Inala is a great place to buy

What is this..... are you trying to sell your property or something??

Inala is a low socio-economic, high crime rate, high unemployment suburb. It is NOT a good place to raise a family.

No I'm not selling my house. I'm just a lone voice of reason amid the new culture of foolish judgmental ignorance that abounds around Brisbane. Have you ever lived in Inala? Are you thinking back years ago or are you living here today, as I am, to know what Inala is actually like. Inala has a poor reputation because Brisbanites are slow to realise when times change.

Yes there is crime in Inala. But the rate is not particularly different to lots of places in Brisbane. Certainly, it's not different to the crime rate in Forest Lake, or North Brisbane - places people flock to buy homes (small homes, for a lot more money, and the same demographic). If you want to raise a family, what better place to do it than in a large home with a big yard? Generations of families have been raised here including Len Waters (Australia's only Aboriginal Fighter Pilot, and Wayne Goss, former Premier of Queensland (educated at Inala High). Good people live in Inala, and good people are raised in Inala.

I myself grew up in Pallara - a suburb neighbouring Inala. On that basis I claim to know what I am talking about.

The thing that really annoys me about people and their 'views' of Inala is that they completely fail to realise what Community is. Community is a place where you feel safe, and welcome, and people know your name and actually care about who you are. That you will NOT find in Ascot or any other place where people value money more highly than they value their neighbours. You will find community in Inala, along with space, trees, parks and amenity - AND people who give a darn about their environment. It's a truly ethnically diverse place, where who you are is more important than what you look like (very similar to London in fact, where I lived for 5 years).

Can I also mention that with the lower house prices, mum or dad might actually be able to stay at home with their children instead of farming them out to a childcare centre to do the job for them because they are so busy having to work 2 jobs to pay a mortgage. Surely that is the single most important thing when it comes to raising a family.

EDIT: Just heard that George Negus used to be a teacher at Inala State School! How about that...!

I moved to Inala with my partner about 18 months ago now. Our original plan was to buy cheap and then move to a better place when we had more money. Since moving to Inala, we have grown to really like the place and have had no problems whatsoever (touch wood). We now have no intentions to move like originally planned. We live in a street opposite a park and it is very quiet. We are close to our neighbours and there is little traffic. Plus our block is huge, lots of room for our two dogs. My partner who is a police officer catches the train to work in the City which takes about 20 minutes from Oxley train station. Later this year the Richlands Train Station will open meaning he will not have to drive to the train station. The last time stats were released about crime in brisbane, Inala wasn't even in the top ten anymore. Sure, it used to be bad but has gotten a lot better. I wonder where DocS lives...

I think a lot of people go by reputation and folclore. Inala has definitely changed and it is one of the leafiest suburbs you are going to find within 20 kilometres or less from the CBD. Some people feel better about themselves by putting others down. The truth is Inala is a great place and it has changed and keeps on changing. The next point is this, first home buyers should buy in an area where they can afford, if you are going to wait to have enough money to buy in a "high income, low crime"area you might miss out altogether in buying a house.

haha yous all should know that inala has lot of criminals but they don't Du crime in there own suburb kuz it brings too much heat so they travel and du there criminal activities else where like next door forest lake lesson learnt from the older generation but inala is a great place to live

lol Inala is the pits! Always was, and most likely will be for some time. Crime galore! A lot fo it spills over to Durack and Forest Lake. Stolen cars, break ins, someone even got theior car torched whilst it was parked in a unit complex. Typical low socio economic types + cheap housing = trailer trash heaven.

Go to the Inala Civic centre and have a look around at the people there. The place is filthy. Regular instances of drunken indigienous people asking you for lifts to the pub or money. Dirtiest shopping trollies you'll ever see. I know residents around there who do their shopping at Sherwood miles away rather than shop locally. Inala is cheap for a reason - same as always. You have been warned.

