# Forum More Stuff At the end of the day  housing squeeze

## David.Elliott

_off topic - moved from http://www.renovateforum.com/f205/ye...ml#post1037496_    

> All WA stuff is built on sand, it crap. To make a new subdivision they just build it up about 3-4m with sand, roll it for a few months and dig your pointless stripfooting and away you go.

  My problem with the WA example is they drop the houses onto the compacted yellow sand, and you'll expect to grow stuff on it at some point...also there seems to be a pathogical aversion to leaving ANY trees in a new subdivision... 
Something relatively new.. also the wife and I marvel each time we drive past some of these...all of the places have a double garage, and all but a few have two cars on the driveway...
The Heat Island effect is manifesting itself in these areas, so every home has to have an aircon, they put windows on the sides of these places and there are just a couple of feet from the fence, not sure why they'd bother... 
And these are the blocks they are selling for not much under $200k...I do get it a bit... 
We had a place in Melville WA. 60s built. 
At the time that was built the Shire or Main Roads did the roads, PMG brought the phone line in, Water Board brought the water in, Shire did the drainage and street lights, and so far as I can find out, all recouped the cost over the years from your rates etc. 
Nowadays the developers have to do all that, up front...

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## phild01

What's the space between each house for!

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## PlatypusGardens

Disgusting. 
And look at all those dark roofs....

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## ringtail

> Disgusting. 
> And look at all those dark roofs....

  Bulldoze the lot

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## Watters

> Bulldoze the lot

  Yeah, some of the new developments could be better, but as with anywhere else there are nice areas and not so nice areas.
For example, if you buy one of these, built around a local AFL footy ground, you can watch WAFL matches from your balcony, and be near a train station half way between Perth CBD and Fremantle! Assuming you have a job over there and can afford it that is.  LandCorp - Residential - Claremont on the Park

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## METRIX

Looks like a bunch of sardines, very similar to Sydney's new developments.

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## ringtail

One of the most depressing things I've seen

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## goldie1

> One of the most depressing things I've seen

  X 2 That is really freaky

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## phild01

Wouldn't believe it unless I saw it :No:

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## commodorenut

The first pic METRIX posted - look at the rows & rows of detached garages, backing onto laneways.  
It's like inner-city Terrace houses, or the tiny blocks in Marrickville or other places within 5-8km of the city.  
But the problem - these houses in the pic are some 40+km from Sydney's CBD.  
Absolute ludicracy to have such high dwelling to land density ratios that far out, as it simply clogs up the roads and poor public transport networks.   
The roads in that region couldn't cope 10 years ago, and new dwellings in that region are going up at the rate of some 3000 per year.
All of those people need to get to work/school etc - and there's ZERO work that they can get to quickly - even the closest employment hub - Norwest, is a good 1/2 hour traffic jam each way for the commute. 
When the rail link opens, I'm tipping it will already be at capacity, and all they'll do is shift the problems to other parts.  If there was an employment hub like Norwest further out - say near Richmond, then you could justify apartments close by, then these rows of sardines 2-3km out, and then larger blocks on the outskirts.  It would make sense.  But there's nothing in sardine city that you can get to without needing a car, and each household has more than one - where do they park?  I'll come to that in a sec.  
This is simply greed from developers, and governments poor planning & decision making that simply aids that developer profit making machine, by allowing them to carve up more & more land into tiny plots, under the guise of "affordable" housing, yet people are still paying through the nose for it - with the benefit going into the developer's pockets.  None of those postage stamps are under $200K, and you're looking at a minimum of $450K to get into one - and you're paying that to live on top of your neighbours.  You can't even park a car on the street in those estates without causing traffic chaos.   
In one of those sardine streets, the gap between opposing garages is just 7 metres.  Yes, that's narrower than some carpark row spacings.  The road itself is 5.5m, and each garage has a 750mm pad of concrete between the street and the door.  So you'd think it's pretty tight to swing these modern day suburban assault vehicles (SUVs) in & out of them right?  Nope, they just park on the street sideways, against the garage door, making it near impossible for neigbours to get in & out of their garage. 
Council have had to install "No Stopping" signs up & down there, and police it with council rangers issuing fines.  Here's an interesting read - page 7 of the council meeting notes, complete with a photo of how they park: http://www.thehills.nsw.gov.au/files/sharedassets/public/ecm-website-documents/meeting-local-traffic-committee/11112014-traffic/agenda-11112014-traffic/council_meeting_11_november_2014.pdf 
And remember this is some 40+ km to the north west of Sydney's CBD.  It's absolutely disgusting that greed has got to this level.

