How far would you drive for $258,000?
For Department of Immigration director and father of four John Brown the answer is 40km a day to work.
Two years ago he bought an 1100sqm block for $76,000 in Yass after pricing a block half that size in Canberra at $334,000. He has built a six-bedroom home and catches up on phone calls in the car on the daily drive home from work.
Yass Real Estate principal Michael Gray said as well as first-home buyers other Canberrans already in the property market were selling and buying $500,000 homes in Yass to escape hefty mortgage repayments.
Mr Brown, whose wife, Tarin, is a nurse in Yass, said, ''Out here you have everything you need; the kids are all in sport, it's a great lifestyle.''
Ray White Real Estate Goulburn principal Brian Walkom said Canberra buyers accounted for 20 per cent of the agency's sales in certain months. ''They're usually either young people who can buy for what rent would cost them over there [in Canberra], or they have a connection, a friend lives here,'' he said.
The median price for a three-bedroom home in Goulburn was $220,000 on a 600sqm or 700sqm block.
Braidwood First National Real Estate sales manager Bryce McMurtrie said younger couples' willingness to commute for affordable rental homes showed the extent of pressure on the Canberra rental market.
''We had a couple move in the other day, only last week, desperate to find a house and couldn't get one [in Canberra],'' he said.
A three-bedroom home in Braidwood rented for $240 to $260 a week.
Four-bedroom homes rented for $380 to $400 a week.
Bungendore, like Canberra, was becoming out of reach for many renters.
Mr McMurtrie said Canberra and Sydney buyers had long been driving sales in Braidwood, although there had been fewer from Sydney lately.
A three-bedroom, heritage weatherboard home on an 800sqm block ranged from $320,000 to $380,000.
A full-brick heritage home on a bigger block was in the mid-$400,000 range. ''You find a lot of 1000sqm blocks in Braidwood and some up to 2000sqm blocks,'' Mr McMurtrie said.
But Raine and Horne Cooma agent Don Menchin said Canberra drained surrounding towns of young people and few came back for affordable homes.
Australian Tax Office information technology officer Bernard Martin's car pool of five leaves Goulburn at 7.50am for the 50-minute journey to Civic and leaves at 4.50pm for the trip home.
He bought a four-bedroom home in Goulburn in 2003 for $210,000 and upgraded to a larger four-bedroom home, 10 minutes from the central business district in 2007 for $300,000.
At the time an equivalent home at Banks or Dunlop cost about $450,000.
''Financially we are streets ahead. It's far better than renting a shoebox ex-govvie in Deakin,'' he said.
''Home prices, rates, registration are substantially cheaper, even stamp duty is less.''