VIC The next Glen Waverley?

Basically where there is a public up and coming school really, this is the ultimate and number one priority amongst most Mainland Chinese.

My folks purchased in Glen Waverley in 2006 for a 800m2 block for $650K - within 500m walking distance to Glenny Station. Was considered very expensive back then, well before any Mainland Chinese moved in. My folks has purchased it purely for work and wanted a bigger block moving from the Western suburbs and a much smaller block. Glen Waverley was still quite an Asian suburb mainly Malaysians (of Chinese descent).

I somewhat find Indians not as rash, like whilst they do like a particular school or suburb they won't be silly enough to overpay or excessively overpay for it, a bit more practical imho!

Springvale and Footscray are suburbs that attracted poorer Asians or those who came here by boat, hence a much more different demographic. Many of the earlier Chinese (not cashed up newly rich) also populated these suburbs but they too at the time had no $ power to push up prices.

I find Mt Waverley probably a much nicer suburb to live in - much smaller town, much more trees/green, closer to CBD and somewhat in between Box Hill and Glen Waverley.

 

good forum topic. very interesting to hear what's driving higher than average demand in Ringwood and Pt Cook. I always thought the hype surrounding GW will help it be the first suburb to fall hard when the market weakens. 5m or so for a large corner site with no provision for apartments (assumed) is over the top and doesn't make much financial sense to me unless each townhouses are valued at 2m. Definitely a sellers market there. Congrats for those that got in early. Not all of them are cash flow rich, but are now asset rich! But, the others mentioned may hold up OK.

 

Interesting to see what will be built on top of the car spaces and the public library to make it a win-win solution between the local council and interested developer. More apartment? Or shopping mall?

Plans to be progressed for new community precinct

 

Education is also pretty important for indians (and if you came across the richer indians who did business - especially the gujaratis and punjabis) their buying power is actually very high.There is an indian sri lankan community in glen waverley and i recall some buying up blocks in the early days.

 

won't be suprised if it is another mall - anything that resembles asia. Reminds me of vancouver a suburb where there was even a chinese mall.

 

I heard the reputation of the 3 point cooks schools is pretty good,

also, balwyn has no infrastrcuture, no shopping (westfiled is close but not that close), no trams except for the one on donc road, Still dont know why its even above the median, persoanlly, I hate the area,

other then GWSC, I hate the glen waverly area, the glen is horrible

 

they have the trams on whitehorse road. westfield is maybe 5-7 minutes drive. Glen is like a seasonable mall. The attractions are the restaurants, eateries etc around the cinema.

i own in pt cook but haven't heard abt the schools or if they even have any. i tried to buy in balwyn in dec but failed miserable after being bullied out by huge bids by the mainland chinese. Personally, i don't like or dislike these suburbs but it will keep rising, and only keen to make a gain.

 

yeah I get your point, however I still dont know the attraction for north bawlyn,

for me doncaster, doncaster east, lower templestowe, which are all closer to westfield are far more attractive, yet balwyn is still double the median, the houses obviously are bigger though

as for glen, just not a big fan of it, I suspect if there was no school, the area would be no different to say a wantirna or a vermont or a forest hill

however as they say, blue chips will always outperform non blue chips, however obviously its expensive

 

I lived in doncaster at one stage, i think it is too hilly and there is really no train except to box hill. It is the only place where one buys land for 1.2 mil and can build 3 large townhouses which can also sell for 1.2 mil each in melbourne. it is too hard to get in now.

the attraction of balwyn is being in the school zone. Balwyn North like rangeview grove and others are actually closer to balwyn high school in Buchanan Ave compared to balwyn. I read in the overseas forums the chinese people equal being in the zone as buying in a gold mine well that was a few comments i read. There are those box hill agents who even pickup clients at the airport just to look within that zone. i mean an old 2 bedroom villa unit (not even a house) sells 1.1 mil in dec. Mad. i don't even have kids but keen to get something in balwyn maybe when i have more cash

Balwyn High School in Melbourne sparks property boom as parents fight to get in

 

yeah mad as it may be but as ive been told (I may be wrong) but for a lot of these chinese people, real estate in their country is risky and can go down at the drop of a hat so something like aus where these areas generally never go down and double in 10 years, is like a dream come true for them, so even if they pay $1.3m for a $1.1m property they simply dont care as its the best option they have, plus the ability to boast about having aussie property investment portfolio

hence where local investors like us are simply bewildered at paying 20% over the market price

 

real estate is risky in china it can go up 4-10 times but that is only the mainland chinese. There are the malaysian and indonesian chinese who make money in business and many political related companies who bring money in here to buy property. Singaporean chinese - they can borrow at rates for 1-2% hence anything is sort of positive geared with a decent enough deposit. which is why i think it is too hard to compete against them. My friend (malaysian chinese) is now developing his hawthorn site and he is not even 30 years old. A few other indonesian chinese guys all buying up in doncaster. It is starting to get really hard to even be in the running for the blue chip suburbs.