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## Watters

> Absolute ludicracy to have such high dwelling to land density ratios that far out, as it simply clogs up the roads and poor public transport networks.

  The quality of life on these developments will be awful. A lot of them have no mixed use at all, just houses and then you have to go to a shopping mall somewhere to do your shopping (Erina Fair on the Central Coast NSW comes to mind), find a library etc. This type of development doesn't promote any community attitudes at all. Also, a lot of them don't have paths on the verges these days either so you have to walk on the road. 
Kinross and Sorrento in WA are similar to METRIX's NSW photos, house after house after house and not much else. Looks like it is happening everywhere. 
With developments like the Claremont on the Park example and Subiaco, Jolimont, Minim Cove etc, WA (via LandCorp) have started to make a concerted effort to maximise mixed use (so not just houses but also shops, offices etc) and to have new houses architected (so every house looks different) and to plant plenty of greenery etc. LandCorp (and the WA State government) have finally realised (but only in recent years) that housing only developments have problems.  LandCorp - Residential - Minim Cove 
 Following photo is of Subiaco:

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## ringtail

We are indeed a pathetic species

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## PlatypusGardens

Yeh, housing only...seen a lot of that up here when the mining boom was on.
Not enough land around town to build on...  
So they built a bunch of houses out here     
And sold it as "rural living" or some BS  :Rofl5: 
The only "rural" thing about it was you're surrounded by sugar cane and there's no shops. 
Other than that you could be anywhere.....streets and streets with houses that all look the same    
Later they built the shopping centre as seen top left in that pic.   :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## METRIX

Here is some of the new Oran Park developments, it was talked about travel times, to get from Oran Park to Maquarie Park which is Silicon Valley equivalent and where a lot of people work and live is 69km and is 59min travel with nobody on the road, or 2hr33 by public transport the M7 and M2 gets so busy you need to add 40 min extra to that drive at 7:00am because the traffic comes to a standstill going towards pennant hills road EVERY DAY. 
I have done a few jobs in the opposite direction and have driven past cars banked up bumper to bumper for kilometers in the morning. 
Below is a huge blocs all of 481sqm out oran park and it cost $445K, same sized blocks with houses on them selling for 800K - 900K !!! 
Below that is kellyville, I have never seen a row of houses with no garages out front, they have a lane out back for the garage, and you would really wan to know which one is yours as they all look the same, this is the true sense of cookie cutter houses .

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## phild01

For me, the very obvious evidence of corrupt government in action.

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## phild01

> Here is some of the new Oran Park developments, it was talked about travel times, to get from Oran Park to Maquarie Park which is Silicon Valley equivalent and where a lot of people work and live is 69km and is 59min travel with nobody on the road, or 2hr33 by public transport the M7 and M2 gets so busy you need to add 40 min extra to that drive at 7:00am because the traffic comes to a standstill going towards pennant hills road EVERY DAY.

  I never understood why the M7 was ever routed like that, just a great time and fuel waster!

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## PlatypusGardens

> Kinross and Sorrento in WA are similar to METRIX's NSW photos, house after house after house and not much else. Looks like it is happening everywhere.

