Newcastle

Ok let's talk Newcastle suburbs..

The place is getting more and more well known as a convenient alternative to Sydney. The climate is better than Sydney's and the people are more laid back. Traffic and other issues aren't as severe and property is much cheaper than Sydney. I grew up there and know it well and recently got the Terry Ryder reports on Newcastle and the Hunter where he dissects it a little bit and quotes all of the best performing growth suburbs over the past 10 years. There are billions of dollars of investment being pumped into the hunter valley into numerous industries (coal, energy etc) combined with a major road being built which will link everything better to Newcastle and put everything in place for some great growth. Hell there are a few bogans, but you get that virtually everywhere in Australia.

But let's talk about which suburbs in particular going forward are likely to be the star performers.. I'll start:

- Premium suburbs (E.g. New Lambton, Adamstown) will continue to grow steadily, but no huge jumps.
- Lambton has now become a premium suburb and is expensive to buy into, but there are still a few bargains left.
- Mayfield, Carrington, Wickham, Islington, Maryville etc will continue to grow nicely and also the bad demographic there is slowly morphing into younger people renovating with more money and the junkies are slowly being priced out more and more.
- Charlestown is becoming quite trendy, and still a few bargains there, but buy-in price is getting quite high.
- Shortland offers some of the best yields due to university proximity and has also shown some strong capital growth, so is probably a winner when crunching the numbers.
- Up in the hunter Muswellbrook is a favourite because the yields are currently very attractive and the buy-in price is still very good value. There are also rumours that Branxton will boom once the new road is built, but it hasn't moved an inch in the past year and is quite a risk, where as Muswellbrook is still cheap to buy into and the yields are great right now with basically no risk. But I wanna keep this discussion really to inner Newcastle and Lake Macquarie if we can etc.

For those familiar with the area, what are your predictions / favourites???

I am looking to:
- Buy a PPoR < $300k and renovate to add value
- Live in for perhaps a few years
- Sell for the capital growth a bit later and upgrade to a better PPoR.
- Newcastle yields have traditionally been terrible (been there done that), but I think capital growth is going to be attractive.
 
entirely depends on what you motives are.

to buy - reno -sell - then i'd look at merewether, lambton, hamilton.

if you want to buy - develop - hold/sell - then i'd look at new lambton, broadmeadow, hamilton, mayfield, georgetown, waratah, charlestown, belmont

if you want to buy and hold then i'd look at maryville, booragul, maitland, hamilton north, charlestown, kotara.
 
recruit2, I agree with lizzie's assessments and your own on "Mayfield, Carrington, Wickham, Islington, Maryville".

Your biggest challenge is going to be your budget of < $300K!! :)
 
Thanks for the thoughts everyone. Yeah wow 300k basically buys you a dump in a bad suburb these days. 330k-350k seems to be a rough barrier where you can start to get some reasonable places in reasonable suburbs. I'll have to increase my budget, but I'll still aim to negotiate a strong deal. The back side of the lake looks to have some pretty attractive deals and some amazing candidates for renovation, a few little pockets in there still which I can only see being snapped up quickly over the next couple of years.

I'm still torn between doing the generic borrow 350k and renovate in Newcastle thing vs getting more out into the regional areas and making some rock-bottom offers on places and doing cheap renos to get them cf+ quickly a la Nathan Birch style.
 
newcastle is currently going thru a boom. i was looking at $290k units for my stepdaugther to buy around 12 months ago (she ended up buying a newer car).

the same units are now selling for around $350+
 
if it helps - rentals are pretty tight in newie. i noticed saturdays paper only had one page of listings, whereas 2 years ago there used to be 3-4 pages.
 
if it helps - rentals are pretty tight in newie. i noticed saturdays paper only had one page of listings, whereas 2 years ago there used to be 3-4 pages.

Ta Lizzie. So you reckon yields are definitely increasing etc?

Hmm... Whether to buy a more expensive place (350-400k) drowning myself in non-deductible debt (bad idea), or to go further regional for the cheaper places, manufacture some equity, then come back into the nicer areas later. I'm very much thinking the latter now..
 
newcastle is currently going thru a boom. i was looking at $290k units for my stepdaugther to buy around 12 months ago (she ended up buying a newer car).

the same units are now selling for around $350+

Tell me about it, I went looking in December 08, decided I wouldn't need more than $250,000 for the areas I was looking, came back in the market in January 09 after getting pre-approval and the same style houses in the same area were up to $290,000 advertised, but selling for $320,000. I mean I was a FHB as well, but gosh those FHB were a problem!
 
