VIC Tarneit.. is it as bad as it looks?

hard to say nowadays - everywhere has crime it is not restricted to neighbourhood but yeah maybe not burnt out cars - saw that in Heidelberg West.

Crims in fact go to the higher end suburbs to commit crime (more for the taking) if you saw the stabbing in brighton and jewellery heists

this is in albert park south Melbourne area where some townhouses sell within 3 mil.

 

I used to look at the ratio of average wages and house prices as a possible means of establishing the relative values of various areas. This might be interesting for established areas but not for comparing new and established areas.

One thing you'll often find is that first home buyer areas often rate highly on average incomes and socio-economic scales. This is because you basically need to have two incomes to buy a new home and unless the incomes are very low that puts you at above average or at least not in the lower end.

What tends to happen is that new estates tend to degentrify. Not all but many. A prime example is Roxburgh Park just up the road from Broadmeadows. 15 years ago it was high incomes and shiny new houses. All its social indicators were good. Now it's fallen very fast down the league table of suburbs to somewhere nearer to nearby Meadow Heights or Dallas.

Other new areas of equivalent age (eg Point Cook & Caroline Springs) haven't fallen as fast. Eg Caroline Springs is still much higher income than adjacent Albanvale, Deer Park North, Kings Park etc. But you read stories of vigilante neighbours getting together to fight crime so not all may be well there.

Just because wages are relatively high doesn't mean that they will stay thus. I suspect new estates have a faster than average chance of dropping relative to other suburbs. While older poorer suburbs like Braybrook rate very low but may even show signs of increase. Even Laverton has appreciated well despite its low average incomes, indifferent housing stock and terrible community facilities.

The other factor is that 20 years ago outer suburbs were typically first homebuyer territory. Now there's many investors (and thus tenants) as well. So you've got parts of Tarneit/Truganina with large renter populations, something that at one time was only associated with inner suburbs.

 

Yup I agree, Sunbury is cheaper, a nicer area to live, and in real terms much more accessible by car. Rents are similar between the two areas, maybe even a touch higher in Sunbury, so why pay the extra $100k or so for a not-so-great home in middle of nowhere Tarneit? IMO a well located Sunbury property, built in the 70s/80s that's walking distance to the town centre and station is a better bet

 

Sunbury is a nice location but further out. Tarneit is much closer to cbd and has less crime than Sunbury.

 

Sunbury is also on the metro train line rather than V-Line

 

Sunbury and Tarneit couldn't have more different demographics and mentalities.

One is old and white (and stable). The other is young and brown (with growing pains).

Sunbury is older, traditionalist, 'white bread'. It was hard hit when Ansett closed as it had a lot of aviation workers. Its mental asylum became a university (VU) which eventually closed. However (unlike Melton, which Sunbury people regard themselves as superior to) it maintains a strong main shopping street - there has been less development of out of town shopping centres as other outer suburbs.

Sunbury people have what could be interpreted as civic pride or chips on shoulders. They were promised a lot when Whitlam declared it a satellite city. They regard themselves as more 'country people' and are proud that 'The Ashes' started there. Many would say they don't regard 'their town' as part of Melbourne. There are probably closer family ties with the area and near country. Sunbury has tended not to grow as fast as other outer areas in the west, north and south-east.

Sunbury people don't like services being taken away from them but also do not like aspects of metropolitan living coming to them. For example there was some opposition to electric trains. They also did not like not being allowed to board V/Line trains (the government eventually largely reversed that decision). Sunbury people tend to look down on the culturally different city people of St Albans, Sunshine and Footscray. Conversely, 'real country people' who have only V/Line trains tend to look down on Sunbury as suburbanites.

There have been local campaigns for Sunbury to secede from the City of Hume and set up as a separate municipality due to nativist sentiment. It is quite likely that if you were a developer and wanted to build apartments in Sunbury you would face significant opposition.

Tarneit in contrast is predominantly migrant - particularly Indian. Apart from a few farmers and landholders it doesn't have the history of Sunbury. Thus it does not have a town identity (that even Werribee still has fragments of). On the other hand Indians are a very rapidly growing portion of the Melbourne population. If you want to invest in growing markets then Tarneit might appeal. As precedent Springvale was similar amongst the Vietnamese as Dandenong and Tarneit is today to Indians. Springvale is not cheap anymore. I would guess you'd wouldn't get much resistance to development in Tarneit.

 

Very insightful post, thank you!

 

Honestly happens anywhere and everywhere. Chadstone whilst much safer than it once was and even when I purchased still is quite dangerous, especially around the shady area near the TAFE/train station. I was there lunching at a Korean place last weekend when there was shattered glass in front of a Chinese hot pot shop.

The underbelly is still there, just that prices have increased because families push them up. Only way eradicate this kind of petty crime is hard ass laws. When I was holidaying in Japan in 2012, people looked at me weird when I was trying to lock up my bike...

 

One thing I noticed with a new estate I lived near was that it started out OK with new families moving in, then the kids all seemed to hit 15 at the same time and the place became something of a crime zone. I met someone who teaches nearby years later and asked about it, they said it got better after a while and has been OK again since. Note: these were Australian new families, not immigrants.

Teenagers eh!