  We lived in Sorrento and Hillarys many moons ago.
While it is very built up, it didn't have that "crammed" feel to it....guess the hills and curved streets made it feel a bit different.
Also it's close to the ocean and the houses have a bit more character. 
That said, in Hillarys we lived across from a school/park and our backyard was terraced so the upper ground level was above roof height of the house behind which made it feel more spacious.   :Smilie:

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## pharmaboy2

Downside of a city of 4 million and growing.  Especially when the Australian "dream" does not include a unit only their own piece of land, preferably with a 40 square mansion on it. 
dont blame the developers, blame the sheeple. 
i have to say though, the number of regulations and requirements is significantly increasing the cost of building these days - the response to that has been more and more project homes with a character more at home in the 1950's than a modern Australia, just bigger with less land.

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## toooldforthis

and here I was thinking you guys had been discussing YT all this time. 
you guys have probably covered all the culprits: greedy developers; corrupt govt/planning; the reasons behind the growth in debt finance; lemmings. 
I have found WA particularly prone to the lemming theory, not to say they have less of the other issues at all. 
my last place was in a suburb called Coolbinia, just a few kms from the CBD, and when developed in the 50's convenants were imposed saying blocks could not be subdivided - the developers have been knocking themselves out ever since to get the convenants overturned, been to court several times only for resident based action groups to rally and win. 
 my current reno is on 5300m2 and backs onto national park as well
15mins from both domestic & international airports, 35mins to CBD off peak  :Smilie:  
how come the blocks are big? no sewer, too rocky. 
hmmm, won't let me upload photos  :Frown: 
edit: got one photo up later on. still issues tho.

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## pharmaboy2

Just on the comments of "greedy developers" as an insult. 
developers are no more 'greedy' than the average person on this site.  People are constantly looking to get something as cheap as they can, charge whatever the market will bear for their skills, cash jobs are rife and openly discussed, and pretty much all of us have a house and things well beyond our needs. 
however, the term 'greed' is often attached to anyone who is perceived to be doing better than ourselves eg, put lawyers, doctors, banks, insurance companies, multinationals, developers on the end and instantly it doesn't apply to you. 
Greed applies to you as well. 
perhaps the better term is jealousy?

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## toooldforthis

greed applies where people manipulate/rort the system.
plenty of examples of "timely" rezoning, backhanders to planners. 
completely different to maximising your returns legally & ethically. 
tho I am sure there are plenty of Obeids around who wouldn't agree with me. âThe most serious corruptionâ | News.com.au

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## Uncle Bob

> â€˜The most serious corruptionâ€™ | News.com.au

  That has been uncovered so far  :Smilie:

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## pharmaboy2

> greed applies where people manipulate/rort the system.
> plenty of examples of "timely" rezoning, backhanders to planners. 
> completely different to maximising your returns legally & ethically. 
> tho I am sure there are plenty of Obeids around who wouldn't agree with me. â€˜The most serious corruptionâ€™ | News.com.au

  That's corruption - the 2 are not the same

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## phild01

Seems to me the greed of a developer is what corrupts government!  Why are councils allowed the taint of real estate agents as councillors!

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## pharmaboy2

Long tradition in councils of party wannabes and developer types taking on the job - only need a few thousand votes. 
lets hope the auburn deputy mayor gets an Obeid kind of outcome as an example to all.  
However, it's a false argument to blame developers for prices or design, they will simply build what the market desires and the regulations allow them to build that maximises profit.  Any developers operating much outside of that paradigm is destined to fail. 
state govt ultimately has the control over what goes where and how close together, then it's up to mums and dads who buy with fear of rising markets to choose - and they choose little boxes all the same for comfort. 
the example in my local paper is any avant garde architectural building is Almost universally bemoaned by the populace as boxy, ugly, like a warehouse etc - but they love the federation house down the road.  They don't understand the irony that the federation house in 1900 was a modern building of its time. 
the mirror is the place to look for figuring out why these places are built

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## phild01

I don't understand how any right minded person could arbitrate, the proximity of the houses shown above, as good decision making.  If you want ghettos and high stress living, then that's the sort of decision you would make. 
Mirror?  people have little choice when that sort of control is levelled at them.  It is greed and corruption.