Oigevay that's a load of racist rubbish. I have never once seen a drunk person at the Civic Centre, let alone a drunk Indigenous person there. I wonder which suburb you live in. Please mention it, because other racists might like to move there to be with like-minded people.

You may not have seen drunks, but I have seen quite a few. To infer something does not exist becuase you have no exposure to it is rather like sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich.
And like most people, you use the "racist" word without even understanding what racism is. Inala is still brisbane's worst suburb, and a dump I am glad to see the back of.

Are you aware, or even interested in the wonderful things that Indigenous people have done, and do, in Inala? I doubt it. Have you lived in Inala? I doubt it. If you had you would not so easily be attracted to making stereotypical attacks on Indigenous people as though a few people represent the whole. As if some negative things you saw represent the experience of an entire suburb. You can't experience a community by looking in from the outside at the state of the shopping trolleys - something which is an issue you are free to take up with Woolworths, by the way, rather than the suburb. Last time I checked, Inala residents have no trolley washing facilities on their persons with which to remedy Woolworths's slackness in that regard.

You said 'regular instances of drunken Indigenous people...'. In your second post I notice you changed your attack from 'regular instances' which implies daily or weekly, to 'seen quite a few' which could mean three drunk people in a year or a decade. Again, I have never seen a drunk person at the Civic Centre and have been living here for 5 years and shopping here for 30 years.

Entrenched views can outlive reality for a long time, especially in areas that are gentrifying... which I'm not implying that Inala is at the moment :)

Best to take a walk around the target area and just talk to people such as shop owners, neighbours, librarians etc, it's not difficult research and you get some exercise at the same time.

Hi Allen, ain't that the truth. People seem hell bent on having an opinion about Inala whether they have been here or not. I'm a one man reality checking crusader. Gentrified, no. Too much rental for that. However, given the position of Inala in relation to the City and the Gold Coast, to Forest Lake, Mount Ommaney, Ipswich and Indooroopilly - and the fact that it's medium density which is so livable, Inala is objectively an excellently priced place to buy.

I would agree that making a point of talking to the neighbours of any home that you consider buying is probably the single most important thing you could do. Who your neighbours are makes a huge difference to your experience in a place. Where I live we are surrounded by owner occupiers or long term renters who are friendly, neighbourly, house proud and garden mad - this makes for a very pleasant daily living experience. We can share veges that we grow, keep an eye on each other's homes and pets if someone goes on holiday, and have a friendly chat over the mower or on a stroll around the neighbourhood. I love it.

lol...this a forum for peoples views. Talbot seem hell bent on denouncing any views that doesnt suit him.

Well too bad, my friend, because the news from the 3 worst areas of Brisbane ( Inala, Woodrige, and Strathpine) always filter thru to the public via the media, or friends, etc. Those areas have a well deserved reputation, and have had for 25+ years.

Talk to social workers....talk to the police....they hate those areas....drugs, violence, social riff raff..they are kept busy the entire shift......low socio economic areas. You wouldnt choose to live there unless your were poor, ie had no choice. I lived on the edge of Inala, after having lived in one of Brisbanes premier (expensive ) suburbs for 20 years. I came from an area that saw NO CRIME to an area full of it. So stop with that BS that there is crime in all areas, because some suburbs have very little to none of it.

I am sure there are good pockets of Inala to live, but the fact remains, its a dirty grubby suburb with a high proportion of crime. Yes, as Allenrealestate says "Take a walk around the area"...the main Shopping Centre is dirty, the Biota st shopping Centre is dirty. Compare this with what you see at Mount Ommaney. Chalk and cheese. Average middle class folk would take one look at Inala's facilities and run.
Back in 2008 the Civic Centre had overflowing garbage dump bins that werent getting cleaned up! Seems the shop owners/Centre management were too lazy & incompetent to do it themselves.
Councillor Milton dick had to get involved.

I could write a small essay on Inala. All negative. But I wont. I dont care how many positives you give, its still somewhere middle class folk will avoid like the plague. Myself included.

