Miners Rest Ballarat-advice please

D

doozer

Folks, need some advice on this area for investment purposes.

Goods:
Newer, modern homes
Family friendly
Good yield

Bads:
10km out of town
Under flight paths from Ballarat Airport
Bushfire prone area

Really nice homes in there and from all reports there's not a lot of crime type issues but would like people's suggestions on the area in terms of capital growth and how easy/hard it is to secure quality tenants based on the 'Bads' above.

Thanks.
 
Really Johann

Not what out research and valuations are showing us.

Right property still showing good prospects and healthy yields.

Cheers
 
Minners Rest is definitely a long way out of town. 10km is a very long way out of Ballarat. The land value of property around there is virtually nil. There's no real growth drivers other than the developers themselves. I don't ever recall a serious bushfire there however. Not somewhere I'd want to invest.

I think Ballarat has a lot going for it. Rental yields remain strong, there's reasonable employment prospect locally and like Geelong it's a reasonable commute to Melbourne. Unlike Bendigo I don't think it's peaked at all, instead it's had more steady growth overall, which tends to be more sustainable.
 
as peter said, 10km is a long way out to be considrered a spill over suburb,

miners rest is not at its peak, I wouldnt take too much notice of moving median graphs, I look at long term median prices

on the investment clock id say miners rest and the rest of ballarat is between 6pm and 8pm

youth unemployement is still a big problem in the area, ive been quoted figures of up to 25%

I think the fundamentals are great, but it has been slow. even surprsing agents
 
Thanks everyone for your input. Yes I take the point regarding the distance from town. In saying that I live in a similar population town to Ballarat and live more than 10km from CBD. Values have steadily increased and services have improved. I can only see the same for this part of Ballarat. In any respect, like all areas in regional centres there are always trade offs to the benefits which we will definitely consider. Appreciate the feedback.
 
doozer said:
Folks, need some advice on this area for investment purposes.

Goods:
Newer, modern homes
Family friendly
Good yield

Bads:
10km out of town
Under flight paths from Ballarat Airport
Bushfire prone area

Really nice homes in there and from all reports there's not a lot of crime type issues but would like people's suggestions on the area in terms of capital growth and how easy/hard it is to secure quality tenants based on the 'Bads' above.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I realise this reply is probably too late, but as for the 'Bads'.

As others agreed, the 10km out of town really does make it a long way out of Ballarat & I don't really see any pay-offs for that - no beautiful countryside & just normal size suburban house blocks.

The airport is in use all the time, even at night, as there is pilot training going on and I think some of them do loops to get their hours up. I'm not sure how often they go directly over the houses in Miners Rest, but when looking at display houses out there a few years ago there was always a plane or two going over during the day on the weekend whilst we were there. The planes are just small though, no big passenger jets :p

I wouldn't take too much notice of the bushfire prone label, I think the whole of Ballarat pretty much falls under that since 2009.

Also, Miners Rest has been having a lot of house and car break-ins. Like Truly Exotic mentioned, there is a very high youth unemployment rate in Ballarat. You might think Miners Rest is far enough out of town to escape the flow-on, however thieves have been travelling around there in packs in cars (probably stolen).
 
Too late. Property purchased and settled. I think we've bought approx $20K under what similar properties are currently selling for. As for crime, like I always do, I rang the local police and went through various suburbs for crime rates. The response on Miners Rest was "great area, very little to worry about." We're getting good rent and because the property is only 3 yrs old the tax depreciation is handy. I think the area has a bright future and I'm happy we bought there.
 
doozer said:
Too late. Property purchased and settled. I think we've bought approx $20K under what similar properties are currently selling for. As for crime, like I always do, I rang the local police and went through various suburbs for crime rates. The response on Miners Rest was "great area, very little to worry about." We're getting good rent and because the property is only 3 yrs old the tax depreciation is handy. I think the area has a bright future and I'm happy we bought there.
Click to expand...

They are nice houses & attract tenants & owner occupiers of a decent socioeconomic background. Hopefully the crime was just a spate - I know they have caught several 'recidivist' offenders that were involved.
 
Miners rest is pretty close to the new Ballarat West Employment zone which is supposed to yield something like 9,000 jobs (if I recall) over the next 15 years.

With proximity to the highway, airport and Wendouree supposedly the second CBD for the city - not to mention the load of investment going to Ballarat more generally (rail link, link road, etc); I think the fundamentals are sound.

As melbourne continues to heat up, I'd imagine the town would also benefit from the ripple effect.

In addition - being wedged between bendigo, geelong and melbourne - with the latter two being very commutable, I feel there is a good story evolving if you're looking to hold for 15-20 years.

The population is also forecast to grow considerably in coming years - with the city aiming to have another 15,000 houses built around Lucas (I think) in the next 40 years - all those builders need to live somewhere)
 
The issue with Ballarat at the moment including Miners Rest is the vacancy rate creeping up to be around 3.4%. Although the story for Bendigo is worse at over 4%.
 
doozer said:
The issue with Ballarat at the moment including Miners Rest is the vacancy rate creeping up to be around 3.4%. Although the story for Bendigo is worse at over 4%.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think despite the population growing at a pretty good rate, the rate of housing supply has been quicker, particularly on the western side.

Here's hoping for the 'ripple effect' Finrod speaks of to kick in.
 
Perhaps someone can clarify this for me. Doesn't the ripple effect work only in conjunction with supply v demand?
There are so many estates and H&L packages in Ballarat in many pockets and an abundance of land to the west. Why will house prices increase when one can just move an extra 1km and build new too? Tenants are also preferring to rent new and will pay more for it.
 
Ballarat has even been removed from the data tables in the back API magazines and has been for a few months now...
 
CHAOS said:
Perhaps someone can clarify this for me. Doesn't the ripple effect work only in conjunction with supply v demand?
There are so many estates and H&L packages in Ballarat in many pockets and an abundance of land to the west. Why will house prices increase when one can just move an extra 1km and build new too? Tenants are also preferring to rent new and will pay more for it.
Click to expand...

What about the Canadian State Forest? The government has just made a decision to keep all the previously logged land as a nature reserve. If you look at the map this means no new land estates to the east of Ballarat. So while the West may see large supplies of land the Melbourne side of Ballarat is more or less quarantined from any major release of new housing stock.
 
What effect do you think that decision will have?
What do you see as the attraction for new residents to the east side?
 
CHAOS said:
What effect do you think that decision will have?
What do you see as the attraction for new residents to the east side?
Click to expand...

Sovereign Hill?

Seriously though, I believe the attraction will be proximity to Melbourne: particularly with regard to the North East parts of Ballarat. If you live in Alferdton for example you need to drive through Ballarat in order to get to the highway that takes you to Melbourne. As one of the growth drivers of Ballarat is its status as a commuter town, this seems worth considering.

Thoughts?
 
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