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## PlatypusGardens

> I don't understand how any right minded person could arbitrate, the proximity of the houses shown above, as good decision making

  Might as well just make the whole street terraced housing....

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## phild01

> Might as well just make the whole street terraced housing....

  That's what I was thinking, and then I remember seeing terrace housing in the innercity as a kid, and how depressing it felt.

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## pharmaboy2

the less land housing takes up, the more compact the city can be, the less travel distance to work, the easier and better public transport becomes. 
keeping with the English picture above. 
sydney is 12,000 square kilometres for a population of 4m
greater London  is 8000 square kilometres with a population of 13m people 
thats why it takes 90minutes in the morning to get from home to work, and also why public transport is so crap compared to other cities

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## commodorenut

> Below is a huge blocs all of 481sqm out oran park and it cost $445K, same sized blocks with houses on them selling for 800K - 900K !!! 
> Below that is kellyville, I have never seen a row of houses with no garages out front, they have a lane out back for the garage, and you would really wan to know which one is yours as they all look the same, this is the true sense of cookie cutter houses .

  Those are similar to the ones highlighted in the council minutes pdf I posted above - where they had to install no parking signs to stop the morons. 
Found out today a guy from work has just put down $550K for a 360m block around the corner from that sardine city.  
They're calling it "big blocks" - the land isn't even registered yet, and he said the last land he missed out on went up $100K/block once it was registered. 
By the time they build, it's going to be $900K for a 4 bedroom family home.  Far from affordable, and a 45 minute car commute to travel 11km based on another colleague who lives a little further out.  It's quicker for him to ride a pushbike.  That whole region can only feed out onto a couple of roads, and throw in a wet morning like yesterday, and it becomes gridlocked.     

> I never understood why the M7 was ever routed like that, just a great time and fuel waster!

  Having done the trip many times, it's far more fuel efficient than the Cumberland highway if you want to go from anywhere south of Casula to north of Kings Park. 
It's all part of a greater roads network that was envisaged way back in the 1950s, when a lot of it was put aside as future transport corridors.  Corrupt governments have managed to sell some of those parcels of land, or land backing right up to proposed motorways real cheap to their mates, then successfully lobby the road to become a tunnel, or be re-routed, and then all of a sudden it's instant windfall time - just on a smaller scale than Obeid, but still over 6 figure profits. 
The M7 had parts already put aside for it back then, and more was earmarked in the late 80s, before the designs were worked on in earnest in the early-mid 1990s.
I was lucky enough to see all of the variations long before it became rubber-stamped.  It is all part of a network that includes a larger M9 ring road, which was proposed in the '80s during the Wilton/Badgerys Creek showdown, and was supposed to link to the F3 (or M1 as they call it now) but the government listened to the bleeding hearts who all knew that was proposed decades ago, but still bought cheap real estate along that corridor, and managed to have their way - at the expense of taxpayers, who now have to pay a lot more to put it underground. 
M5 East was a similar scenario.  Proposed above-ground motorway, stopped by protestors & various (buzzword of the era) EIS reports - some of which totally contradicted each other.  It's like people who buy a house under the flight path then complain about the noise, expecting compensation....    

> Seems to me the greed of a developer is what  corrupts government!  Why are councils allowed the taint of real estate  agents as councillors!

