Can anyone tell me if the hype about Hervey Bay is justified?
Having done some research, Hervey Bay is known as the fastest growing city with a massive boom in population. I took a few days off and visited the area. Evidence of new developments in the Esplanade are present and so are the massive sub-divisioning areas (what's going on there?) The beaches are pretty but no surf and no swimming is possible at low tide…can this really be deeemd as the next "Noosa??"
While housing affordability is great and evidently, people are moving to HB, what do people actually do for work there??
On the flip side, is Redcliffe/Scarborough QLD, where I stopped on the way back to Brisbane from Hervey Bay. With it's proximity to the CBD, limited areas of building and house pricing, is it the better option for investment??
I am seriously looking for an investment property and so any (unbiased) feedback would be very much appreciated.
I have lived in hervey bay for ummmmm…. 19 years now…
Basically its a old age retirement city, Hervey bay has huge unemployment problems and there is basically no jobs…
The few jobs that are available are the $300 a week jobs at Big W and Mc Donnalds. Basically the economy runs off a little bit of Tourism and the Building Industry which is going to S^%% right now, I work in the Trade…
Struggling to find work all the time now, It never used to be like this… Everyone else is basically in the same vote, Prices are not increasing and in a lot of cases decreasing…
I remember working on Peppers Pier Resort, They where trying to sell units from 500k up to over 1.2M or something like that…. Ive seen prices of them being discounted many hundreds of thousands in order to sell them… Considering it was the biggest and "best" resort ever in the Bay… Shows where things are headed…
Many builders are building half the houses they used to… in some cases less… There has been more then one builder go bankrupt here in the past year or so… and I know of many more in very tight positions… Even long established Quality builders who have worked here for over 20 years are feeling the pain and being forced to fire very high quality staff like Building Supervisors and Office workers.. ect…
There is still dozens of houses at all stages of completion at Toogoom where RPC went bust… no one wants to take over the houses to complete them…
Prices can't stay at there current levels for much longer when a good dose of reality and oversupply kicks in.
G'day HK,
To an extent, I agree with Hbbehrendorff.
Hervey Bay offers great housing value for home buyers, but can be a little bit less rewarding for job seekers. Rental returns are fairly poor but there has been steady capital growth in the area.
There are a lot of oldies living in Hervey Bay who are pretty good at counting their money. So there is not a lot of money flowing into the local economy.
If flight services at Hervey Bay airport expand and includes regular flights from Cairns etc, then maybe the place will liven up.
Hervey Bay is a relatively safe area for family and kids and has some great fishing areas. Housing at River Heads also offers some cheap views to Fraser Island.
I have started getting curious about properties at Redcliffe as I think they will offer better capital growth than Hervey Bay. Value for money though, Hervey Bay is definitely worth a look.
Best of luck with it.
Hi Hk
Two years ago my husband and I went to Hervey Bay to look at property. I was six months pregnant at the time. I remember going to get a massage and the woman doing the massage asked me whether I was in HB to look at property! When the masseuse assumes that a six month pregnant woman is there to look at property, that suggests to me that everyone is there to look at property.
I had been living in Darwin, which was roughly the same size as Hervey Bay, yet the HB real estate pages were at least 10 times as thick.
I can't speak for the HB market at the moment but I can say that two years ago it was very overheated. I expect that, as the market has dropped back now, overheated markets would have dropped back even further.
I didn't buy anything in HB at the time but would probably buy there sometime in the future. However, before I buy, I will study the market for quite a while to see exactly what is going on behind all the hype.
Cheers
K
Thanks guys for the feedback…any opinions about the new marina as well as the upcoming area "Mariners Cove" with new golf course, schools and shops? I would only be interested in buying new property (land and package). HK
G'day HK
I don't believe that work has started yet at the Marina. The current Marina is operational though. There has been talk over the years of a few different developments near the marina including a small casino. There is further talk about a Marina at River Heads. I am unsure if that will go ahead. I have heard that the developer has a lease for the marina precinct at River Heads.
Mariners Cove contains some nice houses and appears to have some reasonably sized blocks. It is a newly developed site and some of the surrounding land is at risk during tidal surge/ flood etc.
As Hbbehrendorff stated, the once nice area of Toogoom is now a bit of a ghetto with cheap, unfinished housing estates. The cramped little blocks in the estate have drawn some interesting tenants to the area.
The suburbs of Craignish and Dundowran offer some established properties with a bit of left over land.
Best of luck HK
Yes, I remember when eli waters was flooded many many years ago…. Its amazing how the peoples memory is short and they continue to build.
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