses on Sydney’s North Shore so expensive?
Houses in Sydney’s North Shore have always been expensive and over the last 25 years have consistently increased in value more so during and after Covid because of bad publicity about poor quality apartment construction, more space after lock down, favourable capital gains and the successful way the N.S.W government handled Covid attracted a lot of overseas buyers. High demand has pushed up the prices sky high and is still climbing.
Living in a house with a garden for a lot of people around the world is like a dream come true. Many of my new clients have lived in apartments all their lives. The first thing they notice is how much work there is to maintain a house and garden. Secondly, the exorbitant amount of money to pay for that upkeep and lastly, they go into complete melt down when they see a cockroach, spider or rats.
The North Shore surrounded by National Parks also has the highest percentage of tree canopy in Sydney which brings with it a lot of natural wildlife unlike any other country in the world. Wallabies, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets, bush turkeys, snakes, bandicoots, echidnas, possums, rats and many different species of lizards. Combine this with all the different species of spiders such as the most dangerous spiders in the world, the Sydney Funnel Web Spider, Redback Spiders and Whitetail Spiders. It’s enough for house owners to sell up and move back to apartment living.
And there’s more. One and three houses in the region get infested by termites and require expensive termite control treatments. Thirty percent of the houses have concealed termite damage that no one knows about until a building renovation is carried out. This makes an annual termite inspection essential and a pest control treatment is strongly recommended to keep the spiders and cockroaches at bay.
As a resident of the North Shore of Sydney for twenty-five years I tell all the newbies its not all doom and gloom just stick with it. In my experience it takes an average newbie two years to adjust to their new living environment after which they would not want to live anywhere else on the planet. Sydney’s North Shore—a place that truly becomes home.