  Plenty of examples of that with real estate all over Sydney - particularly land that's put aside for a purpose, and then sold off down the track (big chunks along the M4 corridor out west).   When the F5/Hume freeway was being built to bypass Leppington, Narellan, Camden etc, a proposed route was just west of Camden Valley way.  In the mid-late 70s when this was going on, the design & acquisition teams were told to abandon those plans, as the floodplain to the north west of Narellan was unsuitable to be built on, and nothing would ever be built there.  This re-routed the F5 it to where it is today, just west of the main southern railway line running through the Macarthur region - on much higher ground - and required some expensive additional cutting & bridge work at areas like Kenny Hill & Bardia barracks (now sold for housing).  Couple of decades later, and that flood plain is now a thriving suburb - Harrington Park.... 
And R/E will do anything to make a sale - often using "future plans" to paint a rosy picture.   I remember a guy I worked with in the 1990s buying land that backed onto Cowpasture Road.  Selling agent told him once the M7 opened it would become a quiet suburban street, and he'd be 25 metres away from the road.  I burst his bubble by mentioning the plans I'd seen for the duplication work - which would put the new southbound lanes mere metres from his back fence.  He was not happy.  I do believe a BMW was maliciously damaged over that, but they couldn't prove it.....

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## METRIX

My mate paid nearly 1M for a 2 bed 1 car apartment in a new complex going up in maquarie park, with a view of the next building being built !!! Everyone's gone mad.

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## SilentButDeadly

The real question is...why would you choose to live in a city? I struggle with a 'significant regional centre' as it is...you city living lot are mad.

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## phild01

> The real question is...why would you choose to live in a city? I struggle with a 'significant regional centre' as it is...you city living lot are mad.

   People have jobs, family, friends and medical needs that keep them in the city. 
I'm okay where I am, and reading through this makes me wonder why my house would not be worth twice what those houses go for.  But crossing the suburbs, I need a de-stressing day or two, and you are right, regional would be preferable.

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## SilentButDeadly

> People have jobs, family, friends and medical needs that keep them in the city. 
> I'm okay where I am, and reading through this makes me wonder why my house would not be worth twice what those houses go for.  But crossing the suburbs, I need a de-stressing day or two, and you are right, regional would be preferable.

  They think they have jobs, family, friends and medical needs...but I have them too. And I live a thousand kilometres away from them. And yet my quality of life suffers not a jot. 
What keeps people living in cities like that is not greed or corruption...it's fear. And where there is fear there is profit. For someone else.

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## phild01

Okay, city dwellers all move regionally.  How does the country keep afloat when operations need centralising.  Regional areas aren't exactly flush with job opportunities!

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## Whitey66

On the OPs first photo it appears that the 2 houses roofs below plot 60 are overlapping. The purple looking roof seems to be hanging over the boundary fence.

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## phild01

Probably in such a rush pumping them out, they got the boundary layout wrong! 
I was listening briefly to the radio tonight and someone interviewed said it costs as much for a house today as it does to buy land (already mentioned).  Back in '85, the story was the same, though the typical house was smaller and the land size was bigger. 
Still hurts my eyes looking at those images.

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## PlatypusGardens

A lot of people like city living.
Not for me thanks....

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## jimfish

> A lot of people like city living.
> Not for me thanks....

  Couldn't agree more.
1st house was on 3/4 of an acre, 2nd was 2  1/2 acres with only 1 neighbor and now 4 acres with the nearest neighbor 600 m away.
It would destroy me if I had to move back to suburbia.

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## paddyjoy

The site coverage is pretty high on some of those houses, wonder how they passed planning. 
Lots of houses down that way but no jobs  How Sydney's planners are using the 'Latte Line' to try and reshape the city

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## ringtail

> Couldn't agree more.
> 1st house was on 3/4 of an acre, 2nd was 2  1/2 acres with only 1 neighbor and now 4 acres with the nearest neighbor 600 m away.
> It would destroy me if I had to move back to suburbia.

  looking forward to living full time at the farm. 113 acres nearest neighbour 2 km away. It's a long way off though. Need to build a house out there first. Maybe by then rent for our Brissy house will be over $1.5 per week and climbing.

