elizabethe2

We moved into our home a year ago, after apartment living in South Melbourne for many years, and have never looked back. We're surrounded by lovely warm neighbours who from day one have always been welcoming to us. It's also very pet-friendly along Hampton Street, with lots of passersby stopping to have a chat with us about our furbaby friend and giving her a cuddle. There's also a good range of cafes (SIPP and Sebastians FTW!), tapas bars, Italian, Japanese, Indian, Thai and Chinese dine-in/takeaway joints which serve up really good food at reasonable prices. The local Hampton Market has good quality meats, and again, friendly and warm customer service. With Woolies along Hampton St, and Coles just over at Bluff Road, we honestly are spoilt for choice most of the time!

The bayside lifestyle of Hampton is what really captured our hearts when we were searching for a suburb, and for those who like relaxing at the beach with a walk, cycle or a swim with the dog, this place is perfect. Very down to earth vibe and never overly crowded along the shore, even during summer. Most of our neighbours are established couples in their early 40s with kids, or those in semi-retirement in their 50s and beyond. We also feel very safe in our neighbourhood, and walking the dog after dinner around 9pm has never been an issue, with us even bumping into others doing after dinner walks. The Council has put in quite a lot of good street lights, and most of the neighbours do up their lawns and driveways with beautiful lights to showcase their front gardens.

Hampton does seem to be quite a fenced/gated community, with many home owners preferring to have higher fences or gates that run around the border of their property. We don't mind this at all, and also installed a gate on our property when we moved in. We also do see many security cameras installed so there is sense of unity amongst neighbours to deter break-ins and burglaries. So far the neighbours around our streets who have been living there for years have said there aren't major issues, with just a couple of naughty kids doing some graffiti or stealing loose change if you forget to lock your car when it's parked outside.

Some other reviewers have mentioned the cost of the homes as a con, however we feel it's important to stay in an area where there are others from a similar background who might pay a little bit more to get into this neighbourhood. To us, the main con would be the number of apartments that seem to be popping up closer to Hampton Street and the train station that may introduce an influx of cars, public transport users etc which would then impact that relaxed vibe that it currently has. Hopefully we don't have a big 'mall' type development spring up in the near future, given we can always drive to close by Southland or even to Chadstone for our shopping fix!

All in all, we really love living here and are so pleased that we chose it as our home. Friends have also commented that they really like the vibes they get when in the area, and we've never been prouder. Keep it up neighbours!