 

Not wrong. This is true. These are reasons, but not the only reasons..
RE (and most other investments like the chinese shares market) are volatile and that is exacerbated given the commy govt who can ( and has) imposed its will if they feel like it- authoritarian style ( what other style would a communist government have?. You better hope your not on the losing side of the equation if/when that those things happen. Most recent example was Beijings influence on the Chinese currency...see how artificial those controls were..There sure were people who bet the wrong way and got burnt.
Hence one reason why the capital flight. Australian RE is seen as safe, governed by established and non corrupt ( generally speaking) law, politically stable democracy, established rules etc, and cannot easilly artificially move prices by politicos.
Besides, it must be good to brag to your friends at a dinner party in beijing/shanghai that you just bought XYZ in australia...extra points if it has views of sydney, melbourne CBD or if its beachfront somewhere...

 

If fighting for school zones is what's driving the prices, wouldn't McKinnon be mentioned more than Glen/Balwyn/BH ? Seeing that McKinnon's school zone is the smallest. Making it equal demand but with lowest supply.

 

glen waverly secondary college is one of the top govenement schools

Mckinnon might be goood but not in the same league in terms of school

 

I had a Singaporean client fly down recently. Bought 3 x $2m properties - didn't need to worry about finance. He was paying $300 a night at the Hilton and asked to stay at my place to save money.... can you imagine my response?

In Shanghai, Apartments are selling @ $30k per sqm, here in Docklands which is a rip off you buy for $12k a sqm and inner city $10k per sqm.....thats why they are land banking.

Also, AML laws are rubbish, my wife was carrying greater than $10k leaving Shanghai, Customs didn't even bother providing a declaration slip.

They are heaps of Indonesians buying here....we hear abt the Malay/Singapore investors, but I have heaps of Indonesians buying too.

Back to the topic.
Cheers Ivan

 

Another 3 high rise buildings been approved in Glen Waverley. Should be selling very soon.

 

Well I certainly missed and never would've picked this suburb, but if you ask me I'd avoid buying suburbs with a high $/km from CBD. But that hasn't stopped people making millions. Then again it's all about risk-reward.

To me some of the further suburbs trading at such high $/sqm seem like a higher risk, albeit admittedly also high reward at one point. I question if that risk-reward spectrum still holds at $2-4m for a house... that's Kew prices. Are they going to sell at South Yarra and Carlton land prices soon? If properties were listed, I'd know what I'd be doing as a long-short hedge fund.

Reminds me of the New Territories-HK Island situation. NT was trading at Island prices last year. Yoho Midtown was trading at $12k/sqft, while I could pick up a "mansion" in Eastern Mid Levels for $12k/sqft. But in the current crash, NT is the first to go, while Island is holding ground. Yoho's back at $8-9k/sqft, Eastern ML is still holding ground at $11k/sqft.

 

That's very funny Ivan - because I'm trying to buy in Singapore right now, and was looking at Shanghai/Shenzhen last year. Perhaps it's an issue of grass is greener on other side. I'd pay $2m for a nice apartment in Shanghai any day over some of the more questionable $2m investments in Melb. In Manhattan, $2m gets you a dog house, and one day Shanghai will rival Manhattan.

 

Interesting to revisit this thread, looks like nothing much has changed in all those years, with Glenny, McKinnon and Balwyn still the most sought after. Predictions about Ringwood haven’t really come to fruition. Based on my research EDSC seems to be the next hot school. Also interestingly Box Hill High has performed poorly in the last three to four years, not sure why? This is reflected in the CG in Box Hill in last few years. Interested to hear others thoughts?
Someone also mentioned Strathmore has gone downhill as they changed the zoning to included poorer socioeconomic areas.