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## Bros

Even on big blocks it is the type of house being built. They are being built from almost boundary to boundary in some cases on 600 sqm blocks. My son is still house hunting and one of the main criteria is a shed and vehicle access to it and this has proved somewhat elusive. Our house when I built it has vehicle access down each side but is 5M from the back fence. It even has those peculiar things you don't see on houses now days "eves"

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## toooldforthis

> Even on big blocks it is the type of house being built. They are being built from almost boundary to boundary in some cases on 600 sqm blocks. My son is still house hunting and one of the main criteria is a shed and vehicle access to it and this has proved somewhat elusive. Our house when I built it has vehicle access down each side but is 5M from the back fence. It even has those peculiar things you don't see on houses now days "eves"

  have to agree with that.
tho I prefer eaves to eves - 25% bigger  :Smilie:  
this 2 part doco on ABC recently covered to infill/sprawl house design issues a bit: Streets Of Your Town : ABC TV  

> By the '80s Australia began turning its back on Modernism. And by the time 'Kath & Kim' hit our screens we were building the largest homes in the world, but Tim Ross believes there's a Modernist revival in the air.

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## Watters

> Regional areas aren't exactly flush with job opportunities!

  True (except for tradies who seem to do okay) but that's what helps keeps regional house prices down, and that's not a bad thing e.g. for retirees etc. 
In London they decentralised many government departments to regional areas. Barnaby Joyce just might have accidentally kicked that off in Australia with the relocation of the Pesticide Agency to his electorate...Unlikely to be a trend here though, everybody seems to like everything being centralised in Oz. 
For around $200K to $250K in Mudgee you can get a nice two bedroom house: https://www.domain.com.au/sale/mudge...sort=price-asc 
If you are a knowledge worker employee and have an understanding employer you can work from home anywhere these days. For example, I know of a journalist who writes for Sydney publications but lives in Tweed Heads. He must have a smile on his dial everyday he gets up for work... Today you would have to pay $500K for a house in Tweed Heads but a nice apartment can be had for $350K. 
Sydney has gone totally nuts. I had a brand new apartment off the plan in Jannali Sydney in 2000 which I bought for $210K and the mortgage on that didn't feel much different to the amount I had paid previously in rent. I can't imagine how people today manage to pay off a $1 million mortgage, have kids, ubeaut 4 wheel drive etc, maxed out on debt, and have a quality life, especially in those sardine houses. The US has just recently raised interest rates. If that happens here, which is possible one day, there will be a lot of people in real pain and trouble.

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## commodorenut

> ...I can't imagine how people today manage to pay off a $1 million mortgage, have kids, ubeaut 4 wheel drive etc, maxed out on debt, and have a quality life, especially in those sardine houses.

   It was happening 20 years ago in the urban sprawl as first home-buyers had to have the double-story McMansion, a financed new 4WD, and all the trimmings, all on credit.  They had no idea of living within their means.  I see the same thing now when it comes to wanting it all in a first house.  Go 15 minutes south of sardine city, and land is $200K less, but people want to live in certain areas, and will over-commit to do so. 
I remember my father going to one McMansion place in a suburb full of first home buyers in the late 90s to replace a fridge thermostat under warranty, only to find it was caused by negligence & human interference, and thus not covered.  Bill was $120.  They asked if they could pay it off at $60/week over the following 2 weeks as they couldn't afford it.  Husband was out the front admiring his new boat - bought on credit, like everything else in the place.

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## METRIX

> The real question is...why would you choose to live in a city? I struggle with a 'significant regional centre' as it is...you city living lot are mad.

