Learning, Sharing, and Teaching > Real Estate and Landlording

Property in Australia

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potm:
Hello my fellow Australians,

I've noticed a distinct difference in attitudes to property on these forums and other financial sites and blogs compared to Australian specific forums when it comes to property discussion.
I thought it would be good to have a discussion on property, both for a ppor and investing with other rational mustachians instead of the heated emotional debates which usually occur.

My situation is that I'm looking for an apartment as a PPOR ideally in the Melbourne CBD. Whenever I mention this to anybody, they are always quick to tell me what a bad idea that is. That has me even more interested, the more everybody thinks it's a bad idea, the cheaper it must be and thus a better idea. Conventional wisdom is that you should invest in houses with land in desirable suburbs but of course that's where the free markets come in and price things accordingly. People don't seem to understand this though.

In terms of investing, I'm quite happy to stick to shares. I know more about them and there's a lot more information and tools available to research. Just trying to do research on apartments in the Melbourne CBD atm and am struggling to find any useful information. I wish there was some sort of database where I could download a list of all apartment buildings in the Melb CBD and filter by size and have recordings of all past sales.

It's a lifestyle consumption decision though and the biggest expense so not one that I'm taking lightly. With all this talk about new developments coming up and the glut of apartments, I figure that the next few years will present a good opportunity to acquire an apartment. Just monitoring prices from what little information is available, it seems like the last few years the prices have been pretty stagnent after a surge from 2009-2010. I am hoping that with more supply coming online that prices will decline in nominal terms and give me a better opportunity.

Any advice on researching property, specifically apartments and insights into the Melbourne apartment market would be appreciated.
Feel free to share your own situation and views regarding property.

deborah:
Where do you regard as the Melbourne CBD? This is not a trick question, as it could be the golden mile, or include Southbank, or include St. Kilda Road, or some other variation. I haven't looked into Melbourne real estate for some time, but at one stage I worked in a place on Victoria Parade, and one of my friends had a warehouse conversion they had done about a block into Fitzroy - it was one of the most beautiful homes I have ever visited. Several people I knew also lived just inside North Melbourne (a picture from their back gate included the Queen Vic Market). But none of these were in the CBD.

I do know some people who had an apartment in the golden mile, and exchanged it for another in the golden mile, because the first was too cramped, and the lift didn't work as well as it could have. The first was a conversion of a 4 story building (one apartment per floor, and the second and 8 story building (the same). Both had parking, which is somewhat rare in the smaller conversions. They had a child, and one of the problems at the time was trying to find schooling in the vicinity.

Primm:

--- Quote from: potm on September 09, 2014, 12:16:42 AM --- I wish there was some sort of database where I could download a list of all apartment buildings in the Melb CBD and filter by size and have recordings of all past sales.

--- End quote ---

=Sell&PriceMin=Any&PriceMax=Any&Type[]=Unit&BedsMin=0&BedsMax=10&BathsMin=0&BathsMax=10&CarsMin=0&CarsMax=10&Activity=0&Layout=combined&AddRecentSearch=true&MapZoom=15&MapCenter=-37.8146,144.9703]Listing of past sales of Melbourne CBD apartments.

Now, your other two wishes were...?

marty998:
Don't know too much about Melbourne, only to stay the hell away from Docklands.

Up here the rule was to invest where the Chinese are buying. Now that the Chinese are buying everywhere it doesn't hold as true anymore!

You are right though, the best time to buy is when everyone says not to. Watch out for strata fees - the new high rises will crucify you with fees for pools, gyms, spas, 24/7 security guards, lifts and management fees.

HappierAtHome:
I live in an apartment on the edge of the Perth CBD, so I'm commenting on the apartment versus house issue rather than the 'is an apartment a decent investment' issue. Personally I don't think any real estate in Aus is a fantastic investment right now.

Things that bother me about living in an apartment in the CBD:
Family/friends can't just park in the driveway/on the front verge. It's paid parking with a two hour max stay outside my building, six days a week. That's if there's any parking available in the first place.
The walk to and from your car bay may be surprisingly long. This is only an issue for me when I'm carrying something awkward or heavy, but YMMV.
If your neighbours smoke on their balconies (or inside their apartments with the windows open) and your windows are open, it will be like there's someone smoking right inside your lounge room.
Limited ability to garden.
Limited ability to be outside without being visible to neighbours (I miss being able to sit in the backyard in PJs with my morning coffee, sigh).
Drying clothes is harder.
DIY stuff is harder because you typically don't have a big enough outdoor space to build furniture etc.
If you have kids / plan on having them, it's really annoying to get prams etc in and out of an apartment building compared to a house.
People use your building's free visitor bays as their all-day parking while they're at work (seriously, I see people drive in to our visitor bays, go to work in the city and then come back and collect their car at the end of the day - so not cool. This generally means there are no visitor bays for my visitors during the week).
Strata fees are a bitch and our strata is useless as anything.
Lift works maybe 70% of the time.

Things that are completely amazing and so worth the above listed negatives:
Short commute, short commute, short commute.
Close to all possible amenities, including infrequent but cool things like fancy takeaway, or being walking distance from home at the end of a big night.
You can walk everywhere! Well, a lot of places.
When you do have to go out to the 'burbs, it's a relatively short trip by car or public transport.
In Perth, the central suburbs have free public transport.
Very little maintenance work / gardening.

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