Hi All
How can I judge whether a country town is going forwards or backwards? Everybody I can think of to ask, Mayor[party] RE agent[baaa] etc, all potentially have a vested interest. I seem to be able to find positively geared properties everywhere but I’m worried about the town depopulating due to droughts and also social changes.
Thanks in advance [thumbsupanim]
Louis (Just starting out)Hi Louis, and welcome to the forum. Good on you for doing some research. Unless it is painfully obvious a place is going backwards, asking people like you mentioned a direct question like that would be unlikely to get much else for an answer as you said. Perhaps you could see how the house median prices have been over the last few years. If enough are selling this is a good start. The aust beareu of statistics, although not yet right up to date may show some helpful info, as well as recent property sales prices, and it should not be too hard to track down the current unemployment figure – even via centrelink. Does the council have a website? most do, and will show any planned spending, growth forcasts, budgets etc. Is there much industry, infrastucture there, or is it reliant on farming only. Many vacant shops? Shoud give you a good idea. You could post the name of the place, or if you do not wish to, perhaps the region, and others may have some investing experience there already. If not, API magazine often tackles updates on regions in each state, and of course, if you want to spend a few dollars for the info, grab a full suburb/postcode report from RP data or similar – and……all the best with your journey [strum]
Hi Louis
Sounds like you are close enough to ask people.
Forget the mayor and real estate agents and anyone else who has a vested interest.
Walk around and chat to the people you meet – people love to give advice and older people are often eager to chat. Find out if the number of kids at school are increasing or decreasing, look for empty shops, lots of “for sale” signs, check out the rental vacancies and anything else you can think of to give you the “feel” of the place. Ask at the produce store how things are going in the surrounding areas.
Chat to the people in shops, tell them you are thinking of moving to town and what is their opinion.
This should give you some more background information.
MargHi Sopkat
I am in the same dilemma! I live in a major regional centre in Victoria but have been looking at properties in the nearest State capital (Adelaide). I pulled info off the state govt planning website to view all the major infrastructure that is or has been planned to go ahead in the next few years.
I also think that my own city will do very well though; we are just about to get the first inland Marina in Australia and have had Government approval for 2 solar power stations to be built in the near vacinity and this is beside the tourism industry and nearby large scale mining.
I have been reading books and forum contributions now for about 4 months and have decided that I have done my homework and am going to spread my risk (investment dollar) and buy properties in both rural and metropolitan. I have used API magazine and tips from websites such as this and Reno kings to hint at what suburbs to look into and then I do my own research. I havent asked any real estate agents, mayors etc as I don’t think that they could honestly provide me with the information that I need…it took me months to work out what to even look for so I wouldn’t imagine that those people would really know what type of internal drivers would be needed to ensure a good return. Anyway that is my very humble opinion as I am definately a newbie to the game. I am having more trouble with trying to work out whether a property is going to be CF+ or not and how to structure my finances. That is my next chapter of research!!! I wish you all the best in your search.[confused2]How to Create an Income for Life – Margaret Lomas is a good read.
I remember someone saying once that when big retailers move into a town it’s a good sign because they have done lots of research and reckon the town is a goer.
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