  People like cities, they like the night life, the variety of things to do and see, cities offer people the opportunity to pursue a career in whatever they want.
Cities offer a wide variety of schooling or university options, they offer long term employment, cities especially like Sydney and Melbourne offer a massive multicultural plethora of restaurants and shopping, Cities offer plenty of parks, beaches, bush. 
I'm lucky, I live in a house on 1000sqm surrounded by bush, I can hardly see my neighbors houses for the trees yet I'm only 20Km to the Harbour bridge, 6 min drive to the train, 2 min drive to a private hospital, and 14 min to a public one. 
I have bush walking tracks at the end of the street, or 10 min drive to one that's part of the Great Northern Track, 5 min to the supermarket, 15min to a major Westfield  (if you like those things), In 10 min I can be on the freeway going north, or 20 min I can be on the motorway going west,  
I will say, I wouldn't want to live in one of those shoe-boxes as shown above, and have to travel for over an hour at nearly 100KPH to get to the CBD, THAT is what I don't understand.
It all comes down to Australians want their own little piece of land, and if they can't afford it close to the city they have to move further out. 
I have friends that moved out Oran Park way in a massive McMansion, used to see them a lot when they lived about 25Ks away, now never see them since they have moved to the "new world" out there, they have easy access to a school, supermarket and a park, and that's about it, everything else is now so far away they just do things withing a 5k radius of where they live, quite sad when you think about it. 
Personally I like living in the city, I like the convenience of having access to whatever I want within a short drive, saying that I would love to have a place up north on a few acres to be able to get away away from it all at times. 
The downside of cities is the traffic, pollution, congestion, expensive,  noisy, crazy people everywhere but that's what makes a city  interesting.
Although looking at the prices of some of the private schooling, you would need a 2nd mortgage to pay for it.  http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ch...-sydney-2015-6

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## toooldforthis

> ...s nip .... 
> In London they decentralised many government departments to regional areas. Barnaby Joyce just might have accidentally kicked that off in Australia with the relocation of the Pesticide Agency to his electorate...Unlikely to be a trend here though, everybody seems to like everything being centralised in Oz.... snip ....

  Gough Whitlam tried to kick that off, iirc Albury/Wodonga got started that way. 
When I become Prime Minister I am going to double the number of States (and capital cities) which will improve competition, especially when I allow them to raise their own income tax (and lower the Fed tax) so they can vary the rate at their own discretion to attract people. qed.

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## SilentButDeadly

> People like cities, they like the night life, the variety of things to do and see, cities offer people the opportunity to pursue a career in whatever they want.
> Cities offer a wide variety of schooling or university options, they offer long term employment, cities especially like Sydney and Melbourne offer a massive multicultural plethora of restaurants and shopping, Cities offer plenty of parks, beaches, bush. 
> I'm lucky, I live in a house on 1000sqm surrounded by bush, I can hardly see my neighbors houses for the trees yet I'm only 20Km to the Harbour bridge, 6 min drive to the train, 2 min drive to a private hospital, and 14 min to a public one. 
> I have bush walking tracks at the end of the street, or 10 min drive to one that's part of the Great Northern Track, 5 min to the supermarket, 15min to a major Westfield  (if you like those things), In 10 min I can be on the freeway going north, or 20 min I can be on the motorway going west,  
> I will say, I wouldn't want to live in one of those shoe-boxes as shown above, and have to travel for over an hour at nearly 100KPH to get to the CBD, THAT is what I don't understand.
> It all comes down to Australians want their own little piece of land, and if they can't afford it close to the city they have to move further out. 
> I have friends that moved out Oran Park way in a massive McMansion, used to see them a lot when they lived about 25Ks away, now never see them since they have moved to the "new world" out there, they have easy access to a school, supermarket and a park, and that's about it, everything else is now so far away they just do things withing a 5k radius of where they live, quite sad when you think about it. 
> Personally I like living in the city, I like the convenience of having access to whatever I want within a short drive, saying that I would love to have a place up north on a few acres to be able to get away away from it all at times. 
> The downside of cities is the traffic, pollution, congestion, expensive,  noisy, crazy people everywhere but that's what makes a city  interesting.
> Although looking at the prices of some of the private schooling, you would need a 2nd mortgage to pay for it.  http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ch...-sydney-2015-6

  Yeah...they say they do.  
But they rarely take full advantage of what they have to offer and they frequently point out how dissatisfied they are with aspects of life there. 
I remember living on Danger Island in the Hawkesbury. I loved it. But in the 2 years I was there...I went fishing twice, sat on the beach once, went to the bowling club once etc etc.  Mostly I wasn't there during the week and increasingly was absent on weekends. Moral of the story is I was where I thought I wanted to be...but it wasn't where I really wanted to be. 
Fear of change keeps people cuddling up to their neighbours and clustering up in there millions. It's not the services they yearn for... it's the companionship of the commons. And it happens in the country too. 
It's what makes these jammed together boxes of horror actually saleable...