Interesting to hear.

I'm going to let it cool off then, perhaps it will drop down another 10-30k again with another interest rate rise later in the year. I won't buy into a local boom again.. (Did that once, and renovated/landscaped and it took years to wait for the market to kick up further enough just to get my money back - made nothing). Maybe the regional areas are looking good right now then.
 
good thread guys. Ive been looking to get into the housing market for some time now, having eyed off a few properties in Newcastle. What do fellow forumites think of suburbs like Carrington and Wickham? Im 24, FHB, looking to buy, renovate and hold.

Budget is 200- 300k

Thoughts would be very much appreciated
 
good thread guys. Ive been looking to get into the housing market for some time now, having eyed off a few properties in Newcastle. What do fellow forumites think of suburbs like Carrington and Wickham? Im 24, FHB, looking to buy, renovate and hold.

Budget is 200- 300k

Thoughts would be very much appreciated

I like Wickham, has an edgy industrial feel to it but id very close to everything.

Carrington is a virtual island - seems to be a very quiet little community in there. I hear single mums and young families love it, nice school etc. Close to town and the harbour too.
 
What do fellow forumites think of suburbs like Carrington and Wickham? Im 24, FHB, looking to buy, renovate and hold.
Budget is 200- 300k

These areas are great for capital growth along with places like Mayfield, Broadmeadow, Georgetown etc.

You can buy under $300K in all these areas, but if you do, they will definitely need a reno believe me. They will also be hotly contested - so make sure you have all your finance pre-approvals in place before you go setting your heart on something. Also prices are still in many cases achieving over listed price.

The building reports you get on places in these suburbs, as the properties can be 70-80 years old and more, will not make for good reading before bedtime. But you can't expect perfection on properties of this age. ;)
 
Carrington ...... I hear single mums and young families love it, nice school etc.

Yep, single parent familes (according to the 2006 census) are over-represented there at 30% compared to the Newcastle average of 19% however , that is 4 years ago and the demographics are changing - as they do when people sell and move on and others come in and renovate etc. and the whole character of the place changes.

We purchased a property recently for a client there on the waterfront reserve for $555K. It had been on the market for most of 2009 and no takers for under $500K. Between exchange and settlement there was an additional CG of at least $30K as others sold around this one for $585K and they were not as good.
 
These areas sound good to me, particularly when you can get in for <$300k still.

Carrington/Wickham is the kind of area to me, that could quite easily become like a fancy "Port Melbourne" in the not too distant future. There is just only so much harbour side land available and so it seems gentrification of the area is unavoidable and is already happening.

Traditionally, quite a few junkies in these areas and be careful of needles, but overtime that will clean up more and more I guess. Islington is probably the worst (and cheapest), but not as attractive as Wickham/Carrington to me. So I personally wouldn't touch Islington, I can see it remaining a ghetto for many years to come, where as Carrington/Wickham have a much better chance of full gentrification earlier I reckon.
 
I have not seen a working girl on Maitland road for at least 6 months now. There used to be 3-4 occupying the corners there.

I believe the Islington Action Group has been quite ummmm active in moving these issues on.
 
I have not seen a working girl on Maitland road for at least 6 months now. There used to be 3-4 occupying the corners there.

I believe the Islington Action Group has been quite ummmm active in moving these issues on.

Ah, good to hear. This will be good for the area over time. I still think it will take quite a while for the reputation to be fully cleansed, but I might be wrong.

I might end up trying to get a cheap little PPoR in Carrington/Wickham, renovate it and live there for a while trying to ride some growth. 12-14% growth with those lower buy-in prices is probably too good to ignore. The land size will be tiny and there would be no chance to subdivide etc, but you could definitely do some smart renovating to create something inner-city+desirable/trendy.

Just have to watch out for needles and deros, but hey, I found a needle out the front of my old house in glamorous New Lambton about 8 years ago!!!
 
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