Now, more than ever, property buyers are seeking affordable options.

First-home buyers are finding it harder to get into the market – through the combination of higher prices AND higher interest rates which reduce their borrowing capacity.

Investors, too, are chasing more affordable options, because they also face the difficulty of higher interest rates and lower borrowing capacity pushing them into lower price brackets.

There is also the yield factor. Properties in the lower price ranges have higher rental yields than more expensive properties – and that’s increasingly important in times of higher interest rates and the greater difficulty in achieving a cashflow-positive or cashflow-neutral position.

Contrary to the image created by dishonest politicians and shallow media, the typical property investor is an average family on an average income, seeking to invest to improve the family’s financial security and provide for their kids’ future.

Many investors are looking for property below $500,000, because they can’t afford to buy in higher price brackets.

So the objective is, perhaps, a property priced in the $400,000s, with a rental yield of maybe 6%, in a location that has solid prospects for capital growth.

The good news is that this remains very achievable. You just need to know where to find those low-price high-growth opportunities.

And that makes our Cheapies with Prospects reports so valuable to real estate consumers.

We have two reports under the Cheapies banner – a City edition and a Regional edition.

And they focus on locations which can provide properties in those more affordable price brackets in locations that also offer good capital growth prospects because the local infrastructure is good and there are good employment prospects in the area.

It’s one of the fallacies of real estate that you have to buy expensive, so-called prime property to get the best capital growth rates.

You don’t. You can achieve some of the best capital growth rates in the cheaper areas, because their affordability attracts high demand, particularly in those precincts where there are also good amenities, transport options and proximity to major employment zones.