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## Bros

> Fear of change keeps people cuddling up to their neighbours and clustering up in there millions. It's not the services they yearn for... it's the companionship of the commons. And it happens in the country too. 
> It's what makes these jammed together boxes of horror actually saleable...

  If it is the friendless of neighbours I would doubt that as I suspect most of them don't know who their neighbor is and have high solid fences between them. 
I believe this type of living works in a retirement village in smaller houses where the maximum number of occupants is 2, not working and not in debt.

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## SilentButDeadly

> If it is the friendless of neighbours I would doubt that as I suspect most of them don't know who their neighbor is and have high solid fences between them. 
> I believe this type of living works in a retirement village in smaller houses where the maximum number of occupants is 2, not working and not in debt.

  They don't have to be your friend. You just have to know they are there...that's the psychology of it. 
I know someone in a geriatric repository...sorry, retirement village. No fences. Close living. Still private though mostly due to vegetation. She doesn't really know her immeadiate neighbours but has many mates there. Her place is paradise compared to the boxes of excrement shown previously...should be a lesson to her juniors.

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## Bros

> I know someone in a geriatric repository...sorry, retirement village.

  You could be in one one day. There are a few people I have worked with are in them and they think it is great. When I have to mow the yard in summer I think of them never having to mow.

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## SilentButDeadly

> You could be in one one day. There are a few people I have worked with are in them and they think it is great. When I have to mow the yard in summer I think of them never having to mow.

  Highly unlikely. The price of entry is out of my reach. Meals on wheels, a goat and the indifferent support of my community is the best I can hope for...

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## PlatypusGardens

I'm gonna miss the convenience of Mackay when we move.
It's got everything (part from Aldi) you need and all within 5-10 minutes.

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## Watters

> I'm gonna miss the convenience of Mackay when we move.

  Rockhampton or Townsville? Heard they are wonderful places....

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## PlatypusGardens

> Rockhampton or Townsville? Heard they are wonderful places....

   No thanks

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## ringtail

x 2 indeed. Brownsville, shudder

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## PlatypusGardens

Moving south to hang out with ringtail, sol, jimj and whoever else is in the area. 
cyclic?    :Smilie:

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## ringtail

Good lad  :Wink:

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## Bros

I'll wave to you on the way past.

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## Watters

> No thanks

  Thought that would get a reaction, sniggers.... 
Cairns is great though, love that lagoon and Kuranda. Does come with big heat in summer though and Mareeba is a strange place...
Sunshine coast is pretty awesome as well, unless that is, it too has seen rampant excessive development in recent years as well?

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## PlatypusGardens

> Sunshine coast is pretty awesome, unless that has also become a developers haven in recent years as well.

  
Yes it's pretty busy, but we're not looking at living ON the coast....
More inland a bit, probably west of the highway.   :Smilie:

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## ringtail

Sunny coast is ruined now. Noosa and Coolum are pretty feral and not a patch on what they were just 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. Inland is the go PG. Escape the madness

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## toooldforthis

> Thought that would get a reaction, sniggers.... 
> Cairns is great though, love that lagoon and Kuranda. Does come with big heat in summer though and Mareeba is a strange place...
> Sunshine coast is pretty awesome as well, unless that is, it too has seen rampant excessive development in recent years as well?

  spent 6 months up that way once.
spent 3 of them working the tobacco farms around Mareeba.
interesting "culture" back then in them there parts.

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