Trends in Urban Planning

As a property investor I always like to keep an eye on what the urban planners are up to. Love or loath them they do affect the value of my properties so in my opinion its worth keeping an eye on new developments (bad pun intended).

At a recent conference of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, WA branch Deon White had some interesting comments in his opening address :

As we look at the 10 to 15-year trends in population growth - economic activity and affordability, technology, health, energy costs and climate change - the shape of our cities is inevitably going to evolve at a rate perhaps not seen since the mass production of cars after World War II. Physically we think it is inevitable that cities will become more compact and green

Typical Sydney Terraced Housing

The word of the day is "Liveablitiy" which simply means that people look at the neighbourhood and city as well as the actual house when making their housing purchase! So it you were going to buy a property for investment in Australia what are the key things to look for? Well I'll tell you what I would look for:

• sustained population growth based on either lifestyle reasons, or better, fundamental job creation: top spots: Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth;
• suburbs which have good public transport infrastructure: preferably a rail line or a planned rail corridor. This is key for properties designed for middle /low income renters because of the cost of commuting can make some otherwise desirable outer-suburbs too expensive;
• suburbs with a heart: a village, a beach, a green space, at least some shops! People like to live in a community and a community tends to have fewer social problems then a suburb which consists solely of miles and miles of standalone homes and streets people only ever drive done.
• well-insulated houses with solar heating are not only "green" they are economic for the tenants. Most of Australia (outside of the south-east) you need to run air-con for months over summer, a well insulated house with shade on the NW side makes this a great deal cheaper.
• climate change: is huge in some agriculture areas. Well it probably isn't climate change more water mismanagement but the bottom line is that the vast majority of the Murray-Darling basin, which extends from Queensland to Victoria, is probably never going to support the agriculture it used to. This in turn is going to kill some communities: probably best not to buy there - though there will be some bargains for sure.

Knowing a city well enough to understand a suburb's advantages/disadvantages is really essential before you start thinking about buying property there.

Photo credit: Broken Piggy