newstoall

Very interesting street

Currently, there is a slack in the sale. Not sure how long the situation will last but guess everything will be rooted in the basic
- whether the people want to live there
- whether the return can be justified in rent and capital appreciation -- I am more concerned about the rent

It is official now(date: April 19th, 2010) that Burwood East area has higher growth in percentage than Doncaster East, Richmond even Burwood and certainly higher than Melbourne Metro areas

Check : http://data1.reiv.com.au/trendchart/default.aspx

Compare using the percentage. Higher percentage means when you port the money a couple of years ago in these above areas, you get more capital gain.

We can reasonable believe that despite the potential of over valued issues in other areas, Burwood East will be able to withheld correction later on due to its easy to rent status.

Discussion
I noticed that the price of Burwood East is *much more* undervalued compared with Doncaster and Doncaster East.
1. based on similar localities and conditions (for owner occupiers to use this method);
2. based on reverse rental return/purchase price calculation ( for investor to use this method); Also noticed the length of leasing a house out time is shorter than in Doncaster and Doncaster East with similar price range for 3-4 bed rooms houses.
3. based on land price value -- price/square meter (for investor to use this method)

Currently, the median sale price of houses in the area is
- $620,000 by http://data1.reiv.com.au/trendchart/default.aspx
- $812,500 by http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=sp&s=vic&u=burwood+east

Compared with:
Burwood $779,000 - $810,000
Doncaster $755,250 and Doncaster East 697,500

Burwood East still offers cheaper houses with quicker and easier to lease accommodations with good schools surrounded. The price catches up to Doncaster surrounded area should be quicker in the coming year as more and more
- investors realized it is harder to lease in the Doncaster area.
- second home buyers realized it offers more good schools and similar facilities (or even better with the constructing of Burwood height activity center) than the Doncaster area.

(Check the price of other two in the realestate.com.au). In the long run, it should be adjusted to be equal or higher than the average price in Doncaster and Doncaster East. The price should reach >= Au$1200/sqm in average for this area, at this 2010 time.

In current (first half year of 2010) property boom situation, the property price with land in this area should be higher for average 3 bed room houses at the end of the financial year despite the current 720000.00 for 4 bed room houses with around <600 sqm land.

Facts
Burwood East is a nice place for family for the following reasons:

The suburb has a lot of shops
- Safeway
- Coles
- Kmart
- KFC
- Golden Leaf Restaurant
- Nandos
- Numerous cafes and local pharmacy

The suburb is surrounded by good suburbs where there are a lot of shopping and recreation areas.

Here are the shopping center name, km and approx driving time from google map.
- East: Knox City Shopping Center (8.1 km – about 15 mins)
- North: Box Hill Shopping Center (6.6 km - about 13 mins)
- South: Glen Waverley Shopping Center (4.5km - about 10 mins)
- North: Warrigal Road (5.1km - about 9 mins) and Camberwell Shopping Zone (9.0km - about 16 mins)

The suburb is leafy and has a large number of parks.
- about 3 big parks + 6 small parks.
- many local roads have big trees and protected by the shade

The suburb have good traffic support, but takes an hour time to the CBD
- Tram
- Smart bus: There is a drawback of the place is that it takes a long time to travel to the city
- either you take 1 hours tram
- or change to train in blackburn/boxhill stations and to the city
- approx time to the city will be 1 hour by public transport
Do hope there is a direct bus to the city in the future

This suburb has good schools surrounded and ranking of VCE schools around Burwood East schools are as follows

The data is obtained from http://bettereducation.com.au/SchoolRanking.aspx

In 2009
Rank School
1 Mount Scopus Memorial College
15 Presbyterian Ladies' College
107 Emmaus College
123 St Andrews Christian College
135 Vermont Secondary College
265 Forest Hill College


In 2008
Rank School
4 Mount Scopus Memorial College
7 Presbyterian Ladies' College
79 Vermont Secondary College
116 Emmaus College
198 St Andrews Christian College
313 Forest Hill College

