Hi, only my 2nd post, hope this is the right place! I make maps and I also have been hunting for a house in Melbourne for last 2 years. As part of this, I did some analysis on the Public Transport network in Melbourne, and thought it might be interesting and relevant for those looking at location in respect to commuting to the CBD. Exploring Public Transport in Melbourne You might want to scroll down a few pages to the section titled 'Getting to Flinders Steps within...' This might be of interest to see the commute catchments to get to Flinders Steps for 8:30am on a Monday using both your feet to walk from your house to the transit stop, along with the transit trip. Im working on some tools that will let you put in your own parameters (work location, time/day you need to be there, preferred mode of public transport, etc). Will hope to get this online in next couple of months when I find some time.
I hope you are not re-inventing the wheel I know you are doing it for Victoria but in NSW we have http://www.transportnsw.info/ which allows you to put any address to any address by or before when and it gives you options.
We have Journey Planner here in VIC. That's great if you want to get from A to B. I know where A is (my work), but B is unknown. B is the house I want to buy thats somewhere within 45 minutes of my work. And when I say 45 minutes, I want to take into account that I walk to the bus/train/tram stop, so include that walking time. This has let me pockets further afield that still get me to my work within 45 minutes, but I would'nt have thought of.
Rather than playing programmer, you'd probably have been better off actually buying a property in Melbourne than spending 2 years so far and still looking
Ha! Yes, your not wrong. I still regret the first property I went to see and retracted an offer. It's got to the point where I am too picky on where I want to live. I'm not not looking to buy anymore, but still very interested in the analysis of data relating to real estate. Demographics, mortgage lending, crime data, unemployment, RP urban growth, even social media data - All of these datasets can be quite interesting to understand what a neighbourhood is like and better understand if it's the place for me. With that said, the commute times has been an important factor for me.
Thanks for sharing the awesome map jakc. Thats really interesting. There are quite a few surprising pockets. I agree your journey to work is so important to general life satisfaction. I dont know why some posters have to be such negative nancys.
Is that data you have access to from work or is it on the net? Are you using the data to try and predict capital gains too or just looking for somewhere that suits you now?
With Open Data becoming a growing trend in Australia, a lot of it is free and available on either data.vic.gov.au or data.gov.au. Some of the other stuff is something you have to purchase (im in the industry, so not so much of a problem). I know the team behind realestate have a good GIS unit (mapping) so there invest section is a good start.
I don't mind what the reason is that you are keen on the research, I think it's a really interesting and useful research
Interesting stuff for investment Personally I would live where You want to live If the commute bothers you then it's time to consider other options
A friend of mine commented that we should shut up about or 20 minute bus commute into the cbd as most of her friends had over 1 1/2 by train.
This is fantastic, thank you for sharing. I love that it shows my train line has quite short traveling times to the city compared to suburbs that are in a comparable distance from the city.
Hi jakc, I am asking this purely out of personal (and professional) interest, for what reason have you been looking to buy a property for so long? I'm guessing that locating a suburb within a certain distance from your work is not the reason, as this only takes 2hrs of time to document to a point where you have a basis to pin point suburbs which will likely fit your parameter, and then further few days analysis takes you to your handful of options. What sorts of things stopped you from buying something? Looking forward to checking out your data! Thanks for letting us know about it.
It appears others value the houses more than what they are worth to me. And that's fine. Im not looking to invest, or in a rush to have a PPOR, just hoping that one day I might find a gem that others may overlook. It has only been over these last two years that I have realised owning a house is not essential and renting can actually be quite an attractive lifestyle.
