What is the best way to research suburbs that will experience the best growth in Melbourne? Thanks for any responses.
Chestnut32 .. Melbourne is a mixed bag of properties and interests. But seriously .. the best way to get on top of the next growth suburbs is to watch for gentrification of the suburb. I've had the privelege of seeing at least eight suburbs upgrade to gentrification and the reasons are always pretty sound.
An Example .. Brighton became too expensive for the baby Brightonites to be able to afford on their first salary without a MAJOR helping from mommy or daddy (they get that too). When its over 1.4 million they look to the next comfy suburb. So they went in all of the 3 directions surrounding Brighton. Elsternwick .. Elwood .. and Bentleigh. Most of them didnt go to Hampton because that was always considered a downgrading from Brighton. See? the reasons are sound .. and it pushed the prices of these suburbs up!
Look for things like old quality homes that smell of 70s or 80s but would be easy to fix up. Grab the local paper and look for what sort of businesses are in the area. Look for improvements in transport and valued shopping centres. New industries .. and of course .. new roadways. These things will move an area ahead and make things more desirable.
As far as growth itself goes .. dont worry about it. Seriously. If you have followed the stuff above .. growth will happen. A fresh area attracts people .. hence growth. A poorly facilitated area depreciates through stagnation.
The other thing to recognise is that property is cyclical. Eventually no matter where a property is .. as long as its in demand the property will move with demand and inflation. And fall back when it gets overpriced.
Examples of stagnation at the moment? (bear in mind we are in tough times too) Try Cranbourne for a suburb that is on the slow growth track to nowhere. Hampton Park .. loser because of the 4pm traffic jam. Also .. Ringwood is falling back .. but Mitcham is being purchased by Doncaster ppl who cant afford there anymore. So there is future pressure on Ringwood from the growth in Mitcham. Also Croydon is pumping along quite nicely. The reason is because its cheap .. affordable and easy drive to three shopping centres wihout traffic hassles.
On the topic of Croydon, one of my colleagues (let's call her Ann) had some opinions about where to buy. The area around Main Street would be justifiably popular given proximity to shops and the station, but Ann tells me to avoid this area. The area she recommends is actually north of Maroondah Highway.
In essence, you're looking for that little pocket just south of Croydon Hills, the area around McAdam Square (a quaint, village-style shopping center) and two private schools, Yarra Valley Grammer and Luther College. If you buy in this area, it'd naturally be popular with young families who have school-going kids. There's plenty more schools within easy reach of this area, including some prestigious ones in Warranwood. The blocks of land in this area are pretty sizable. A non-subdivided block will be over 850sqm, generally flat and regular also.
With the location comes a slightly higher price, and the houses in this area seem to sell for a little more than Croydon's median price. It's well worth looking into however. Before I moved out, there was a visitor to my place who commented about how surprised he was with the area: it was very nice, when he was originally expecting Croydon to be quite a dump. There's obviously good and bad pockets in most suburbs, which is where the drive through helps a lot.
Personally, I've started to look away from the landlocked suburbs and have instead cast my eyes onto the areas near the coastline and train stations. There are still reasonably affordable properties out there if you're prepared to look at places a little further out from Melbourne CBD. Frankly, I've given up buying anything within a 15-20km radius of the CBD because of my limited budget and I gather a lot of people with tight budgets must feel the same. This is where finding your own 'hotspot' comes into play, and what xdrew mentioned is very sensible. I'm much too young to know which areas have gentrified, but it's not too late to start studying.
Hi, thank you so much for the responses. Three years ago I bought a property at Campbellfield with house on 609 mt. I have been successful in now having subdivided it. I now have a block of land to sell for $160k and a house to sell for $330.000k. I am looking to do the same again. I have spoken to Hume Council who advise that there is going to be an explosion in the Hume area especially Broadmeadows, however developers have pushed the prices through the roof and horse has already bolted.
I have not researched around Croydon but will do so. I thank you for your advice regarding finding the "hotspots" and will adopt it when researching.chestnut32 wrote:Hi, thank you so much for the responses. Three years ago I bought a property at Campbellfield with house on 609 mt. I have been successful in now having subdivided it. I now have a block of land to sell for $160k and a house to sell for $330.000k. I am looking to do the same again. I have spoken to Hume Council who advise that there is going to be an explosion in the Hume area especially Broadmeadows, however developers have pushed the prices through the roof and horse has already bolted.
I have not researched around Croydon but will do so. I thank you for your advice regarding finding the "hotspots" and will adopt it when researching.Good job on that in Campbellfield. At $490K total value it's actually quite surprising and quite a high figure for the area, I would have thought. I recently changed jobs and now work in the Meadow Heights area. For sure, property prices in that area seem very reasonable although I'm not sure how the rent figures stack up. There's a couple of houses I have driven past that have signboards up, boasting something along these lines:
'Leased in 24 hours. Another wanted.'
Very impressive to get something leased in that amount of time, and if this is true then the underlying demand should be quite sound. This is considering this particular house was on a noisy main road too.
In my opinion it wouldn't be fair to say 'the horse has bolted' in these areas. Granted, they may not be as cheap as they used to be, however that doesn't mean the potential for growth is not there. Everything is expensive these days and the days of getting a decent suburban house within reasonable commuting distance of the CBD for $180K are long over. Nevertheless the things that look expensive today have the potential to become even more expensive in the future.
This is an interesting point to note, because very often we find people lamenting they should never have sold X house for Y amount of dollars in year Z, with that house now being worth much more. As with anything however, there's always opportunity cost. There is little point keeping your money tied up in an area that appears to have stagnated when you've spotted an area that has the potential to boom. Hence, the 'buy and hold' or 'never sell' strategy isn't necessarily correct. That is, unless you're so sure that your current house is in a spectacular location…
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