Oh - one other indicator. Shit suburbs always have lots of hoons.....and yep Inala is full of them. :)

I can confirm the positive view on Inala, after my first hand experience. Anyone who claims Inala being full of crims is not actually living here. They go by old myths and dated gossips. The same sort of people who thought the Earth was flat because that's what everyone else was thinking at the time.

We bought our house in Inala because it was much more affordable, on a larger block and a quieter street than we could get anywhere else in Brisbane that close to the city. We didn't want to be in mortgage debt for the rest of our lives, so we though we will consider Inala, and when we save extra money, we can always move elsewhere later. We are very careful people, so, before buying, we walked around the streets at different times of day and night, talked to the locals, talked to local business owners, even talked to the local police. Inala turned out to be no more dangerous than anywhere else in Brisbane. So we bought the house we liked.

Then we discovered that the house is extremely well-built, very solid, termite-resistant and low maintenance. Then we lifted the old carpets and found stunning hardwood brushbox floors, polished them and ended up with luxurious floors almost for free. Then we found that the roof frame is also hardwood, sitting on the pour-on-site concrete walls. Not a single crack in the house even though it is about 20 years old! Our block in the smallest in the vicinity, yet it is still well over 600 m2. We have a large, beautiful garden now. We are close to both Oxley (15 minutes on a bus) and Richlands (20 minutes walk) train stations, close to shops, doctors, chemists, post office, hairdressers, takeaway places, restaurants, very close to a bus stop, yet our street is very quiet. We have wonderful neighbours on all sides, everyone knows everyone and looks after each other's houses when people are away, so I feel much safer here than when we rented in expensive trendy suburbs near the city.

The local parks are very large, full of old gumtrees and native wildlife. Inala Civic centre is a place to buy the freshest and cheapest fruits and vegetables, many of which come from the local farm in Richlands and often just a couple of hours from the farm to our table!

I think, many people started realising the advantages and the potential of Inala, because our house has nearly doubled in price in the past few years. Though, I don't think we will be selling any time soon, as we initially planned. We now clearly see the benefits of living in a nice place without an exorbitant mortgage, and making a good investment at the same time. By the time we retire and decide to move, Inala's stigma will disappear completely, Brisbane will sprawl beyond reach and a gren suburb 18 km from the CBD will be a very desirable location, so and we will get a very god price for our house.

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And a message to the people who say that Inala is a bad and dangerous place:
You obviously don't live here and probably rarely visit, which is good. Because we much rather be surrounded by nice people when we are walking and shopping in our suburb. Someone who pours filth in their comments without any knowledge, facts or evidence is not the type we want to see.

For many years I was glad we bought in Inala because it let us live life without mortgage slavery. At the time we had a choice: a house in Inala with a small/no mortgage, or a tiny appartment, or a house in a more "upmarket" suburb with an enormous mortgage. We definitely didn't want to work ourselves to the grave feeding a greedy bank with mortgage payments. But now we are also enormously glad that we didn't go with the appartment option, with all the recent disaster of those high rise buildings cracking and threatening to fall down, and new dodgy buildings being discovered every day!

Inala houses are ultra-solid and indestructible. So not only we have no mortgage, we will never have to worry about costly structural repairs either.

And to all those using words "low socio-economic" here, are you of a "high class"? Dukes and lords?? Whatever... But then please don't cry about interest rates, or don't expect other taxpayers to compensate you for the collapsing buildings you chose to live in.

I was born and raised in Inala. It was a great place to grow up twenty years ago, and if I still lived in Brisbane I would not hesitate to buy there. Safe streets, good neighbours, big parks, and a beautiful multicultural community. My parents have lived there 30+ years and have never been the victims of crime.

Inala isn’t a community where everyone is white and middle class with 2.5 kids, a 4WD and a labradoodle. If you feel unsafe as soon as you step out of such an environment, that’s a you problem.