Watervale Pde, Wakerley, QLD 4154

Have lived in Watervale Parade for 8 years now. Absolutely love it. The streets in this estate are quiet and peaceful, so on the rare occasions that a noisy car comes through, the sound is extra loud (all the estate notices as it's clearly not somebody who lives in the area). People here generally stick to themselves, yet will always wave and say Hi. I'm a private person but like the friendly greetings. Lots of the children form close friendships within the estate and are respectful to elderly.

My husband and I rented with our two children in Watervale parade for 6 months after moving from interstate to confirm the suburb for a potential purchase. I was so excited for the “community feel”, “leafy streets” and “family friendly” atmosphere. In reality, the houses are all so close together and it served to be a huge disappointment. At night we could hear doors slamming, domestic arguments and we didn’t find our neighbours to be friendly at all. Watervale parade seemed to have cars up and down the street all day (sometimes at ridiculous speeds) which I didn’t expect when we moved there. The houses are scandalously expensive to buy and rent and it took my husband 50 minutes - 1 hour to commute to the city every day through stand still traffic!

There is a high percentage of rental properties in Wakerley and this shows by the varying level of care and maintenance of the gardens. Some properties are beautifully taken care of and others are lucky to have a regular mow. It hardly feels “posh” as described on this site. In fact… the word that springs to mind is “bogan”.

The walking tracks down near Manly/Lota are beautiful, but I found the parks to always be full to the brim full of children all the time which wasn’t pleasurable. I found a needle in one of the playgrounds and had to report to the council.

It also became obvious over the 6 months that there is an area close by of housing commission in Wynnum which shares the local Woolworths and other shopping venues. I often came across undesirable people while shopping with my children and was even confronted once by an obviously drug affected person at the local Baskin and Robbins.

I feel like people ignore the issues of this area because they paid a fortune to live there… don’t make the mistake of buying there!!