In 2007
Rank School
9 Mount Scopus Memorial College
10 Presbyterian Ladies' College
93 St Andrews Christian College
95 Emmaus College
178 Vermont Secondary College
368 Forest Hill College

Other issues that lead the suburb good for value are :
- Only 4 blocks of land --> easy to have an increase of median price
- mainly shopping centres areaS, not only it has existing Kmart Plaza but also has a future project X - Burwood Height Activity Center. http://www.whitehorse.vic.gov.au/Burwood-Heights-Activity-Centre-Structure-Plan.html
- Many businesses head quarters in this areas are MyOB head quarters, Channel 10 Home and Garden Workshop
- Deakin Univ -- help to boost the rental market

Other General information
The size of Burwood East is approximately 4 km². It has 15 parks covering nearly 7% of the total area. There are 2 schools located in Burwood East. The population of Burwood East in 2001 was 9,846 people. By 2006 the population was 10,022 showing a population growth of 2% in the area during that time. The predominant age group in Burwood East is 30 - 39 years.

Households in Burwood East are primarily couples with children and are likely to be repaying between $1000.00 - $1200.00 per month on mortgage repayments. In general, people in Burwood East work in a non-specific occupation. In 2001, 80% of the homes in Burwood East were owner-occupied compared with 79% in 2006.

I have composed suburb view for Burwood East http://localvoices.realestate.com.au/victoria/burwood_east/review/28602.

Then I think I would have a look of the neighborhood area and found current there are no decent review on this Burwood area. So decided to give my opinion on this area


Fact:
Burwood is a suburb of education center with abundant good schools and a not-bad university (Deakin). It's current price (2010 03 ) is around Burwood $779,000 - $810,000.

Good part
- Schools and good school and a university
- Excellent transportation

* Tram route 75 runs from Melbourne to Vermont South, traverses the suburb along Burwood Highway.

* Route 903 (Altona to Mordialloc) (SmartBus) runs along Warrigal Road.
* Route 732 (Box Hill to Upper Ferntree Gully) runs along Station Street and Burwood Highway.
* Route 735 (Box Hill to Burwood East) runs along Eley Road.
* Route 766 (Box Hill to Warrigal Road Burwood) runs along Warrigal Road, Burwood Highway, Evans Street and Highbury Road.
* Route 767 (Box Hill to Southland Shopping Centre) runs along Burwood Highway.

- Leafy eastern suburb
- CLoser to city and easy to boxhill, ashburton
- Excellent for investor for rental return and excellent for homeowner as it is a quiet and green suburb.

Poor

- Still a little bit far from the CBD and lack a train
- Lack land for future development land thus it will depend on the burwood height activity to provide a shopping center facility

Despite the previous bad comments on street because of the bad behaviour of some landlord, let me speak something fair about this street from the real estate terms.

Good:
Close to the transport
Close to the Safeway and Kmart (in the middle of it)
Have a number of big blocks with great potential for subdivide - this is rare in burwood east area

Poor
1. Have some trees but not green enough
2. Some owner are not careful about their behaviour to affect the community rating ...

Eley road is one of the interesting road in the burwood east. It looks like a main road but actually not when comparing with highbury road. It is a nice greet street but does have more cars passing by.

There is a shop belt in Eley road, so quit convenient.

Apart from the ablert road, 99% of newton street properties are located in quiet places. It is convient as it is close to Summer hill shopping center and Northland.

It is in a best rental belt as it is closed to shopping and extremely close to Deakin University.

It does not have a lot of trees but do close to two schools.

- Good for public transport and close to city
- Many vietnam shops and good for shopping Asian food


- High crime rate and not a safe place to live

future:
it is changing but certainly far less better than East, south and North area


Here is the story taking from the local news paper

http://maribyrnong-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/random-weapon-searches-start-in-footscray/

A MACHETE, knives and a knuckleduster were some of the weapons confiscated when police exercised their new stop-and-search powers in Footscray yesterday.

A total of 182 people were searched around the Footscray railway station between 1pm and 4pm.

Police detected seven people carrying a total of 12 weapons and another person in possession of drugs.

