General Chat

OH has just drawn my attention to the Real Estate section of our local newspaper.

Expressions of Interest are being called for the purchase of apartments in a new development in Bunbury, although I suspect that it will be a refurbishment of existing, vacant, apartments.

Ordinary apartments in this development are being offered for $1.9 million.

A Penthouse is on offer for $7.0 million:

https://www.domain.com.au/penthouse-1-holman-street-bunbury-wa-6230-2012604412

Now any person with a sound mind would NOT invest that amount of money in Bunbury. As much as I like the City it has no attractions that a savvy investor could turn to, to increase his investment.

Perth, Fremantle, even Melbourne and, possibly, Sydney would all be better areas.

However, property prices are already falling in all capital cities. Perth property prices have fallen by 12% in recent years.

I'm flabbergasted, my flabber has never been so gasted, as Frankie Howerd would have exclaimed!

Someone joking, Allan?

I don't know WA at all but have a few friends who live there - they moved from elsewhere in Oz. I know the eastern states better.

Is the area reclaimed land?

What designer furnished or drew the lounge area? They've managed to make it look like a cramped space and, oh my, put in an old-design brown unit which looks completely out of place.

Let us know if they sell and, when they do, the price, please.

Incidentally, have they solved the salt problem in the land in WA? Just curious, that's all - wondering if they have more desalination plants around. :-S

JoyLouise, we now have two desalination plants, one in Kwinana near Perth and one in Binningup which is about 20 kms from where we are in Australind. There is a third one in the pipeline (no pun intended.)

The salinity problem with some of the soils is still there.

The area for the units is reclaimed land, but not from the water. The whole area of what is known as Marlston Hill is on land formerly used for railway repair yards, whilst the higher ground was used for petroleum storage with the added attraction of a sewage works.

All the above were still in place when we moved here in 1986, although the railway operations had ceased by then with the infrastructure being left in place.

The area has suffered mixed fortunes since being redeveloped several years ago, with many businesses going bust.

If I had a spare $7.0 million, I can think of much better places to invest it :-D

Salford Quays very up marlet :-D :-D

Hi, Barbra. :-)

I'm afraid that Bunbury will never be upmarket in my lifetime; mind you there's only a few years left ;-) :-D

Always worries me when the pictures are obviously so fake, what will they really turn out like....does seem an awful lot of money taking into account what you've said Allan.

Caroline, there are plenty of good projects in the pipeline which will enhance Bunbury, but for many years it hasn't quite been able to decide what it is.

There is a port which mainly exports alumina, mineral sands and woodchips thus supporting the forestry and mining industries in the SW of WA, so for many years it was thought of as an industrial city.

That in turn led to people bypassing the area to go to the tourist places like Busselton and Margaret River, bearing in mind that Bunbury is 2 hours from Perth and Busselton only another hour from there.

It now seems that the City Fathers have decided to promote it as a tourist destination but I fear it may be too little and too late.

Whilst the Marlston Hill redevelopment was extremely well done initially, it now just appears to be drifting into a typical inner city enclave with all the attendant problems :-(

Australian new build property prices are heavily dependent on Chinese and other foreign "investors" looking for somewhere to park their money / ill gotten gains. Most never even visit Oz buying off plan. They are not fazed by the sort of thing that owner occupiers would look at.

London suffers greatly from this with upmarket blocks in west London untenanted for years - they are worth more empty! As well as the Chinese London also suffers from Russian and SE Asian money laundering with property being the usual deus ex machina.

NZ has recently legislated to prevent foreign property ownership.

Rollo, although I agree with your comments regarding overseas investors, particularly the Chinese, I doubt that many of them would have even heard of Bunbury let alone know where it is.

Mind you, that could also apply to two thirds of all Australians.

I knew I had heard of Bunbury ................ but I had to think hard to remember where it was!

It's a nice little village in Cheshire, Sylvia :-D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunbury%2C_Cheshire

Allan and Sylvia, I had to think long and hard before I looked up Bunbury. Even though I never visited WA my studies (long time ago) included the agriculture miles south of you, Allan, and the Ord River Dam scheme (miles to the north north-east) and the salination of land.

Dad, on the other hand, docked a few times in Fremantle and did all the fun things - as you do when you're young. :-D

Ooh, watching the news and seeing pics of chunks of asteroid coming down in WA. Tell us about them Allan.

Unfortunately, I missed it, but it may have been too far north anyway as I believe that it travelled in a West-East direction towards Meckering

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/wa/2018/08/29/meteor-lights-up-perth-sky/

Meckering itself was the scene of one of the largest earthquakes in Australia back in 1968

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meckering,_Western_Australia

Although in WA we tend to think of the South West as being Perth and areas south, including the Great Southern, it actually commences in the Geraldton Region of WA :-S

Allan ..............

that was what confused me ............. I taught near Bunbury in Cheshire :-D

:-D :-D :-D