South Yarra is certinly as blue chip as they come. The suburb does vary considerably however, for example Darling Street is full of low rise apartments, and has a high renter population. Many other apartments in other parts of SY tend to more OO, for example Avoca At which is the next Street south parallel to Darling. Just get to know the area, so you get what you want.

Hi all,
I would be interested in starting an investment…..”gathering” or “group” in Melbourne. I am 27 and have a fairly extensive share portfolio. I am learning about residential property and have a fair idea where/what i want to buy in a few years time, i.e. once the pent up issues in the Australin economy are sorted out. There is no reason why the group needs to focus solely on residential property, there are opportunities everywhere.

Ahhh one of my favourite suburbs Footscray. I love going there to eat or shop…..however, you must ask yourself…if these reasons to invest are really valid for property prices in Footscray

1) “close promitiy to the CBD”….but Yarraville has “gentrified” and Footscray shows little sign of doing so. Simply put, and not being racist, but “Australians” like every nationality i have encountered are pretty racist. They dont want to go down to their local shops and see Minh Phat bakery, they want to see people (looking) like them, selling products they know. Ok big sweeping statement which isn’t always true, but let’s face it, it often is true and often enough to effect property prices significantly. Look at all suburbs with significant non white Aussie populations, they are all low property prices. Let me be straight here, i would live in Footscray but i am not a sheltered middle class wannabe (the people who are likely to “gentrify”) i.e. the people you would be hoping to rent or buy your property at a higher price than me.

2) Crime…..no one cares about crime in Collingwood or St Kilda, or even the CBD for that matter, so i am not sure how much this effects the current market prices.

If you want to live there and like the area then go for it, it certainly is cheap, but the road to capital gains may prove a long one….

Indeed your synicism is well founded. Nobody can predict how assets prices will change in the future, especially for residential property which at a broad level is basically driven by income growth and interest rates (and credit conditions). Most measures suggest that property is “overvalued” still, this of course doesn’t imply that it can’t get more overvalued soon, but the medium/long term future trends are dictated by macroeconomics as much as anything else, and Australia’s macro outlook isn’t strong and won’t look strong until we have some serious depreciation in our currency and i suggest this isn’t coming anytime soon…

Hi,
Have you read my thread called “hotel rooms”? I discuss some issues about these apartments there.

In terms of finance, depending on how much the 15% is in $ terms, consider a new credit card. Provded your cacpacity to service is ok, you should be able to get 10-? k limit, simply cash advance the amount required and rollover the debt amount to another card operater every six month to take advantage of the low intro rates that just about every institution offers. I did the same when starting out with shares a few years back, i recall paying 4-6 % for a few years on the balance with various institutions. Not only is there potential for lower lending rates, you also get the cash very quickly.

Good luck with it