Four penalty notices were issued for carrying alcohol on public transport, disorderly conduct, hindering or obstructing an operation and drunk.

One person was arrested in relation to outstanding warrants.

Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said that these results are a clear indication that people continue to frequent this area armed with weapons.

``Today’s operation has enabled us to detect these weapons before they are used in crimes, making the area much safer for train commuters and the broader community,’’ Mr Walshe said.

``It is our intention to run a number of targeted operations in weapons hot spots this year until we see a reduction in weapon related crimes.’’

Under new laws passed late last year, police are able to stop and search any person for weapons in a “designated area” without the need for a warrant.

Speaking to reporters before the searches began, Acting Premier Rob Hulls said “the tragic death of Nitin Garg in recent times confirms absolutely that we have to do everything we can to support our police to wipe out street crime (and) to wipe out knife-related crime’’.

>>Related: candlelight vigil for Garg

“That’s why these powers are so important,’’ Mr Hulls said.

Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said the area in and around Footscray station had been chosen for the first test of the new powers because police data had identified it as “an area of high knife crime”.

“We know that people frequent this area armed with weapons,’’ Mr Walshe said.

“The new powers will enable us to detect these weapons before they are used in crimes, making the area much safer for train commuters and the broader community.”

Signs placed around the station warned commuters police were authorised to search them or anything in their possession and that it was an offence to refuse a search.

Police also carried cards explaining the operation in 12 different languages.

The new powers have come under some criticism by state Greens MPs and community law centres for breaching people’s civil rights.

But Police Minister Bob Cameron said the government made “no apologies for doing everything to try and get weapons off the street and protect the right of people not to get stabbed when they’re just going about their business’’.

Close to the highbury park. Leafy and quiet.
It is a little bit far away to the Kmart plaza/

I reckon it is a second best place in burwood east next to the lorraine drive.

It can be treated as part of davis street. It is short, quiet and convenient to everything....

Well, it is the main traffic road for the burwood east area.

It is extremely convenient because
- next to the traffic - tram, buses, road
- next to all sorts of shops and restaurant
- next to all sorts of entertainment area

It is extremely noisy
- what do you expect a main road :)

However, there are plenty of green areas along the road which is quite good...

Holland road is interesting as it serves as a
- traffic path of Eley road and Davis street to the Burwood Highway

It is up and down at the end point of eley road.

There is a parks there and trees are big around the park. However, it is a bit noisy due to the traffic.

It is a good place
- it is close to the school so that you have a big playground.
- leafy and parks nearby

It is not so great because
- it is close to the school so it is a bit noisy in the day and have some traffics at the end of the school
- you need walk a long way from the eley road to the shopping centers (safeway and kmart )

So it is a normal place in burwood east despite the overall burwood east is good place for the family .

Lorraine Drive is one of the best streets in burwood east, because
. it is leafy
. close to the traffic but not noisy as the burwood highway
. close to the shops - safeway and Kmart plaza
. it is closed drive so it has less traffic.

The resale value in this block should be high, because
. it really have less block of houses here while it is much easier to rent out than Doncaster or Doncaster East due to the local work staff and Deakin uni
. I notice that if you lived in the Burwood which is where the Deakin Univ locates, you are still most likely to go to the burwood east for safeway and coles. So the students are prefer to this area rather than Burwood as there are slightly more expensive.


I noticed there are many birds in this street...

Good:
1. It is a quiet street.
2. Close to traffic (Tram and Smart Bus) but not affected by those noises
3. Close to shops 5-10 minutes walking distance to Kmart Plaza and Safeway
4. Close to school (Burwood East Primary is just cross one street, but not affected by the school noises
5. Close to the green belt
6. Future center of business (retail and entertainment)

Poor:
1. Some trees along the street are not big enough to create a shade from the sun
2. Houses along the street are normally old brick houses in 1950 style and not modern.
3. Lack a close by public library
4. Still need more shops

Future:
1. Burwood height activity center -- hope it is a big shopping mall with movies and some new stuff
2. Enlargement of the existing KMART plaza (heard ALDI will move there as well in unknown future)


Hope this is helpful...