sammyj

I rented a property in Beatrice Street Cheltenham East for a bit over 1 year.

Nice street with mostly freestanding houses. Houses are generally well maintained and lots of street parking.

My place backed on to the golf course which was a positive and a negative. While we did not have much noise from neighbours, there was some noise from planes in this location. The planes seem to use the golf course to line-up for approach to/from Moorabbin airport. They are probably trying to avoid flying directly over the houses and thus fly over the golf course instead. The airport operates 24 hours a day too.

It is walking distance to the primary school, a fairly short drive to southland, and very close to stunning spacious parkland at the end of Farm Road (huge space for dogs/kids to run around).

If you don’t mind the airport noise, then this can be a great place to find a cheap rental and save some money. Cheltenham East close to all the great facilities that Cheltenham has to offer, and is much cheaper than Cheltenham.

If you want to avoid the plane noise, just live on the west side of Warrigal Road. We lived on that side for some time and there was no noticeable noise there. Look at the airport noise map to see that most of the planes fly over mordialloc, cheltenam east and heatherton.

Heatherton -

I have lived in 'The Heath' estate in Heatherton for about 2 years (after living in nearby Cheltenham for some time).

It is a beautiful estate built around a network of parks. Most of the houses are occupied by young families and are well maintained. There is a rare sense of community and you often see the kids playing out in the street together.

However there are a few important issues to consider :

1) Overheating / Energy Costs -

The houses are generally well designed internally (lots of storage space) however many are not well oriented on their blocks. We have lots of windows facing west and this causes an overheating nightmare in summer. One neighbour installed 6 split system airconditioners on top of their central cooling. Our own electricity use during summer is fairly high (about $700/month). Gas usage for central heating is also fairly high as the house does not seem to hold the heat in well during winter (the irony).

2) Airport Noise -

Yes there is a lot of airport noise. Moorabbin airport is the 3rd busiest airport in Australia (according to their web site) and it operates 24 hours, so you have to expect a lot of noise. Most of the houses in The Heath have very thick glass, so the noise is not too bad indoors.

3) Parking can be a nightmare -

In some parts there is very little on-street parking, and some of the driveways are too small to leave an extra car. A friend of mine has 2 cars, but only a single garage. So they often have to park their other car as far as 100m down the street. This can be really annoying if it is raining and you are trying to carry shopping and/or kids. Also in some places the streets get blocked by people parking inappropriately.

4) Build quality issues -

My neighbours and I put together a list of things to watch out for:

* Many of the properties have problems with brickwork and rendering cracking. Rendering tends to be very patchy/uneven.
* Shower recesses are prone to leaking and can cause water damage and rot the frame. Very expensive to repair/rebuild.
* We have all had issues with roof leaks (particularly on the flat roofed areas). Make sure they are fixed quickly or could cause serious frame rot issues.
* I have long cracks running through the tiles downstairs. Unsure how this can happen on a slab base. Will be checked out.
* The flooring (particularly on the stairs) has a lot of movement and gets very creeky. Difficult to sneak around the house at night.
* The floor in the garage is not flat and does not drain. If you have a wet car during winter you can find the water pools in strange places, does not dry up and can ruin stuff you have stored in there.
* Cracks/Gaps opening up around window frames and skirting boards.
* Floors/slabs are uneven. We have hardwood chairs in the kitchen and they rock about depending on where you put them. Not sure if this is the slab or the tiling, but it is annoying that the floors are wavey.
* The houses are built very close together and have very little frontage and small blocks, so chose your neighbours carefully (i.e. noise, parking issues).
* Automatic garage doors become really loud and rattly and tend to wake up the whole family. If you tend to get up early - then you will need to leave your car on the street.
* Internet access for me is a problem. We could not get ADSL through any provider (even though they initially said it was possible, something to do with the kind of phone line). Since the streets have not been wired for cable internet or NBN then my only option was 3G wireless (which is slow and patchy).

Just keep in mind that these houses were made very quickly in bulk, so don't expect the best quality, however they are beautifully designed and practical. I could not fault the internal design and love the abundance of storage space.

Overall the best thing about the Heath is the atmosphere. Modern houses, beautiful parks and people who care about the neighbourhood.

I lived in Kardinian Avenue for about 6 years until fairly recently.

Firstly the most obvious concern - yes there is airport noise on the east side. It is only really on the Cheltenham East side (east of Warrigal Road), so house values are much cheaper on this side. If you can afford it - pay the extra to live in central cheltenham.

There are plenty of amazing positives about this area -

There is an fantastic parkland everywhere, including an amazing park at the end of Farm Road.

The streets are generally well kept, and there is always plenty of on-street parking.

Public transport - buses everywhere, centralised around southland and the train station.

Every possible service, including lots of both premium and bulk billing doctors (a real bonus when you have kids!)

Great shopping at southland, every possible retailer and easy to get in and out of. Great living near southland when you have small kids. I'm there almost every day.

Cable internet is available (I went with Optus) and I found it very fast.

In Kardinian Avenue, during rains sometimes the road gets flooded towards the Farm Road end and around number 33.

Blocks in Cheltenham East are generally on the smallish side but good if you are looking for an area which is likely to stay as mostly freestanding houses.

Cheltenham Train Station has a great express train service to the CBD, and can get you to flinders street in 28 minutes!.

The houses are generally post-WW2 brick veneer. Watch out for:

1) Rotten floorboards/frame in the bathrooms (mostly from leaking shower recesses).
2) Rotten stumps.
3) Blocked pipes.
4) Issues with old wiring.
5) Steel windows! (very expensive to replace, you need to remove the brickwork as well)

5 very expensive lessons. If these things are okay, then most of the houses are very solid (hardwood frames) and provide a great base for extensions/renovations.